Bard Graduate Center is hosting its fourth National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute from July 3 through 28, 2017. Eighteen college and university educators will have the opportunity to explore the use of material culture, both in their research and as an instructional medium in their classrooms, using New York City as their laboratory. Professor David Jaffee who died in January 2017, originated the BGC’s Summer Institute and was instrumental in planning the 2017 program. Project Co-directors Catherine Whalen and Katherine C. (Kasey) Grier are leading this year’s Institute, entitled American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York, in accordance with his vision.

The goal of the Bard Graduate Center Summer Institute is to bring the field of material culture studies into wider use for both teaching and research in the humanities by focusing on the rich material record of the nineteenth century, using New York City as its case study. Then as now, the city was a national center for fashioning cultural commodities and promoting consumer tastes. Summer Scholars will explore these topics along with the material culture of ethnicity, race, gender, and class through field trips and exclusive sessions with curators at a range of cultural institutions and historic places.

Leading scholars and practitioners from around the country will join BGC’s interdisciplinary research community as guest faculty and conduct seminars, guide hands-on object study sessions, and direct activities promoting innovative classroom practice. It is hoped that American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York will also have a broader curricular impact, one that goes well beyond New York and can be applied by Summer Scholars to their own locales. “We anticipate that participants will be able to utilize their Institute training to broaden and deepen their practices of interpreting material culture in the context of their own work,” said Catherine Whalen.

Among Bard Graduate Center’s rich academic resources available to Summer Scholars, are the Digital Media Lab, Visual Media Resources, Study Collection, and its specialized Library for the study of decorative arts, design, and material culture. In this setting, the variety of experiential sessions led by the project directors and guest faculty will equip Summer Scholars with valuable tools for incorporating American material studies into their own pedagogy and research projects. As Katherine C. Grier noted, “We want Summer Scholars to have a wide variety of hands-on experiences using material culture, both in the classroom and during field trips. These will help them create new tools for their own teaching.”

This year’s Summer Scholars hail from a wide variety of disciplines, namely history, art history, literature, American Studies, religious studies, media studies, fashion studies, art, architecture, design, and education. Likewise, they teach at many different kinds of academic institutions, including large state universities, small colleges, and art institutes. In the spirit of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Scholars come from locations throughout the United States, ranging from Rhode Island and Florida on the east coast to Iowa and Indiana in the midwest to Idaho and California in the far west.

2017 Summer Scholars are:

Diana Anselmo, Postdoctoral Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh

Stephanie K. Bacon, Professor of Graphic Design at Boise State University and Director of the Idaho Center for the Book

Rhae Lynn Barnes, Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the University of Southern California

Ariel Beaujot, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Annette Becker, Assistant Director of the Texas Fashion Collection at the University of North Texas

Keren Ben-Horin, Instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Anne Blankenship, Assistant Professor of History, Philosophy & Religious Studies at North Dakota State University

Nancy A. Caronia, Assistant Professor of English, West Virginia University

Douglas A. Guerra, Assistant Professor of English, State University of New York/Oswego

Cheryl Hicks, Associate Professor of History at University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Heidi Kolk, Associate Director of American Culture Studies at Washington University

Amy Montz, Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana

Jacqueline O’Connor, Professor of English at Boise State University

Melissa Otis, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Arts and Culture, and History at Carleton University

Nora Rabins, Visiting Lecturer of Studio Art at Providence College

Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Assistant Professor of Apparel, Merchandising & Design at Iowa State University

Michelle Sammons, Instructor in Art History at the Cleveland Institute of Art

Jose R. Vazquez, Professor, School of Architecture at Miami Dade College

About the National Endowment for the Humanities:

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.