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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Georgia Historical Society Hosts NEH Summer Institute
Savannah, Ga., June 4, 2013 - From June 9 – 23, the Georgia Historical Society (GHS) will present a summer workshop for college and university professors exploring two centuries of African-American life and culture in Savannah and Georgia's coastal islands. Through scholarly lectures, site visits, community presentations and guided tours, the twenty-five participants will examine the centrality of place in the African-American experience in Georgia’s Lowcountry and the larger Atlantic world.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring these professors together to explore the history of the Gullah-Geechee culture,” said Dr. Stan Deaton, Senior Historian at GHS and Program Director for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute. “We are bringing together experts in the field as well as the descendants and keepers of the Gullah-Geechee traditions to open up this era of history in a very dynamic way. Our goal is to give educators the tools necessary to facilitate discussions in their own classrooms about race in American society and the ways in which memory, place, and history come together to create identity.”
The two-week workshop, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and selected as an NEH Summer Institute for 2013, will address broad themes of race and slavery in American history by focusing on site-specific experiences of communities in and around Savannah from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. NEH Summer Scholars will be introduced to early American and nineteenth-century economies as well as art, music, and the unique cultures that developed in the Georgia Lowcountry. In addition to lectures from leading academics there will be day trips to Ossabaw and Sapelo Islands, Pin Point, and an afternoon at the location of “The Weeping Time,” Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course, where one of the largest sales of enslaved persons in U.S. history took place in 1859.
Twenty-five participants were chosen from a nation-wide field of eligible candidates. Selected participants hail from fourteen states and represent twenty-four U.S. colleges and universities.
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Because democracy demands wisdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities serves and strengthens our Republic by promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
SAVANNAH: 501 Whitaker St., Savannah, GA 31401
ATLANTA: 260 14th St., NW, Ste. A-148, Atlanta, GA 30318
Georgia Historical Society (GHS) is the premier independent statewide institution responsible for collecting, examining and teaching Georgia history. GHS houses the oldest and most distinguished collection of materials related exclusively to Georgia history in the nation.