Institutes
"Hurston on the Horizon"
NEH Summer Institute (2021)
In light of the ongoing need to reexamine canonical African American writers within the changing contexts of culture, community, and knowledge production, HBW held a three-week virtual Institute for 25 Higher Education faculty July 11-30, 2021 through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous formats. "Hurston on the Horizon: Past, Present and Future" provided an in-depth multidisciplinary reassessment of the works of Zora Neale Hurston, as well as her impact on contemporary practices and central themes within academic and public discourse. Within the Institute’s survey of Hurston’s corpus, NEH Summer Scholars identified significant shifts in critics’ engagement with Hurston, established connections between her and the aesthetics of contemporary writers, and created resources for reinvigorating the study of her entire body of work for humanities courses.
Learn more about the "Hurston on the Horizon" NEH Summer Institute
BFSU-KU English Institutes
(2016 and 2017)
Two groups of scholars from Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) spent 11 days in July 2016 and 2017, respectively, at the University of Kansas, hosted by HBW. One of their professors and KU alum, Frank Cai, brought the BFSU graduate students to his alma mater in order to allow them to experience American society and culture. The scholars, who came from a variety of academic disciplines, from Economics to Arabic Studies, were given the opportunity to learn more about U.S. race and ethnic relations, politics, education, business, and sports.
"Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement"
NEH Summer Institute (2015)
"Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement" was a fifteen-month program, running from 2014-2015, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that responded to the resurgence of interest in contemporary poetry, its expanded production, and wide circulation. "Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement" continues the work that was undertaken by Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry during 2013-2014 by giving more focused attention to a reassessment of African American poetry during the last fifty years, from 1960 to the present. Special attention was paid to the divergent and yet cross-fertilizing trajectories of Black poetry since the 1980s, which produced both the sharp and vocal critiques of spoken word poetry and the refined academic poetry that garners so much critical attention from the literary establishment.
Learn more about the "Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement" NEH Summer Institute
"Don't Deny My Voice"
NEH Summer Institute (2013)
"Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry" was a three-week summer institute for college and university teachers, as well as graduate students, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Running from 2013-2014, "Don't Deny My Voice" responded to the resurgence of interest in contemporary poetry, its expanded production, and wide circulation. We focused on the history, changes, and modal transformations of African American poetry in our cultural and social landscape, and considered three critical periods: 1900-1960, 1960-80 and 1980-present.
"Making the Wright Connection"
NEH Summer Institute (2010)
"Making the Wright Connection" was a fifteen-month program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities that explored Richard Wright and his influence on the American idiom. Beginning in 2010, the program included a two-week summer institute for high school teachers held from July 11-24, 2010 at the University of Kansas, and subsequent virtual seminars using technology to foster collaboration among participants.
Learn more about the "Making the Wright Connection" NEH Summer Institute
Language Matters: Reading and Teaching Toni Morrison (2004, 2005, 2010)
Language Matters is a national educational and service initiative of the Toni Morrison Society. Established in 2001, it is designed to provide opportunities for interactive dialogue among school teachers and between teachers and scholars, and to create appropriate instructional materials for those teaching imaginative literature, especially the novels of Toni Morrison in secondary school classrooms. Language Matters, coordinated by the Project on the History of Black Writing at the University of Kansas, is a three-time NEH grant recipient.