A National Endowment for the Humanities
Summer Institute for College & University Teachers

Timothy M. Frye, Principal Investigator
Robert H. Davis and Edward Kasinec, Co-Directors

Columbia University in the City of New York
June 9-29, 2013

NOTE: The application period for the Institute is now CLOSED.  Accepted Summer Scholars will be sent official notifications in early April.

The Harriman Institute is pleased to announce the receipt of a prestigious NEH Summer Institute grant for June 2013.  Co-Directed by Harriman Research Scholar Edward Kasinec and the Columbia University Libraries’ Robert Davis, and with the leadership of Harriman Director Timothy M. Frye, the Institute will consider the substance of the terms “diaspora,”  “transnational,” “accommodation,” and “memory” through the specific prism of the four distinct waves—First (1917-40), Second (1947-55), Third (1967-89), and Fourth (1989 to the present)— of Russian-speaking immigrants to America.

One of the core issues addressed is whether we can create a sophisticated narrative synthesis of the “Russophone Experience” in America, that could be integrated into broader courses on American politics and immigration, sociology, anthropology, and ethnic studies.   More than this, can this synthesis be applied to the experience of other immigrant groups?

Twenty-five Summer Scholars–current faculty members at U.S. institutions, independent scholars, curators, and up to three advanced graduate students–will come together at the Institute.

Over a three-week period, this select group will engage in a lively dialogue with an extraordinary array of upwards of fifty master teachers, scholars, and social services and community representatives of the last three waves of emigration (and with the children of the first).

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