A new interactive online exhibit from the California Council for the Humanities (CCH)—"We Are California"—will explore the history and stories of those who have immigrated or migrated to California. A new partnership between the Council and the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP) will help to bring this exciting resource to the classroom. The topic of these workshops will be "The Era of Great Internal Migrations to California" between World War I and World War II. It will discuss, contrast, and analyze the experiences of Dust Bowl migrants to California, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans.
This workshop will examine the questions "What do recollections of formerly enslaved people, gathered by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, tell us about slavery in America?," "What interpretative challenges do the WPA slave narratives pose?," and "How can the WPA slave narratives be used with students?"
The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.
This workshop examines the questions "How was African-American community constructed during this period?," "Under what circumstances was it created?," and 'How did evolving concepts of community affect and reflect notions of African-American identity?"
The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.
To mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to examine its global impact, the Harvard Law School/Facing History and Ourselves program will convene international scholars from education, law, and human rights, as well as students, teachers, and community leaders, to consider Hope, Critique, and Possibility: Universal Rights in Societies of Difference. The conference is being held on November 20, 2008 in partnership with the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies. Through thoughtfully-facilitated panel discussions, exchanges with the audience, and individual reflections, this day-long conference will examine the influence that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds today, and identify some of the challenges to fulfilling its founders' intentions when it was adopted in 1948.
Using ESSEX History is pleased to welcome back Dr. Cynthia Lyerly (Boston College) to lead a discussion of the culture of Jim Crow. This seminar will provide nuance for discussions of segregation by taking educators out of the courtrooms and voting booths to examine how the Jim Crow system affected everyday life and how depictions of race in popular culture complemented and supported both legal and de facto segregation. Readings for this seminar will focus on the turn of the 20th century and will bring together a diverse amount of scholarship including: Dr. Lyerly's own work on The Clansman author Thomas Dixon, Jr.'s studies on the segregation of consumption and public spaces, and investigations into popular cultural icons such as Shirley Temple and Scarlett O'Hara. This seminar will take place at the NARA facilities in Waltham and will include screenings of portions of several films including Gone With the Wind, The Littlest Rebel, and Within Our Gates, as well as investigations into NARA's archives.The primary sources for the day reveal surprising ways in which the culture of segregation affected life here in New England.
By attending an entire seminar and preparing a quality lesson plan based on the materials and information discussed during the day, participating teachers will earn 10 PDPs and a stipend of $125.
Dr. John Barrett of St. Johns University of Law (one of the foremost Nuremberg Trials historian in the United States) will give the background and importance of the Nuremberg Trials. John Q. Barrett is a Professor of Law at St. Johns University School of Law in New York City, where he teaches constitutional law, criminal procedure, and legal history. Professor Barrett currently is working on a biography of Justice Jackson that will include the first inside account of his year (194546) away from the Supreme Court as the chief American prosecutor of the principal surviving Nazi leaders at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. He will be followed by three veterans of the First Division who were guards or military police during the trials who will share their experiences.
In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. Attendees at this event join author Rick Atkinson as he discusses his new book in the Liberation Trilogy, The Day of Battle. A book signing will follow.
Facing History is excited to present its first community event in Chattanooga featuring author and concert pianist Mona Golabek. Golabek is an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, the host of a syndicated classical music radio show, and the author of The Children of Willesden Lane, the story of her mother's rescue from Nazi-occupied Austria on a Kindertransport and her teenage years as a refugee. Through a powerful musical and narrative performance, Ms. Golabek will relate her family history and address Facing History themes of identity, participation, courage, and resilience.
This event presents a reading and discussion with Rick Hollander, editor of Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family's Correspondence from Poland. He will recount his family's poignant experiences before and during the Holocaust as revealed through letters found after his parents' deaths.
A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. Banished tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories. This event presents a screening of the film, followed by a conversation with director Marco Williams. Williams, a member of the faculty at NYU, is a documentary and fiction film director. His films have been broadcast on cable and public television, including Showtime and Frontline, and have been screened at film festivals throughout the world.