From the James Madison's Montpelier workshop:

"James Madison's life encompassed the development, establishment, and maintenance of a new constitutional enterprise. His career was dedicated to establishing the new nation and its constitutional system, and in the process he made the transition from founder to citizen—that is, from the outside to the inside of the political system, from regime-making power to institutionalized governmental authority.

"Explore James Madison's role in the invention of fundamentally new concepts of a constitution, a bill of rights, and citizenship—and explore Montpelier, his lifelong home and plantation in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

From the James Madison's Montpelier workshop:

"James Madison's life encompassed the development, establishment, and maintenance of a new constitutional enterprise. His career was dedicated to establishing the new nation and its constitutional system, and in the process he made the transition from founder to citizen—that is, from the outside to the inside of the political system, from regime-making power to institutionalized governmental authority.

"Explore James Madison's role in the invention of fundamentally new concepts of a constitution, a bill of rights, and citizenship—and explore Montpelier, his lifelong home and plantation in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

From the Mercer University:

"The southern studies faculty of Mercer University will host an NEH institute for high school teachers on Cotton Culture in the U.S. South, 1865-1965.

The institute will allow twenty-two teachers of English, history, economics, government, geography, art, and music to learn about the complex social structures of the U.S. South in the crucial yet frequently misunderstood hundred years after the Civil War, a period that included both major social problems and amazing cultural development. An interdisciplinary panel of experts on the South will use the cultivation of cotton—the South's most significant economic product during this time—as a means to analyze and understand the region's history, geography, economics, politics, culture, and literature . . .

Macon, Georgia, about an hour's drive south of Atlanta, is an ideal location from which to study the history and culture of cotton. Nicknamed 'the market city,' it was once a center of cotton commerce and textile production. Workshops will meet on the campus of Mercer University in downtown Macon, and participants will also visit a nineteenth-century plantation, a working cotton farm, the Civil Rights historic district of Atlanta, and the cotton seaport in Savannah."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"The American South plays a central role in American history, from the first permanent English colony through the election of 2008. This course will focus on key episodes when Southern history and the history of the nation intersected at particularly important points: the emergence and spread of slavery, the founding, the Civil War, the creation of segregation, and the civil rights struggle. The course will be taught in Richmond, Virginia, a city rich in museums and historic sites that we will use to explore the subjects addressed in the seminar."

This annual residential seminar takes on a different theme each year. The chosen theme will complement the basic concept of the symposium, which is to learn about the cultural landscapes of the Northern Neck. The symposium will feature lectures, site visits, and tours.