This seminar is designed as an introduction to the fields of Public History for those who teach or expect to teach history undergraduate students, and wish to include an awareness of Public History practices and career opportunities in their teaching or their institution’s curriculum. We will explore the ways in which heritage and cultural institutions identify, collect, preserve, and interpret cultural resources such as manuscripts and records, objects, sites and landscapes, structures and buildings, and reach out to public audiences. We will use the experiences and contributions of African-American people in South Carolina as the interpretive content for our exploration of the many facets of Public History. The Institute will combine daily lecture and discussion sessions with behind-the-scenes and professional staff-led visits to museums, archives, historic sites, local historical societies and state and national parks. Participants will be assigned to read appropriate secondary materials on Public History and on African American History as a basis for discussion, but are not required to produce a research project or paper.

We invite applications from college teachers from four year or two year colleges and independent scholars with an interest in the fields of Public History. The four-week seminar will run from July 9 to August 3, 2007 and will take place in Columbia, South Carolina and the surrounding area, and will include a three-day visit to Charleston. All teachers selected to participate in the Institute will be awarded a fixed stipend of $3,000 to help cover travel costs, books and other research expenses, and living expenses during the four weeks of the Institute.