November 2011
The Civil War @ 150: A Public Program on Civil War Photography
Come to the Martin Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center on Thursday, November 3, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, for the third of our public seminars marking the sesquicentennial of the start of the U.S. Civil War. Supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities, previous programs in the series brought together leading scholars and educators to discuss recent trends in the study of the conflict and the gap between scholarly and popular understanding of the war.
At the November 3rd event, entitled “Is There Anything More to See? Civil War Photography and History,” Anthony Lee (Mount Holyoke College), Mary Niall Mitchell (University of New Orleans), Martha Sandweiss (Princeton University), and Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University) will discuss the persistence of photography’s influence over the vision of the Civil War, and what remains to be learned from the medium and the war’s visual record. Among other questions, the panelists will discuss photography’s impact on Americans’ perceptions of the conflict in the past and how the meanings and uses of the visualization of the war have changed over time.
The event is free of charge and organized in collaboration with the Ph.D. Program in History, the Ph.D. Program in Art History, and the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center. Click here for more on the event and the Civil War @ 150 series. And if you can’t attend the event, podcasts of the three programs will be available on the ASHP/CML website by the end of the year.
ASHP/CML Awarded IMLS Planning Grant
We are pleased to announce that the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), in partnership with the American Social History Project, a National Leadership Planning Grant for Contextualizing the Visual Archive for Teaching. This project is designed to research and prototype an interactive online interface for archives and libraries that will help teachers use historical American images by linking them to rich contextual information as well as to full catalog records. During the planning phase of the grant, we will conduct research among potential users and program a sample set of test images for an online, open-source resource prototype that will demonstrate how visual images from any library or museum collection can be linked to collection records and teaching materials.
ASHP/CML Launches NEH Summer Institute Website: The Visual Culture of the American Civil War
We are pleased to announce the launch of our NEH Summer Institute website, The Visual Culture of the American Civil War. On this site you will find information about our July 2012 summer institute for college and university faculty, which we are hosting at the CUNY Graduate Center. The institute will focus on the the Civil War’s array of visual media—including the fine arts, ephemera, and photography—to assess how information and opinion about the war and its impact were recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict. The site contains such items as a “Dear Colleague” letter for prospective applicants, application instructions, a listing of institute faculty, a preliminary institute schedule and syllabus, and a mini-poster. If you plan to apply, be sure to review NEH’s Application Information and Instructions to determine your eligibility.
A Note to CUNY Faculty and Staff
Planning to make a contribution to the CUNY Campaign? Help ASHP/CML continue to produce teaching materials and bring services to New York City’s history teachers. We are #2949 in the CUNY Campaign list of participating agencies, under “CUNY-Based Organizations.” Thank you!