American Studies Summer Institute at the JFK Library

Beyond Black and White: Prioritizing Race and Racial Formation in the Study of American Life, Past and Present

July 10-21, 2017 (weekdays)

8:30 AM to 12:30 PM

Join us this summer for an intensive two-week program of thought-provoking lectures and discussions led by distinguished scholars and guests. The American Studies Summer Institute, an annual program co-sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Boston and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, offers educators and graduate students the opportunity to explore in depth a topic drawn from American history, politics, culture, or social policy.

This year’s program, held at the Kennedy Library, will place race and racial formation at the center of our historical investigations in order to understand how they each continue to impact and challenge our contemporary perceptions and misperceptions of what it means to be American. We will explore how race broadly has been historically made and remade, and consider the kinds of effects that this process has had both upon racial identities and racial alliances within the U.S. Our attention will be both global and domestic as we examine such topics as the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, indentured labor and plantation slavery, Whiteness as a racial formation, Black Codes and other forms of criminalization of African Americans, Japanese internment and a Muslim-American registry, redlining and segregation, Cold War civil rights, environmental racism, and Native American sovereignty and Standing Rock.

Drawing upon experts from a variety of disciplines and with diverse perspectives, the institute will be directed by Keith Jones, Lecturer in American Studies and Africana Studies at UMass Boston, and Education Specialist Nina Tisch at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Participants may earn three graduate credits in American Studies. For those who wish to receive graduate credit, the fee for this grant-supported course is $505. For teachers taking the course for PDPs only, a non-credit option is available for $150.

The deadline for registration is May 26, 2017. In the unlikely event that registration requests exceed the available capacity, preference will be given to graduate students enrolled in the UMass Boston American Studies Program and to middle and high school teachers.