Local Faculty Member Receives National Recognition

Kameelah Martin Samuel, a visiting scholar in African American Studies, has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of 20 seminars and institutes supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Endowment is a federal agency that, each summer, supports these enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, so that faculty can work in collaboration and study with experts in humanities disciplines.

Dr. Samuel will participate in a (seminar or institute) entitled "Contemporary African American Literature." The three week program will be held at Penn State and directed by Dr. Lovalerie King

The 25 teachers selected to participate in the program each receive a stipend of $2700 to cover their travel, study, and living expenses.

Topics for the 20 seminars and institutes offered for college and university teachers this summer include Oscar Wilde and his circle; French history and national identity since 1990; Health and disease in the Middle Ages; World War I in the Middle East; Jane Austen and her contemporaries; Tudor books and readers; Commemoration, empire, and the city of Rome; Liberty, equality, and justice in domestic and global contexts; Leonardo da Vinci; Mesoamerica and the Southwest; Visual culture of the American Civil War; American maritime history; Roman comedy in performance; Contemporary African-American literature; Knowledge networks in the medieval Muslim-Christian-Jewish Mediterranean; Consciousness from Buddhist and contemporary philosophical perspectives; Experimental philosophy; Asian-American art, research, and teaching; The Etruscan and early Roman city.

The approximately 419 NEH Summer Scholars who participate in these programs of study will teach over 73,000 American students the following year.