Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, Harvard University, in partnership with Texas A&M University, will host a three-week, residential NEH Summer Institute for Higher Education Faculty from June 12 to July 1, 2022, in which participants re-examine how we research and teach history through the lens of people in place with a focus on expanding critical spatial literacy. Applications closed on March 1, 2022.

During the three-week institute, participants will collaborate to develop online, open-source curriculum modules that teach landscape-oriented social histories, centering Black and Indigenous historical narratives in the founding of the United States and the District of Columbia. The program will accommodate 25 participants, including at least five non-tenured/non-tenure-track faculty and up to three advanced graduate students. Applicants from HBCUs, HSIs, and tribal colleges are strongly encouraged to apply. This Level 1 program is being offered. for the first time.

This Institute will interrogate histories of the nation’s founding by centering the cultural landscape of its capital, the District of Columbia. A People’s History of Landscape brings distinct bodies of knowledge together with a critical place studies approach that positions place at the center of the narrative.

Within this context, place is not only a geographical site but a critical agent in shaping human behavior and social/ environmental relationships as well as cultures broadly. In this Institute's approach land is considered in terms of the physical components that comprise the living systems and natural process in place as well as the cultural narratives and meaning of place. Institute participants will explore the lived experience in place of Black and Indigenous peoples and communities who imagined, constructed, used, and memorialized places.

A People’s History of Landscape contributes to efforts in the academy to address complex histories of land, labor, and place-making. The Institute will bring scholars from across the nation together to explore alternative approaches to scholarship and teaching landscape and place-oriented social and cultural histories, centering Black and Indigenous historical narratives in the founding of the United States and the District of Columbia. Participants will jointly develop an online repository of teaching modules.