Bridging Cultures: Realizing an NEH Teaching Fellowship

The National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Development Fellowships (TDF) support college and university teachers pursuing research aimed specifically at improving their undergraduate teaching. The program has three broad goals: 1) to improve the quality of humanities education in the United States; 2) to strengthen the link between research and teaching in the humanities; and 3) to foster excellence in undergraduate instruction.

The NEH’s new Bridging Cultures initiative encourages course development proposals that focus on cultures internationally or within the United States. Courses with an international focus might seek to enlarge Americans’ understanding of other places and times, as well as other perspectives and intellectual traditions. Courses with an American focus might explore the great variety of cultural influences on, and myriad subcultures within, American society.

Given Scripps College’s current strategic goals of diversity and globalization, professor Hao Huang proposes revising his existing course, MUS 121, Music of the Spirits: Sacred Musical Traditions (Tewa Pueblo Dance Ceremonies, Hawaiian hula kahiko and auana and Black gospel music). His talk addresses how he developed the application proposal and progress made to date.

 

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