Overview

Welcome to the website for the 2015 Summer Institute in Istanbul!

THE 2015 PROGRAM HAS ENDED.

ON THE NEXT INSTITUTE IN ISTANBUL:  THE NEH HAS ELIMINATED FUNDING FOR INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTES AFTER 2015.

This Institute will be held from July 5 to 25, 2015 and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.   In Summer 2013, UC San Diego Prof. Matthew Herbst led the first “Istanbul Between East and West: Crossroads of History” Institute.    As in 2013, the 2015 Summer Institute will bring 25 middle and high school social studies, arts, geography, and humanities teachers to Istanbul for a three-week intensive program where they will learn from leading scholars on Roman, Byzantine, Medieval Mediterranean, Ottoman, and modern Turkish history.   The 2015 Institute faculty team is drawn from University of California San Diego, University of California Riverside, Ohio State University, University of Michigan, Arizona State University, and from Boğazici and Özyeğin Universities in Turkey.   As in 2013, this team is comprised of distinguished scholars and recognized leaders in their respective periods of historical study.   Equally important, these scholars are also outstanding and passionate teachers.

This Summer Institute provides teachers with a better understanding of a city and region that has been at the crossroads of regional and world history from antiquity to the present.   The Institute used Istanbul as an intellectual point of departure to explore the Roman/Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and modern Turkey. With its emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and global comparisons, the program situated this history in the larger context of the Mediterranean and Middle East and in the even broader framework of world history. The Institute integrated readings, lectures, and discussions with the most important text, Istanbul itself, making its monuments, museums, and urban geography part of the academic design.   Participants generated ways to incorporate the Institute content, which corresponded to the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, into their classroom instruction.

This video was made by Mr. Greg Sill, a teacher on the 2013 Summer Institute.

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Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age.  For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506.  TDD:  202/606‑8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.