National Humanities Center Receives Grant for Work with North Carolina Veterans | National Humanities Center

Education Programs

National Humanities Center Receives Grant for Work with North Carolina Veterans

March 29, 2016

The National Humanities Center has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in support of a new outreach program for military veterans. This initiative, “Exploring the Experience of War,” will give veterans in North Carolina the opportunity to reflect on their own service by examining and discussing literary texts. It will be conducted in partnership with Chaplain Services of the Durham Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VAMC).
Dialogues on the Experience of War
This effort is one of 17 discussion-based programs receiving support from the NEH as part of its new program, “Dialogues on the Experience of War,” initiated last July.
“We are grateful for the support from the NEH and delighted to be working with the Durham VAMC to bring scholars and veterans together as part of this new initiative,” said NHC President Robert D. Newman. “Men and women have grappled with the subject of war by writing and reading about it since at least as far back as The Iliad. By considering what past generations have thought and felt about their experiences, we can hopefully better understand and deal with our own.”
According to Richard Schramm, NHC Vice President for Education Programs, the Center’s program will start later this year with faculty training and continue into the spring of 2017, with veterans groups who will meet in Durham, Raleigh, and another location in eastern North Carolina which has yet to be determined. “Our seminars with veterans will be organized around themes of patriotism, loyalty, duty, sacrifice, and heroism,” says Schramm, “and will be led by faculty with experience working with veterans.”
“We are honored to participate in this innovative effort—helping veterans explore, through literature, how generations before them have grappled with the effects of war,” said DeAnne Seekins, Durham VA Medical Center Director.

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The National Humanities Center is the world’s only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through its residential fellowship program, the Center provides scholars with the resources necessary to generate new knowledge and to further understanding of all forms of cultural expression, social interaction, and human thought. Through its education programs, the Center strengthens teaching on the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the Center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.

About the Durham VAMC

For information about the Durham Veteran Affairs Medical Center, contact Megan Warren Moore, Durham VAMC public affairs officer, at (919) 286-0411 (x6986) or megan.warren@va.gov.