This National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute seeks to situate the Vietnam War within a broader context using an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates a variety of lenses, including literature and poetry, anthropology, political science, and economics alongside world history and global studies. Participants will work with a number of experts in these areas to help them develop a fuller appreciation for the war as it was understood both within the United States and by those directly involved in the region. Based on a course developed by Christian C. Lentz from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with assistance from the Carolina Asia Center, the institute offers teachers a chance to learn from Lentz and other scholar-experts about Vietnam and how to teach its history and geography.Learn More

With the generous support of the GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, the National Humanities Center’s Education Programs are undertaking a project to develop a deeper portfolio of curricular materials and help set standards for humanities education that highlight differences among humanities disciplines. Humanities in Class is a compilation of guides in ten different humanities disciplines that identify the key qualities and practices of those disciplines, considering: What questions are asked? What tools and resources are invaluable? What processes occur? Created to be accessible and flexible and to meet the needs of educators and classrooms at all levels, the final guide will feature media and digital content that helps clarify and establish fluency for each discipline.Learn More

The National Humanities Center is partnering with Vietnam National University in developing digital instructional resources that allow for a deeper understanding of the American-Vietnamese War. This initiative brings together a team of Vietnamese and American educators, scholars, and situation-based technology experts to create a curriculum and digital tools that examine the political, social, cultural, economic, and historical complexities surrounding the conflict. Focusing on the Black River region and Dien Bien Phu, the team will seek to tell the region’s layered story using visualization technologies by considering questions such as: Why did the U.S. support the side it did in the Vietnam conflict? How can we provide a better understanding of the causes of the Vietnam War by looking at the post-World War II events in and around Dien Bien Phu? And how can students use the humanities to explore places like Dien Bien Phu to better understand complex layers of culture, history, and memory?Learn More