KU News Release

LAWRENCE — Two faculty members from the Department of English at the University of Kansas have received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support programs for teachers.

Maryemma Graham, professor, received a $200,000 grant to conduct a two-week institute on “Native Son” author Richard Wright for 30 secondary school teachers. Janet Sharistanian, associate professor, earned a $139,654 grant for a five-week seminar on the United States and World War I for 16 elementary and secondary teachers.

KU received two of the three NEH grants recently awarded to projects in Kansas. A third grant went to the Kansas Humanities Council for a project focused on the state’s history. All three grants in Kansas received an NEH “We the People” designation for their efforts to strengthen the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture.

Application processes for teachers interested in participating will be announced later.

Graham’s project, Making the Wright Connection: Native Son, Black Boy and Uncle Tom’s Children, will be offered July 11 to 24. Teachers will explore Wright’s books within their historical contexts. The institute, sponsored by KU and the Project on the History of Black Writing, based at KU, follows the 2008 national and international events commemorating the 100th anniversary of Wright’s birth.

KU faculty working with Graham include Madison Davis Lacy, associate professor of film and media studies, and Randal Jelks, associate professor of American studies. Visiting scholars include Jerry W. Ward Jr. of Dillard University in New Orleans and Howard Rambsy of Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.

The institute will include three public events, two of which will be at the Hall Center for the Humanities: a screening of the film “Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story,” directed by David Taylor, and a talk by Wright’s eldest daughter, Julia. The 1995 film “Richard Wright: Black Boy,” directed by Lacy, will be shown at KU’s Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center.

Participating teachers will help prepare a digital sourcebook on the Web for educators. Jim Jewell and Mark Crabtree of KU Media Productions will create the interactive Web resource. The sourcebook will include links to Wright conferences and previously unused film footage housed at Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson. Ultimately, teachers and students will be able to produce a wide range of materials from videos and podcasts to musical raps and photo essays about Wright through the digital sourcebook.

The institute will include a day-long visit to the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Mo., a presentation at the Spencer Museum of Art by Saralyn Hardy, director, titled “Reading Wright Through Images and Text” and a workshop on “Reading Richard Wright through Material Culture” by Lawrence textile artist Marla Jackson.

For more information, visit the Making the Wright Connection Web site.

Sharistanian’s project, America and The Great War: An Interdisciplinary Seminar in Literature and History, will be offered June 27 to July 30. Ted Wilson, KU professor of history, is co-directing the seminar in which participants will examine America’s relationship to World War I with a combination of literature, history and visual arts. Field trips are planned to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and Fort Leavenworth.

In addition, Sharistanian and Stephen Goddard, professor of art history and senior curator at KU’s Spencer Museum of Art, are planning an exhibition at the museum focused on art reflecting the impact of the war. Sharistanian also is working with John Staniunas, chair of the theatre department, to include a summer 2010 University Theatre production of the World War I play “Billy Bishop Goes to War.”