ORIAS Summer Institutes for Teachers

ORIAS Summer Institutes

ORIAS Summer Institutes invite educators to be students again.

ORIAS hosts two summer programs at UC Berkeley. Teachers of many disciplines, from elementary through high school, are invited to attend the k-12 Summer Institute. The Community College Summer Institute is designed primarily for community college and AP-level history and social studies teachers, particularly those who teach World History, Global Studies, or regional histories.

Summer programs explore unique themes in World History and other international and global topics. Teachers leave ready to incorporate new content into classroom lessons. Presenters explain recent scholarship and address participants' questions. Throughout each day, educators have opportunities share ideas about both content and pedagogy.

Summer Institutes are free and open to all educators. Participants in the k-12 Summer Institute may also receive professional development credit. 

photo credit: Top of the Campanile via UC Berkeley (license)

masked person standing in a field
passport page with stamps from many countries

The World As It Could Be

Speculative Fiction from around the World

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 21 - 23, 2023

Speculative fiction includes a wide range of genres: science fiction, fantasy, African- and AfroFuturism, dystopian fiction, climate fiction, and more. All of these genres use different forms of world-building to deeply engage with current issues and explore possible futures. By asking the question, "What if...?" authors invite readers to confront our hopes and fears and imagine better worlds.

To what extent do these "What if...?" questions reflect universal human concerns? In what ways are they windows into the cultural contexts of specific authors?

This ORIAS summer institute will feature short works from around the world. Participants will read, view, and analyze short works from a variety of regions, using speculative fiction as a lens to understand and contextualize current issues in the real world. We'll explore the role of speculative fiction in helping students develop cultural literacy and experiment with teaching methods that encourage creative engagement with works of fiction.

This institute is open to k-12 teachers across disciplines. Content will be appropriate for students age 12+; reading level will vary.

This FREE program will take place in person. Lunch will be provided. Space is limited to 24 people on a first-come, first-served basis.

Professional development credit is available upon request during registration process. Teachers who attend for credit will be expected to build/submit a lesson plan featuring one or more of the texts used in the program.

Crime and Punishment

The Creation and Transformation of Legal Regimes

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

June 2 - 3, 2023

Over the past five centuries, expanding imperial ventures, human migrations, and emerging technologies created challenges to governance. As increasing numbers of merchants and soldiers, bureaucrats and laborers traveled the world, what systems of rules governed their behaviors? To what extent did the legal regimes of their home governments constrain or direct their individual activities as well as their interactions with others? What happened when the movement of people around the globe brought two legal regimes into contact with one another?


The answers to these questions are at the intersection of broad political policies and day-to-day life. In court cases and administrative decisions, we see lawyers and bureaucrats differentiating between trade and smuggling, labor contracts and enslavement, taxation and theft, ruler and ruled. As states, communities, and individuals negotiated individual cases, they transformed local governance practices into legal regimes that spanned the world.


This ORIAS summer institute will focus on the emergence and transformation of global legal regimes from the late 18th century to the present. Through the lens of crime and punishment, participants will learn about the historical processes through which legal regimes have been created, reinforced, negotiated, and expanded. We will also explore the role of global legal regimes in modern international issues like human rights, disaster relief, migration, and climate change.

This ORIAS Summer Institute is intended for instructors of modern world history and global studies, as well as macroeconomics, international relations, and political science. It is open to community college instructors and (space permitting) high school teachers of AP history-social science courses.

This FREE program will take place in person and lunch will be provided. Space is limited to 22 people on a first-come, first-served basis.

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