~1200 CE to present

People Power

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

May/June, 2020

4 online sessions: 5/29, 5/30, 6/5, 6/6

How do we interpret narratives about mass movements in the past? And how does that understanding across the distance of time compare to the actual, complex experience of participating in such a movement?

The 2020 ORIAS Summer Institute for Community College Instructors takes a look at mass movements, past and present. In addition to considering the context, ideology,...

UNFREE: Coerced labor across time and place

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

June 2 - 4, 2021

9:00 AM to 12:30 PM (PDT) each day via Zoom

In the US, the ongoing conversation about Black Lives draws connections between our history of chattel slavery and modern racism. This summer, the ORIAS Summer Institute for Community College Instructors seeks to contextualize that national history within a broader, global context by exploring coerced labor in different guises across time and place....

The Little Ice Age

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 21 - 25, 2021

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (PDT) each day via Zoom

What role can humanities and social science classes play in addressing modern climate change?

Understanding and addressing climate change is a truly interdisciplinary undertaking. The sciences can teach students to investigate the mechanisms that cause climate change and set them on the road to devising technological solutions. But if we want to understand how climate change is...

Ramayana Resources

Scene from the epic Ramayana: Kumbhakarna battles the monkeys, 1100-1200 CE, former kingdom of Angkor

Read summaries of the narrative, including one illustrated with art from different regions. See a beautiful digitized version of the tale. Watch a controversial modern film based on the epic.

Sundiata

Image credit: Jeanniot (grav.) - Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain

Sundiata (also spelled Sunjata, Sundjata, or Soundjata) is an oral epic celebrating the life of Sundiata, the founder of the thirteenth-century Mali Empire of West Africa. There are written versions of the epic (just as there are written summaries of movies or film adaptations of books) but...

Ramayana

Image Credit: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art , via Open Access

The Ramayana originated in north India as an oral epic poem, performed with musical accompaniment and dance. Written, illustrated manuscripts of the poem were later produced from Pakistan to Indonesia. This means that the Ramayana has expressions in oral performance, dance, music, literature, and illustration. Modern...

Architecture: Space, Power, and Community

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 25 - 27, 2018

The 2018 Summer Institute for k-12 teachers will explore the interplay between built spaces, individuals, communities, and institutions. Our program will begin with recent research into how the human brain interacts with physical spaces. From there, participants will learn about a global sampling of built environments, considering spaces from perspectives such as visual arts, religious traditions, anthropology, and building technologies.

Teachers who wish to receive professional...

Body & Identity

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 26 - 28, 2019

California's 2011 FAIR Education Act changed the state's education code to include the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful portrayal of the contributions and experiences of people with disabilities and people in the LGBT community in California and United States history and social studies courses. The 2019 ORIAS Summer Institute for k-12 teachers seeks to provide a global context within which to consider these topics.

Body & Identity will explore disability and...

Women in World History

2016 Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

How would your curriculum change if your default historical subjects were women, rather than men?

How would you assess the importance of the agricultural revolution or Athenian democracy? Would property rights and marriage laws edge out professional status and voting rights in classroom discussions about power? How would you construct narratives of long-distance trade, imperial conquest, and industrialization? Do you imagine the core...

Migration & Diaspora

Summer Institute for Community College Teachers

May 31 - June 2, 2018

The 2018 Summer Institute for Community College instructors will consider migration and diaspora from the standpoints of wide-ranging disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology, journalism, and international law. Join your teaching colleagues in this exploration of human migrations of the distant past, causes of migration, the subjective experiences of both new migrants and those living in long-established diasporas, and current issues in global migration....