Anisfield-Wolf Faculty Summer Seminars

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Anisfield-Wolf Summer Seminars

$1,000 Participation Award

The Cleveland Humanities Collaborative is pleased to announce the dates for our two, annual, week-long, intensive summer seminars for faculty, staff, independent scholars, community educators, and graduate students. Alumni from prior cohorts will lead this year’s seminars, each of which will be centered on a text selected from the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners. The seminars will be held in-person on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. Funding to support travel for out-of-town participants will be available on a limited basis.

Each seminar will have two leaders, and we are privileged to have four, outstanding leaders this summer: Barbara Harris Combs, Chair and Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Kennesaw State University, Denise Harrison, Associate Lecturer, Department of English/Pan African Studies, Kent State, Michelle Rankins, Assistant Professor, English, Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), and Valentino Zullo, Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in the Department of English, Ursuline College. View their bios here.

Seminar 1: Monday, July 17, 2023 – Friday, July 21, 2023

Seminar 2: Monday, July 31, 2023 – Friday, August 4, 2023

Details about how to apply, the selected book, and participant expectations will be circulated in April, shortly after the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners are announced. Application information will also be posted to the Cleveland Humanities Collaborative site at chc.case.edu.

Seminar Format

Last year’s seminars focused on George Makari’s detailed exploration of the history of xenophobia, Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia and seminars this year will again spotlight a specific text selected from the class of 2023 winners. The seminar emphasizes dialogue and creates space for collaborative discussion of strategies for using Anisfield-Wolf texts in teaching, educational outreach, and community engagement. In addition to discussing how these texts engage race/ethnicity and history, seminar participants will also examine how we teach and have productive dialogue about our history and complex social issues. Seminar meetings will take place every day for five hours, with the opportunity for groups to continue working together through the year.

Participant Eligibility

• Faculty from educational institutions in Northeast Ohio and from CWRU’s North Star Award Institutional Partners.
• Advanced Ph.D. students in Ohio and from North Star Institutional Partners.
• Full-time staff from Northeast Ohio educational, arts, and culture

About the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards

In 1935, Edith Anisfield Wolf established what she initially called the John Anisfield Book Award to honor nonfiction books that furthered the cause of “race relations” (as she later wrote in her will), deepened our understanding of racism, and enhanced our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures. At its founding, the prize took “race relations” to mean relations among Black, White, and Jewish Americans. Yet, the Award quickly broadened, recognizing books about immigrants and Native American histories. Winners have included Nobel Laureates Ralph Bunche, Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, Nadine Gordimer, Gunnar Myrdal and Wole Soyinka, along with other major literary figures such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was recognized in 1959 for his book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, well before he became a national figure. Recent honorees have included James McBride, Natasha Trethewey, the poets Donika Kelly and Victoria Chang, and Lifetime Achievement winners Ishmael Reed and Isabelle Allende. Eighty-seven years later, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards continue to honor writers who expand our grasp not only of race, but diversities of disability, religion, ethnicity, and gender, drawing from a variety of disciplinary perspectives in the humanities.