Summer 2025 NEH Institute: Future Earth Climate Story
Co-PIs: Fawn Canady
Department: American Multicultural Studies
School or Division: College of Education, Counseling, and Ethnic Studies
Sponsor: National Endowment for the Humanities
Calendar Start & End Date: -
The Future Earth Climate Story is a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institute for 25 secondary teachers from across the country who, through a competitive application process, are chosen to participate in a 2-week interactive exploration of ideas and multimodal praxis that will be held on SSU's campus. The NEH “Future Earth Climate Story” institute includes field trips to various locations in Northern California as well as an additional “virtual week” with pre- and post-institute webinars facilitated by the co-directors and featuring Lewis Hyde, author of one of the central texts, A Primer for Forgetting. The institute begins with Octavia E. Butler's sci/cli-fi classic, Parable of the Sower, and multimodal texts in Black and ethnic futurisms in interactive seminars led by Co-Director, Dr. Kim Hester Williams. Participants will create an interactive, documentary-theater influenced “future story” by utilizing Literacy Unbound strategies with co-directors Dr. Erick Gordon and Dr. Fawn Canady. The entire residential institute will be the topic of a short documentary film with award-winning producer, John Comerford.