{"id":674,"date":"2020-02-21T14:44:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T14:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/?p=674"},"modified":"2020-02-21T14:45:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T14:45:45","slug":"summer-seminar-at-endicott-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/?p=674","title":{"rendered":"SUMMER SEMINAR AT ENDICOTT COLLEGE"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEH-funded Summer Seminar at Endicott College.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Salem Witch Trials: Their World & Legacy
\nCalling all middle and high school teachers, school librarians, and museum educators!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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(Beverly, Massachusetts)\u00a0\u00a0–\u00a0Endicott College<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Beverly Mass., in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities, is calling for middle and high school teachers,\u00a0school librarians and museum educator among others, to participate in a three-week summer seminar (July 6 through July 24, 2020) entitled\u00a0The Salem Witch Trials: Their World & Legacy<\/a><\/span>\u00a0. The deadline for applications is Sunday, March 1, 2020.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Participants will engage in an in-depth and collaborative study of the origin, development, and legacy of the Salem Witch Trials, a foundational event in American history that continues to attract scholarly attention and widespread popular interest. Seminar participants will have the rare opportunity to work with original trial transcripts and other primary sources at the\u00a0Peabody Essex Museum’s Phillips Library<\/a>\u00a0in Salem, and examine selections from the Danvers (formerly Salem Village) Archival Center’s renowned\u00a0Brehaut Witchcraft Collection<\/a><\/span>\u00a0.\u00a0In addition to offering\u00a0guided group discussions of key texts, participants will visit and study historic sites and memorials relating to the trials in Salem and Danvers.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Since 1692, the Salem Witch Trials have been dramatized, mythologized and re-imagined in various\u00a0\u00a0forms of culture. The specter of Salem has been invoked in times of national anxiety, representing Americans’ fear of the “Other,” and is synonymous with unfounded mass hysteria.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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“The overriding goal of the seminar is to help participants enhance their teaching of American history, civics, and literature, but also to discover the rewards and challenges of studying the trials,” said Dr. Elizabeth Matelski, assistant professor of history at Endicott College. “The trials, after all, have one of the most contested historiographies of any event from the past. More has been written by scholars about the events of 1692 with less agreement than perhaps any other historical subject, particularly in the history of early America.”<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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According to Matelski, this lack of consensus, combined with the growing number of literary, televisual, and cinematic portrayals of the trials, and the blatant commercialization of the trials in present-day Salem (the “Witch City” as it has been officially designated), raises many questions: What really caused the trials? How did they unfold? Do they still matter, and if so, why? What connections, if any, do the trials have to modern events and to our understanding of American identities? The Endicott seminar is designed to help participants explore these questions, examine the history of and myths surrounding the trials, and study topics such as Puritanism, witchcraft, legal practices, gender roles, slavery, and Native American history.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Themes to be examined include:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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