Summer Teacher Institute 2023. Group of eleven people posing outside of an old brown building

Each year, CCAS conducts a week-long summer institute for teachers under its Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education, which names the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies as a National Resource Center on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). These institutes, which have been hosted in-person, virtually, or in a hybrid format over the years, are attended by secondary teachers and community college faculty from across the United States. The topics for the institutes are chosen for their relevance to teaching about the MENA or SWANA region. Some have focused on approaches to teaching world-historical topics, including zones of civilizational exchange (such as the Mediterranean, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Indian Ocean), topics of cultural relevance (such as world religions or the Renaissance and Enlightenment as global phenomena), and contemporary issues such as international diplomacy or China’s involvement in the MENA. The summer institutes listed below include links to descriptions and videos from the institutes, as well as featured teaching resources. You can also find information on the institutes under the relevant thematic categories on the Teaching Resources page. 

Connected Histories of the Renaissance

Summer Teacher Institute 2020

Inspired by Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s concept of connected histories, the Summer Teacher Institute 2020 explored topics that illustrate the impact of this movement of people, animals, and objects on a new global scale during the Renaissance. The Institute featured eleven speakers from a variety of disciplinary and geographic specializations with lectures designed to help teachers deconstruct traditional narratives of the Renaissance and understand the global nature of the movement of culture, resources, and peoples during this period to provide more nuanced instruction in this period. The Summer Institute was a collaboration between the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Click here for a list of all sessions from STI 2020 with descriptions and links to recorded lectures. Click here to go directly to the YouTube playlist. 

The Enlightenment as Global Phenomenon

Summer Teacher Institute 2019

The Summer Teacher Institute 2019 explored the global origins and enduring global effects of Enlightenment ideas and exchanges. As many historians have noted, the view of the Enlightenment as a European thought movement is inadequate and ignores the effects of intellectual exchanges within and beyond Europe. What we call Enlightenment thought emerged during the first global era when Europeans were exposed to intellectual stimuli and challenges in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Not only mercantile but also scholarly exchanges characterized this period, and opened Europeans’ horizons on linguistic, philosophical, historical, literary, and religious traditions to which they had not been previously exposed. Merchants, missionaries, and administrative officials of the trading companies encountered social settings in which people of multiple ethnicities and religions mingled and engaged in business and social engagement—unlike Europe, which was still in the throes of religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, and where Jews and Muslims found only limited and contingent tolerance. As ties with Asia deepened, exposure to unfamiliar legal and administrative models of governance confronted Europeans and stimulated deeper learning. Artistic traditions and a host of new products, technologies and styles flowed into Europe, stimulating new import substitution industries and innovations.
Click here for a list of all sessions from STI 2019 with descriptions and links to recorded lectures. Click here to go directly to the YouTube playlist.

China, the Middle East and Africa

Summer Teacher Institute 2018

The Summer Teacher Institute 2018 focused on contemporary Chinese relations with the Middle East and Africa. In order to understand these crucial developments and incorporate them into teaching, 45 participants in STI 2018 learned from experts on the region and gained access to a wide range of resources for background reading and classroom engagement.
Click here for a list of all sessions from STI 2018 with descriptions and links to recorded lectures. Click here to go directly to the YouTube playlist. Click here for a compilation of additional resources for educators that were shared during STI 2018. 

Beyond Ibn Battuta–The Indian Ocean Across Time and Disciplines

Summer Teacher Institute 2015

The Summer Teacher Institute 2015 explored the Indian Ocean as a vibrant region of exchange and innovation in the production of goods and technological advancement. The trade circuits of Afroeurasia were linked to global routes crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific, including those in Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia, and East Africa. Today, the Indian Ocean is a microcosm of the globalized economy. Indian Ocean maritime trade in fossil fuels, minerals, tropical raw materials and commodities, as well as finished goods are produced and transported through the Indian Ocean. About half of world trade passes through the crucial straits in Indian Ocean, joining the Pacific and Atlantic worlds as well as land-based economic activities in China, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. The emergence of China and India as economic giants in the current century means intensification of activity in the region. STI 2015 aimed to expand attendees’ understanding of the global importance of the Indian Ocean beyond the distant past through interdisciplinary programming.
Click here to watch recorded lectures from STI 2015.

Integrating the Mediterranean into World History

Summer Teacher Institute 2014

The Summer Institute 2014 was built around the synergy between two institutions’ ongoing projects to advance scholarship and teaching on the Mediterranean. The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies produced an edited volume titled The Mediterranean Re-Imagined.  The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University produced a K-14 curriculum project with a grant from the British Council and Social Science Research Council’s “Our Shared Past” initiative. Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean lesson modules, together with the CCAS volume The Mediterranean Re-Imagined, give teachers new perspectives on an old and familiar region.
Click here to watch recorded lectures of STI 2014. Click here to visit Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean: A World History Curriculum Project for Educators.