Ping Summer Institutes

In addition to the one-day workshops for school teachers, the Ping Institute for the Teaching of the Humanities also sponsors an annual week-long Summer Institute for high school teachers. Teachers throughout Ohio and the surrounding region are invited to participate in the summer institutes. In addition to financial support from the Ping Institute, the summer programs have received funding from the Ohio Humanities Council and the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

2023

Monsters as Mirrors of Humanity, June 13-15

The Charles J. Ping Institute for the Humanities proudly presents: “Monsters as Mirrors of Humanity,” a three-day workshop for Humanities teachers of grades 7-12 on June 13-15, 2023.

Monsters reside in the deepest core of the human psyche. They are primordial terrors that have always reflected our deepest fears, but as civilization has developed over the centuries and the very nature of our fears has changed, our monster stories have likewise evolved to reflect the changes in humanity itself. Monsters are “the other” that continually define and distinguish our cultural norms and boundaries. To understand the monster is to understand the human.

Dr. Fred Drogula, a professor of Humanities and Classics at Ohio University, will lead a three-day workshop for school teachers of grades 7-12 that explores cultural ideas of the monster and the ways that monsters act as mirrors of humanity itself. Participants will discuss a variety of interdisciplinary texts and films that focus on different kinds of monstrosity, considering their anthropological, historical, literary, philosophical, and religious implications.

Topics will include vampires, werewolves, zombies, Jack the Ripper, and others. The focus is to understand not only the monster stories themselves, but what they say about the cultures that created them.

The workshop will be held on the campus of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and will include five two-hour meetings over June 13-15. Between meetings and in the evenings, participants can tour the university campus and its buildings as well as historic downtown Athens. The workshop is free to participants, and the Ping Institute will provide single-person accommodations at the Ohio University Inn adjacent to the campus and copies of books or PDFs of workshop readings.

The five meetings during the workshop are scheduled for:

• Tuesday, June 13: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m and 2 to 4 p.m.
• Wednesday, June 14: 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m.
• Thursday June 15: 10:00 a.m. to noon

Those who complete the workshop will be presented with certificates recording 10 contact hours that they may present to their respective LPDC.

The workshop is limited to 15 participants to enable active discussion. Those wishing to register for the workshop should write to Fred Drogula, the Director of the Ping Institute, at PingInstitute@ohio.edu.

2022

Democracy and Totalitarianism: Historical and Literary Lenses, June 14-16

The Charles J. Ping Institute for the Humanities proudly presents: “Democracy and Totalitarianism: Historical and Literary Lenses,” a three-day workshop for high school teachers of the humanities on June 14-16, 2022.

• What are the unique features of a democracy?
• What are the conditions for and consequences of totalitarianism?
• Can democracies become totalitarian and how does that shift begin?
• Who benefits from each system of governance?
• Can totalitarianism be reversed?

These and other topics will be considered in the three-day Ping Summer Institute for high school teachers led by Special Collections Librarian Miriam Intrator, History Professor Brian Schoen, and English Professor Linda Rice.

Participants will explore democracy and totalitarianism in history and literature with excerpts from two of the most well-known texts as centerpieces: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835, 1840) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). Separated by a century, these classic texts capture distinctive moments in the interplay between democracy and totalitarianism, the first when democracy was ascendant in the United States and the second when it seemed imperiled by World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union. Workshops will provide both context and close textual analysis with participants engaging in topics of considerable contemporary relevance.

The workshop will be held on the campus of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and will include five two-hour meetings over June 14-16. Between meetings and in the evenings, participants can tour the university campus and its buildings as well as historic downtown Athens. The Ping Institute will provide a single-person accommodations at the Ohio University Inn adjacent to the campus.

The five meetings during the workshop are scheduled for:

• 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 14 and 15
• 10 a.m. to noon on Thursday, June 16

The workshop is limited to 15 participants to enable active discussion. There is no charge for this workshop. Those wishing to register should write to Fred Drogula at PingInstitute@ohio.edu. Those who complete the workshop will be presented with certificates recording 10 contact hours that they may present to their respective LPDC.

2021

Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in the Ancient World, June 16-18

The Charles J. Ping Institute for the Humanities proudly presents: “Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in the Ancient World” a three-day workshop for high school teachers of the humanities on June 16-18, 2021.

• How old are concepts such as race and ethnicity?
• How did ancient Greeks and Romans define and describe people who were different or “other?”
• How was identity created and discussed in the culturally diverse world of the ancient Mediterranean?
• Do modern ideas of race and ethnicity come from the ancient past, or are they more recent creations?

These and other topics will be considered in a three-day workshop for high school teachers led by Dr. Fred Drogula, the Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics at Ohio University.

The workshop will be held online, divided into five two-hour sessions from June 16 to 18. In each session, participants will discuss readings that reveal how ancient Greeks and Romans expressed their ideas about race and ethnicity, and they will explore how this influences modern discussions of racism, difference, and the construction of identity. Digital copies of the readings will be distributed before the start of the workshop.

The workshops are scheduled for:

• 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, June 16 and 17
• 10 to noon on Friday, June 18

The workshop is limited to 15 participants to enable active discussion. Those wishing to register should write Fred Drogula at PingInstitute@ohio.edu. Those who complete the workshop will be presented with certificates recording 10 contact hours that they may present to their respective LPDC.

2019

Close Reading, Close Playing: Video Games, Pedagogy, and the Humanities Classroom, June 5-7

The Charles J. Ping Institute for the Teaching of the Humanities presents a free three-day summer workshop for secondary teachers on Close Reading, Close Playing: Video Games, Pedagogy, and the Humanities Classroom with Dr. Edmond Y. Chang on June 5-7, 2019.

Chang is Assistant Professor of English at Ohio University.

2014

June 18-20, 2014 Remembering Nazi Germany: Two Women’s Memoirs

This institute focused on the experiences of two women who lived under Nazi domination during childhood. The reading included two memoirs: It All Began in Nuremberg by Rita Thalmann and On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood by Irmgard Hunt. The institute leaders were Lois Vines, Professor of French and James Reid Distinguished Teaching Professor of Humanities in the Ping Institute and Marie-Claire Wrage, Professor Emerita of French.

2012

July 12 & 13 "The Art of the Short Story" led by Dr. Mark Halliday

This two-day institute will explore the short story as an art form, introducing participants to the history of the critical discussion of the genre aesthetically and formally and exploring ways to apply these perspectives to a number of classic stories from the American and British literary canon, including some favorites from the classroom.To approach the short story as a living and still-evolving form, the institute will include guest appearances by writers, who will read from and discuss their work; a discussion of how stories get selected for literary magazines; and some creative prompts to encourage the participants themselves to practice the art of the short story.

2011

July 19-22, 2011 Roots and Dreams: American Multiculturalism

America takes pride in itself as a nation derived of many different races and nationalities, a multiculturalism that is part dream and part reality. In the is Institute we explored the deep resonance of family, religion, education, and race and the confusion of identity in absorbing and intimate memoirs by three extraordinary Americans:

• Edward Said, Out of Place
• Richard Rodriquez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
• Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father

Institute leaders were Elizabeth Collins, Professor of Classics and World Religions, and Ghirmai Negash, Associeate Professor of English & African Literature and Associate Director of African Studies.

2010

July 13-16, 2010: Sources of Greek Myth

This summer institute started from the premise that myth is never static but grows and changes to fit the needs of the people to whom it belongs. During the institute, participants explored sources that ancient Greeks drew on for their myths. Participants also explored the ways the focus of some myths changed over time and the implication of those changes. Workshop leaders were Drs. Thomas Carpenter, Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics at Ohio University and Drs. Christopher Faraone, Frank Curtis Springer, and Gertrude Melcher Springer Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago.

2009

July 7-10, 2009: Eleanor of Aquitaine

This three-day summer institute focused on Eleanor's biography, political, economic and social power, the rights of medieval women, the conflict between church and state, the creation of the nation-state through wars and marriages, and her contributions to the literary arts. We also explored the modern fascination with Eleanor, including books for children, adolescents and adults, a play, and three films. For participating teachers of French, there were special sessions devoted to studying and discussing them in that language.

2008

July 6-11, 2008: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Race in 19th Century Ohio”

William Condee, Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and a Ping Institute Professor, directed the Summer Institute on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Race in 19th Century Ohio,” July 6-11 on the Ohio University Athens campus. This workshop was open to secondary school teachers in Ohio.

2007

June 21 - 30, 2007: The History of Art in Spain (Madrid, Bilbao)

The program was designed to familiarize fifteen teachers with the history of Western art from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century, introduce them to artistic analysis, and provide them with ideas for enriching their classes with reference to art.

2006

July 23 - 28, 2006: Poets on Poetry

This five-day Summer Institute was designed for 20 humanities school teachers from Ohio to refresh and expand participants' appreciation of the various ways in which poetry tries to illuminate and organize the complexity of the human psychological experience.

Co-directors Mark Halliday and Jill Rosser, along with visiting poets David Baker and Ann Townsend offered "insider" views of contemporary American poetry. A discussion of poems by the great 19th-century poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson, and of the contemporary Nobel Prize poet Wislawa Szymborska and of various other poems both formal and non-formal was also held.

2005

July 25 - 30, 2005: African Literature

The 2005 Summer Institute was designed to explore Anglophone African literature by the program's director, Dean McWilliams, Hamilton Baker & Hostetler. Ohio University faculty prepared studies on the following subjects for the Institute: Evan Mwangi prepared Contemporary Anglophone African Fiction; Esiaba Irobi prepared Contemporary Anglophone African Theater; Walter Hawthorne prepared Contemporary Historical Contexts of African Literature; Keith Harris prepared African Film. This Institute was canceled due to low enrollment.

2004

July 18 - 23, 2004: Shakespeare in Film

The 2004 Summer Institute was directed by Samuel Crowl, trustee professor in English and author of Shakespeare Observed: Studies in Performance on Stage and Screen.

2003

June 23 - 28, 2003: The Many Faces of Islam

A five-day workshop for Ohio teachers from grade seven through twelve, The Many Faces of Islam introduced school teachers to this important and often misrepresented and misunderstood world religion. The Institute highlighted the comparative religious and cultural values of Islam as reflected in history,religion and art. Participants also focused on the regional differences within Islamic civilization and practice. This workshop was co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies, the Ohio Humanities Council, and the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

2002

July 28 - August 2, 2002: Appalachian Literature

Co-sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council, The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation,the Office of Lifelong Learning, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the department of English, this one-week workshop was designed to enrich teachers' understanding and appreciation of Appalachian literature. The workshop aimed at encouraging secondary teachers of humanities courses to incorporate Appalachian literature into their classes. The region's rich literary heritage, as well as music and film adaptations of Appalachian fiction, provided participants with provocative entries into their students' studies of Appalachia. Participants examined not only the cultural contexts of the literature, but also regional dialects and social issues that have affected the economy, health and welfare of the region, including the stereotyping of Appalachians.

July 13 - 22, 2002: Ancient Rome: The Growth of a City

Held in Rome, Italy, this nine-day workshop was designed to introduce 12 Ohio school teachers to the archeology of ancient Rome. Using physical remains, it traced the growth of the city from the 5th Century, B.C.,to the 4th Century, A.D. Two Oxford-trained classical archaeologists from Ohio University who have lived in Rome for extended periods led the program. Day trips to the excavated sites of Ostia, the ancient port city of Rome, and Pompeii, a city near Naples covered by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, served to illustrate elements of the city of Rome that are no longer visible.

2001

July 29 - August 3, 2001: The Literatures of India and China

This summer institute workshop was designed to introduce teachers to two of the oldest and richest civilizations outside of Europe -- the civilizations of India and China. The workshop focused intensively on selected text, regarded as canonical within their respective traditions: The Ramayana, an Indian epic from the fifth century B.C.E.,and poems and stories from China's T'ang and Sung dynasties, roughly the seventh through the thirteenth centuries C.E. These texts allow us to enter the Indian and Chinese cultures at points these cultures themselves regard as crucial and representative.

Participants attended presentations with Leslie Abel Flemming, the dean of Ohio University's College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of linguistics; Julia Lin, professor emerita of English at Ohio University; Donald Jordan, a professor of history and the director of Asian studies at Ohio University; and Elizabeth Collins, the director of Southeast Asian Studies and associate professor of philosophy at Ohio University.

2000

July 30 - August 4, 2000: The Nature of Greek Mythology

Co-sponsored with the Ohio Humanities Council, this five-day workshop provided 20 Ohio school teachers with the opportunity to participate in presentations and discussions that provide intellectual stimulation through the exploration of the nature, uses and implications of classical mythology.