The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities announces an NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, to meet in Charlottesville from June 2 through July ll, 2003: "Roots: African Dimensions of the History and Culture of the Americas (Through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade)", directed by Professor Joseph C. Miller, of the University of Virginia. The Seminar will invite fifteen scholar/teachers with training in any part of the Atlantic world (and representing a fertile mixture of academic disciplines) to spend the six weeks developing personal research projects in ways that comprehend the multiplicity of the Atlantic encounters up through the early nineteenth century, with emphasis on incorporating Africans as contributors in their own terms beyond confronting the "others" who attempted to enslave them.

Participants will have full access to the library and media resources of the University of Virginia. Six accomplished scholars will join the proceedings to discuss their own approaches to thinking and writing across the conventional - but fast-eroding - regional boundaries of scholarship and teaching; they will also confer with members of the Seminar about the projects they are developing to meet its challenge. The Seminar is intended to enable participants to contribute substantively to the global contextualization of local and regional experiences that is enriching scholarly inquiry and teaching throughout the academy and related professions.

Interested parties may find general information regarding NEH rules for eligibility, stipends, application procedures (deadline March 1, 2003), and other technicalities at www.neh.gov, following links through "NEH Projects" to "Summer Seminars and Institutes (for College and University Teachers)", and they may view detailed plans for the Seminar at www.virginia.edu/vfh/roots. The director is available at jcm7a@virginia.edu to respond to specific inquiries and to provide the full application packet.