The New York Public Library (NYPL) invites applications for a Summer Institute for 20 undergraduate teaching faculty, librarians/bibliographers, and museum curators in the arts and humanities. Participants will analyze, interpret, contextualize, and “deconstruct” the early corpus of East Slavic visual images collected at the NYPL over more than a century and a half. Although the Institute’s focus is early East Slavic cultures, the core goal is to expose individuals from a wide array of backgrounds to the theory and methodologies of visual materials as research resources. A reading knowledge of Russian and/or Church Slavic is desirable, but not required.

Institute Director Edward Kasinec, Curator of NYPL’s Slavic and Baltic Division, will moderate a series of daily forums with more than a dozen prominent guest lecturers and discussion facilitators drawn from the academic, museum, library, and art historical communities. Valerie Kivelson, Associate Professor of History, the University of Michigan, will serve as Faculty Advisor. Participants will have ample opportunity for hands-on work with the historic collections of the NYPL, and to visit other New York cultural institutions.

Successful applicants receive NEH stipends in the amount of $1,800 to help defray housing, travel, and other expenses. The Institute will suggest options for local housing for those who require it.