The Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society is leading the institute.
Participants are from Belarus, Brazil, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zambia.
They are attending seminars, watching films, taking tours and going to events in Louisville. They also will meet with some of the prominent writers whose works they are studying, and take trips to San Francisco, Santa Fe, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.
Activities are designed to deepen the scholars’ understanding of the United States and to add context to their studies of many types of literature. In Cincinnati, for instance, they will visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In Washington, D.C., they will go to the National Museum of the American Indian.
The six-week-long institute ends July 30. It is funded through the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs as part of a broader initiative to help promote a better understanding of the United States abroad by improving the quality of overseas academic institutions’ teaching and curricula.
