August 22, 1994 Contact: Barbara McKenna (408/459-2495)

NEH GRANTS TO UC SANTA CRUZ FACULTY FUND INSTITUTE ON NEW APPROACHES TO HISTORY, SEMINAR ON DICKENS'S LAST NOVEL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Two professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz, were among those named to receive the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, which were announced today (Monday, August 22).

Edmund Burke III, a professor of history, received a grant of $197,000 in support of an institute titled, "Rethinking Europe/Rethinking World History, 1500-1750." Murray Baumgarten, a professor of English and comparative literature, received a grant of $73,115 for a seminar titled, "Reading Our Mutual Friend: Charles Dickens and Serial Production." Both the institute and the seminar will be held during the summer of 1995.

Burke's grant will bring 25 college and university historians to the campus for six weeks next summer to discuss new approaches to teaching world history. The seminar, Burke says, is intended to encourage participants to develop a more global understanding of the emergence of the modern world, linking new knowledge about Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Despite an increasing awareness of the significance of the role played in history by non-European countries, and an increasing demand by our ethnically diverse population for a more inclusive historical perspective, Burke says, "no one is being trained to teach such courses."

"The goal of the institute is to develop a new understanding about the ways in which the roots of modern Europe and those of the modern world are inseparably linked, and to discover strategies that will lead teachers of history and the humanities to be more aware of the ways in which specific regional histories can be enriched and disciplined through the application of a global perspective," he explains.

Burke's fields of study are Middle Eastern and European history. He has written and edited publications on Middle Eastern social history, European orientalism, and world history.

Baumgarten's five-week seminar will bring together some 25 high school and community college teachers from around the country to read Dickens's last complete novel in serial installments-- as it was originally published. The group will also study the cultural and political context of the work.

"Dickens pioneered the method of serial publications, and all the great Victorian novels were published in serials. We can experience some of the suspense and discovery the Victorians did in reading these novels," Baumgarten says, noting that some instructors now teach Dickens in serial parts.

The seminar will be presented under the auspices of the Dickens Project. Baumgarten, who came to UCSC in 1966, is the founding director of the Dickens Project and has written on Dickens and other Victorian authors. He is also editor in chief of the Strouse Carlyle Edition.

The NEH is an independent federal agency supporting research, education, preservation projects, and public programs in the humanities. The 307 recipients for this quarter received grants totaling more than $29.6 million.

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