For more information about the 2023 Institute, please visit the website here.

Whether teaching social studies, English, or world languages, K-12 teachers follow curricular guidelines that often require integrating components of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (MEIS). The standards for teaching these subjects determine what is taught, despite the fact that they may operate in a “siloed” manner or fail to consider new advances in the field.

Like previous institutes organized by NYU’s Kevorkian Center, this summer’s Institute will provide content and resources to better enable teaching Middle East area studies to middle and high school students. In addition, this year we will directly address some of the curricular standards teachers are expected to follow by sharing strategies for successfully integrating Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. With presentations and activities from both MEIS and pedagogy experts, we will help teachers work with, through, and beyond curricular standards with an eye towards improving students’ experiences and engagement. We will also provide ideas for coordinating different curricular areas (such as a social studies class with an art class) in order to fulfill curricular standards in broader and more interesting ways. In addition, attention will be given to addressing the contemporary legacy and relevance of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in relation to the diverse backgrounds and needs of students.

This year's Institute will have two options for attendance, in-person or virtual. The deadline to register online for either Institute is Friday, July 14.

All participants will receive a certificate of completion, and participants from New York will be eligible for Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) credits.

In addition, participants who successfully complete the in-person institute will be eligible to receive a $200 stipend.

Information about Institute speakers will be added as it becomes available.

IN-PERSON SUMMER INSTITUTE

Dates: July 24, 2023 - July 28, 2023

Time: 9:30am (EST) - 3pm (EST)

Location: Kevorkian Center, 255 Sullivan Street

Registration

VIRTUAL SUMMER INSTITUTE

Dates: July 31, 2023 - August 4, 2023

Time: 12:30pm (EST) - 3pm (EST)

Location: Zoom

For more information about our 2023 Summer Institute, visit our page here. 

Peter C. Valenti has been teaching Global Studies and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies since 1999, over 13 at NYU. His focus on curriculum has extended into secondary education, including teaching graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East & Islam in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, running Kevorkian's annual summer institute for K-12 teachers, and participating in various teaching workshops at NYU and high schools in the NY-NJ metro area. His academic specialization is in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, as well as pursuing research in sociocultural dynamics in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. In addition to his academic work and publications, Valenti has worked in a variety of editorial and media positions, contributing to the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and World Press Review.

For lectures, resources, and more information about the 2021 Institute, please visit the website here.

Abstract: This institute will dive into issues that affect young people in the Middle East and Latin America. At a moment when political change in both regions greatly impacts the experiences of young people and media technologies are increasingly globalized to allow greater cultural and political connections across and through these regions, there is a burgeoning opportunity for educators to connect experiences in their classrooms with children from around the world. The institute will draw on the burgeoning fields of youth studies in these two regions and on the increasing availability of youth and children-focused media and literature to introduce and enhance teacher’s engagement with youth culture in these two regions so that they can better globalize their classrooms. Teachers will get the opportunity to engage with and hear from scholars whose work analyzes youth culture and politics in historical and contemporary settings, as well as award-winning authors of children’s and young adult literature from both regions. Teachers will work synchronously and asynchronously on group projects that will serve as incubators for in-class activities on issues addressed in the institute, and will receive a bounty of scholarly resources to buttress their curricular planning and assessment. 

Format: The Institute will be presented in a fully online format. Teachers will be asked to watch two pre-recorded lectures (roughly one hour each), every week, and attend 1.5 hour synchronous zoom meetings every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in July. Tuesday and Wednesday Sessions will be centered on discussion with the guest speakers for the week and Thursday Sessions will be centered on small group discussions related to ongoing group projects. 

Topics: Themes addressed in the Institute may include: 

• Revolution/Protest

• YA/Children’s literature/Storytelling

• Histories of childhood

• Immigration

• Disability

   

   

Peter C. Valenti has been teaching in the field of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies since 1999, over ten of those years here at NYU, including graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU Steinhardt. He has specialized in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, as well as pursuing research in state-building in Iraq, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. As part of his professional career he has lived and conducted research in a variety of countries throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.  In addition to his academic work, Valenti has worked in a variety of editorial and media positions, contributing to the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR and World Press Review.

For lectures, resources, and more information about the 2020 Institute, please visit the website here.

Presented by the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies & the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU.

It may be common to hear in popular media that we are now living in "unprecedented times" but in reality we are experiencing something that was quite common for millennia.  As a matter of fact, pandemics were part of the regular rhythm of life for most people around the world, and perhaps the only thing that is "unprecedented" today was our expectation that we were post-pandemic.

Realizing this fact does not, however, give comfort or encouragement to our students who are living through a bewildering and challenging moment in history.  Not only are we grappling with the disruptive effects of this situation as pedagogues but we should also aim to inform, prepare, and challenge our students in order to strengthen them in dealing with the days and months ahead.

Thus the purpose of this summer institute, indeed "unprecedented" is an appropriate term, is to provide through a month-long virtual format some of the tools and content that will be useful for teachers in designing engaging curricula for students in the age of Covid-19.  How might historical incidences of plague in the Mediterranean and Middle East underscore the continued impact of global trade networks?  How have colonial legacies in Latin America impacted the infrastructural and governmental capabilities in dealing with disease?  What is the role of xenophobia towards and neglect of vulnerable populations, whether Middle Eastern refugee groups or indigenous communities in Latin America, in magnifying the intensity and probability of the spread of disease?  What can we learn from cultural or "traditional" health practices of these communities in preventing the spread of disease?

The institute's sessions will address important theoretical approaches to terms such as "disease," "pandemic," "public health," and "quarantine."  Specialists will be presenting on their expertise drawn from a variety of fields, such as area studies, history, medical anthropology, political science, humanitarianism and human rights studies. Through a comparative approach that utilizes Latin America and the Middle East as two specific case studies, though with constant connections, influences, and impacts from/to the wider globe, we will explore both historical episodes of disease as well as the contemporary.

Peter C. Valenti has been teaching in the field of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies since 1999, over ten of those years here at NYU, including graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU Steinhardt. He has specialized in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, as well as pursuing research in state-building in Iraq, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. As part of his professional career he has lived and conducted research in a variety of countries throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.  In addition to his academic work, Valenti has worked in a variety of editorial and media positions, contributing to the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR and World Press Review.

This year's Kevorkian Summer Institute for Teachers, co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, focused on the topics of commodity production, networks of trade, and political power in the Middle East and Latin America. Both historical and contemporary in nature, the institute tackled broader themes of imperialism, state-formation, labor, modern culture, and global capitalism by tracing commodities that are produced and traded in these regions. Doing so facilitates a transnational understanding of how these regions and societies evolved. Rather than seeing these geographically disparate regions as separate from one another, a multi-sited and multi-scalar analysis of commodities will uncover the interconnections between Latin America and the Middle East.

Peter C. Valenti has been teaching in the field of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies since 1999, over ten of those years here at NYU, including graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU Steinhardt. He has specialized in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, as well as pursuing research in state-building in Iraq, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. As part of his professional career he has lived and conducted research in a variety of countries throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.  In addition to his academic work, Valenti has worked in a variety of editorial and media positions, contributing to the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR and World Press Review.