Castro receives National Recognition as NEH Summer Scholar

NEH logo and photo of Joy Castro

May 8, 2019 by National Endowment for the Humanities

Joy Castro, Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of 20 summer seminars and institutes supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH is a federal agency that, each summer, supports these enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, so faculty can work in collaboration and study with experts in humanities disciplines.

A writer of novels, essays, and film and literary criticism who teaches literature, creative writing, and Latinx studies at UNL, Castro will participate in an Institute titled “José Martí and the Immigrant Communities of Florida in Cuban Independence and the Dawn of the American Century.” The 4-week program will be held at the historic campus of The University of Tampa and directed by Center for José Martí Studies Affiliate.

The 30 teachers selected to participate in the program each receive a stipend of $3,300 to cover their travel, study, and living expenses.

Topics for the 10 seminars and institutes offered for college and university teachers this summer include:

  • Colonial Experiences and Their Legacies in Southeast Asia
  • José Martí and the Immigrant Communities of Florida in Cuban Independence and the Dawn of the American Century
  • Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Chicago, 1893-1955
  • Material Maps in the Digital Age
  • Museums: Humanities in the Public Sphere
  • Philosophical Responses to Empiricism in Kant, Hegel, and Sellars
  • Privilege and Prejudice: Jewish History in the American South
  • Religion, Secularism, and the Novel
  • Writing and Democracy in Western New York: Situating Tocqueville, Stanton, Cooper, and Douglass

The approximately 222 NEH Summer Scholars who participate in these programs of study will teach over 29,000 American students the following year.