These weeklong seminars cover major topics in American history (e.g., Civil War, American Revolution, Civil Rights Movement, Cold War, etc.) and are offered at universities around the country. This year, one will be held right here in Montana, at UM: "Lewis and Clark: An American Epic," led by Professor Elliot West.
"The seminar will be based at the University of Montana in Missoula, close to where the Corps began its crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains. Teachers will visit some of the sites of the journey and will follow part of its route during one of the expedition’s most critical and harrowing passages. The seminar will pay particular attention to encounters with Indian peoples and their accounts of those meetings, exploring how Lewis and Clark and their Indian counterparts regarded (and often misunderstood) one another. With the help of several guest speakers we will study Lewis and Clark’s contributions—to science, exploration, and diplomacy—as well as their failures. More broadly, we will look at the expedition as the convergence of peoples at a time of great global change, explore some of the many native cultures in western North America, and see this famous national event in the context of global exploration. And we will consider what the expedition can tell us about America at the opening of the nineteenth century—its values and aspirations, the goals of its leaders as they looked westward, the perceptions of native peoples and their place in the expanding nation, and the emerging vision of an empire reaching from sea to sea."
Participants will reimbursed for travel expenses up to $400 upon completion of the seminar. Graduate credits are available.
Find application information here.
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