Apply Now for NEH Summer Institute on the Federal Writers’ Project

From June 29th to July 18th, 2026, the National Endowment for the Humanities, in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY), will hold a three-week Summer Institute for Higher Education Faculty to study the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), its origins, writers, documents, and methodologies through the lens of the 21st century classroom.

The purpose of the institute is to develop a pedagogical framework for bringing FWP materials and resources to college students across disciplines and local libraries, community centers, and other public venues. The institute will offer participants the unprecedented opportunity to collaborate on archival research, curricula, and public humanities programs that critically engage this extraordinary New Deal program.

Twenty-five selected participants, including tenured, tenure-track, and adjunct faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars will attend roundtables, small-group discussions, and presentations online in the first and third weeks of the program and will travel to Washington D.C. in the second week to perform original guided research in the archives of the Library of Congress, where the majority of FWP documents are housed. The program will be led by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, educators, and documentarians, including historians, literary scholars, folklorists, oral historians, and filmmakers, who will guide participants in pursuit of research and tangible outcomes that may include curricula, publications, digital humanities projects, and other scholarly and/or pedagogical products.

Applicants from HBCUs, HSIs, and tribal colleges will be strongly encouraged to apply.

Applications are due March 6, 2026.