Engaging the Humanities Across Appalachia

FAIN: AK-255299-17

Berea College (Berea, KY 40403-1516)
Jason Elliot Cohen (Project Director: October 2016 to October 2022)

The development of four undergraduate courses on digital approaches to presenting and preserving history, using the Pine Mountain Settlement School archives.

This grant funds the development of a four-course sequence centered on digital and computational approaches to the central humanities question of how to present and preserve history through archival studies. The courses in English, Computer Science, and Art History are connected additionally with colleagues in Special Collections and Archives alongside an institutional partner, the storied Pine Mountain Settlement School. Pine Mountain’s unique archives provide the common basis for a curriculum that emphasizes Appalachian cultural preservation, public resource access in an economically distressed environment, and student training for a digitally enabled marketplace. Finally, the grant extends its reach even beyond the classroom and beyond the funding period by using service-learning to develop educational resources aimed at helping younger Harlan County citizens thrive in a post-coal economy.