Berber North Africa: The Hidden Mediterranean Culture

FAIN: EH-50114-06

Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR 97331-8655)
Joseph Krause (Project Director: March 2006 to September 2008)

A four-week institute for twenty-four college and university teachers on the cultural origins and contemporary cultures of the Berber people.

The proposed NEH Summer Institute will focus on the cultural origins and contemporary distinctiveness of the Berbers, the rootstock people of North Africa. The Institute will be held at Oregon State University in June-July, 2007 and will bring together eight guest lecturers and twenty-four participants over four weeks. Numbering approximately 25 million people today, the Berbers have often been eclipsed by different waves of colonization from the Phoenician to the French. The Institute will give university teachers and scholars the opportunity to study the cultural attributes of the Berbers and integrate them into their courses and research. Representing a major part of the Arab sphere, the Berber world warrants consideration today by US academics.