Summer 2022 Programs
2022 Mystic Seaport Museum Internships
The summer internship program at Mystic Seaport Museum is for graduate and undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career in public humanities, anthropology, Native American, African, or African American Studies, Queer Studies, museum education or other museum studies, maritime studies, or other related fields. The summer internship program is funded by the Mellon Foundation and centers on the theme Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom.
Black and Indigenous Summer Institute
Black and Indigenous Summer Institute is a two-week immersive enrichment program for students who are juniors or seniors in high school and who are Native American/African/African American/Afro-Indigenous. Participating students gain exposure to a simulated college experience, learn to conduct scholarly research, have access to renowned collections, make connections to scholars and community leaders, and have an opportunity to meet and collaborate with peers throughout New England to develop plans, strategies, or programs that enrich communities and seek more Just Futures. The Summer Institute is sponsored by The Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and Tomaquag Museum.
Stolen Relations Summer Institute
For the second time in two years, Lydia Curliss (Nipmuc; PhD student at the University of Maryland) and Linford Fisher (Associate Professor of History at Brown University) led a four-session long summer institute for regional Indigenous tribal members on settler colonialism, Indigenous enslavement, and digital humanities. Out of forty applicants, eight participants from five Indigenous nations: Narragansett, Nipmuc, Shinnecock, Mashantucket Pequot, and Navajo we selected.
The four sessions–all of which were convened in June–covered a variety of topics, including decolonization, digital humanities, the history of Indigenous enslavement, and the longer meanings of enslavement and loss over time among present day communities. Participants also were tasked with a final project that engaged the Stolen Relations project and related themes. Two participants received training in entering historical documents and information into the database. Others chose to write blog-style posts reflecting on their experiences and their own relationship with these histories. Participants gave short presentations at a final session in late July.
The 2022 Frank C. Munson Institute at Mystic Seaport Museum
During the summer of 2022, the Munson Institute was part of the Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty, and Freedom project. The Frank C. Munson Institute at Mystic Seaport Museum, in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice at Brown University and Williams College, held classes at Mystic Seaport to interrogate the region’s past. The history and legacies of settler colonialism, racial slavery, servitude, dispossession, Indigenous resistance, and African-American strategies for fashioning pursuits of freedom were considered. A distinctive feature of this summer program was the framing of these topics within the context of New England’s maritime setting, an environment that fostered interaction, mobility, and exploitation.
Photo Credit- 2022 Munson Fellow, Marina Wells