Plant Humanities Virtual Faculty Residencies

The Plant Humanities Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks invites applications for two-week virtual faculty residencies in June 2023. The residencies are designed to facilitate the integration of the  Plant Humanities Lab, and associated resources developed by the Plant Humanities Initiative, into curricula related to plants and people. We welcome applications from teachers at two- and four-year colleges and universities who are interested in integrating primary and digital sources on plants into their teaching. Participants will receive a stipend of $800 for their participation.

The residency will take place over two weeks with virtual seminars and workshops from June 5–16. The total time commitment for the seminars will be approximately 20 – 24 hours. During the program, participants will attend group demos and seminars as well as an individual session with the Plant Humanities team to workshop a module or syllabus that incorporates the Plant Humanities Lab and related sources.

Applicants are invited to submit a résumé and one-page statement of interest and description of their teaching needs through Embark by March 17, 2023. Participants will be notified by early April.

More Information

The Plant Humanities Lab is an innovative digital space that supports the interdisciplinary study of plants from the various perspectives of the arts, sciences, and humanities. In its current first phase, the site contains 15 visual essays on plants with rich cultural histories that can be used to introduce students to different perspectives on plant-human interactions, from economic, medicinal, and ornamental uses to the role of indigenous knowledges and colonial botany. The visual essay tool demonstrates how primary sources (such as herbarium specimens and botanical illustrations) can be integrated within narratives that also draw on large databases such as JSTOR and the Biodiversity Heritage Library to tell complex and engaging stories about plants. Students can use the Lab’s search interface to mine these digital repositories for information, and the visual essay tool to create their own narratives and presentations.

The residency will include an asynchronous component of recorded demos explaining the functionality of the Plant Humanities Lab, followed by a week of synchronous seminars and information sessions. During the asynchronous component of the residency, June 5-6, participants will familiarize themselves with digital resources developed for the Plant Humanities Lab in their own time. During the synchronous period, June 7-16, participants will be introduced to case studies of how the Lab can be integrated into specific teaching modules (e.g., on plants and empire, plants and evolution, food and culture, plants in art) and the basic digital skills required to create a visual essay using Juncture, the open-access essay tool developed by our collaborators at JSTOR Labs. Participants will also be introduced to bibliographic and digital resources that support the study of plants. The residency will include a forum where faculty will share information about their teaching and classroom needs and discuss ways to integrate the Plant Humanities Lab and related resources into their curriculum. For us, this will be a valuable opportunity to receive feedback from faculty on how we can improve and develop this digital platform.

Past Participants