MESDA Summer Institute: House and Home in the Early Chesapeake
July 11 – August 6, 2010
The MESDA Summer Institute provides the opportunity to analyze and investigate the material culture and decorative arts of the early South. The 2010 Institute emphasizes the material culture of the Chesapeake, including the Piedmont and tidewater regions of Maryland, Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina. The program curriculum includes lectures, discussions, workshops, artifact studies, research projects, and study trips.
The University of Virginia Visiting Scholar for the 2010 Summer Institute is Gretchen Buggeln. Dr. Buggeln is Associate Professor, Humanities and American Studies, Director of American Studies, and Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Professor of Christianity and the Arts at Christ College, Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, Indiana). Dr. Buggeln earned her BA in history from Dartmouth College, her MA from the University of Delaware and the PhD in American Studies from Yale University. Before coming to Valparaiso she taught at the Winterthur Museum/University of Delaware MA Program in Early American Culture and at Miami University of Ohio. Her scholarly interests include American architecture and material culture, museums, and American religious history. Buggeln is the author of Temples of Grace: The Transformation of Connecticut's Churches, 1790-1840 (2003), which received the 2005 Cummings Prize from the Vernacular Architecture Forum and the First Book Prize from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. Her current book project is titled "Churches for Today: Modernism and Suburban Expansion in Post-WWII America," a study of the ubiquitous modern-style churches of the Midwestern suburbs.
Three hours of graduate credit are awarded through the University of Virginia’s Graduate Program in the History of Art and Architecture. Graduate students in the fields of American history, material culture, museum studies, historic preservation, and related fields, and professionals in the museum, education, or related fields are encouraged to apply. Application materials will be availible in the near future.
The focus of the MESDA Summer Institute rotates between the three regions of the MESDA South: the Chesapeake (2010, then 2013), Lowcountry (next in 2011), and the Backcountry (next in 2012).
Download an application for the 2010 MESDA Summer Institute (PDF) (DOC)
For further information please contact Sally Gant, Director of Education Programs (MESDAEducation@oldsalem.org or call 336-721-7360)
