Matthew Spangler, a professor of Performance and Communications Studies, and David Kahn, a professor and chair of TV, Radio, Film, & Theatre, received a grant for $168,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The grant will allow Spangler and Kahn to put on a two-week summer institute for 25 school teachers that will explore the immigrant experience in California through literary works and theatrical adaptations. Previous institute faculty included Luis Valdez, playwright and author of “Zoot Suit,” Maxine Hong Kingston, author of “Woman Warrior,” and many others. The institute explores ways in which the immigrant experience to the United States, and California, in particular, has been represented through literary texts. the topics include: (1) the construction of political borders between geographic territories and social borders between groups of people; (2) intercultural interaction between settled and immigrant communities; (3) changing family and gender dynamics within discrete immigrant communities. Participants will explore these topics as they pertain to emigration from Mexico, China, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Scholars from the 2014 “The California Immigrant Experience through Literature and Theatre” program pose for a photo.

Entitled “The California Immigrant Experience through Literature and Theatre,” the institute will be held July 17-31, 2016. Applications are available online for qualifying K-12 teachers.

For more information, visit the Immigration Theatre Institute website.