In more ways than one, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro stands on the verge of the Atlantic World. Poised in the Piedmont, we look out toward an Atlantic Rim that has shaped our past, enriches our present, and is likely to define our future. Our history and identity have been made largely by the crossing of Atlantic waters, often freely, though sometimes not. As the peoples and civilizations of Europe, Africa, and the Americas have encountered, collided, and combined, we have created one of the world’s first truly global cultures—and one that remains hotly contested.
Now, building on the success of more than a dozen Atlantic World Conferences and our many ongoing Atlantic World initiatives, and supported by UNCG’s Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Atlantic World Research Network provides leadership in circum-Atlantic studies not only at UNCG and around our region, but around the Atlantic Rim and beyond. Celebrating UNCG’s consortium memberships in The Folger Institute on Capitol Hill in Washington and The American Shakespeare Center in Virginia, as well as our work with the international George Herbert Society, this interdisciplinary network embraces and fosters Atlantic World research, teaching, and creative work. First we reach across campus—in the Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Social Sciences, and across the Academic Units: in the Schools of Business, Education, Health and Human Performance, Human Environmental Sciences, Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, and Nursing, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and in the Library and the Lloyd International Honors College. And through our sponsored speakers, lunchtime colloquia, and curricular development, our graduate student research grants, publications, grant-writing, readings and exhibitions, and international conferences we reach across our community, state, region, and nation; and ultimately across the seas, bringing the Atlantic World home to UNCG, and UNCG around the world.
