In collaboration with the Blavatnik Archive, a new free, hands-on curriculum-writing fellowship invites K-14 educators to explore powerful visual propaganda from the twentieth century and transform what they learn into dynamic classroom curriculum.
The theme of the 2026-2027 fellowship is Reading Visual Propaganda. The program will feature a six-part webinar series examining a wide range of primarily visual propaganda materials from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Through expert-led sessions, participants will analyze how propaganda functioned in its historical context and how it shaped and reflected social attitudes and lived experiences. The series will explore how visual media was used by the state to influence public perception, promote policies, and construct narratives about everyday life. Topics will include antisemitism, the gap between lived experience and official representations, propagandistic tropes in everyday objects, propaganda during the Second World War and the Cold War, and the challenges of defining propaganda as a concept. Participants will engage with a diverse set of primary sources, including posters, postcards, letters, newspaper illustrations, and photographs.
Fellows will receive access to curated educational resources drawn from the Blavatnik Archive, as well as guidance from subject-matter experts, to support the development of a unit plan tailored to their classroom needs. Educators who complete the fellowship will receive 20 PDPs (contact hours).
Application for the 2026-2027 fellowship is now OPEN. Application deadline is June 1, 2026.
This fellowship is a collaboration between the Blavatnik Archive, the Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Cohen Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at the Ohio State University, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies at the University of Kansas, the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University, the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
For more information, contact CREECA Assistant Director Sara Lomasz Flesch at lomaszflesch@wisc.edu.
Pictured above: Motivational postcard with an illustration by P. Mal’tsev: “Komsomol member, be a hero of the Great Patriotic War!,” 1942
Credit: Blavatnik Archive