Normandy Scholars: Global History and Memory of World War II is a selective interdisciplinary program open to undergraduate students from all majors at the University of Tennessee. The goal is to study the legacies of World War II and other conflicts through the lens of memory studies, a discipline that examines how social, cultural, political, and technological shifts affect the ways societies react to and commemorate past conflicts in their national histories. The program includes a 3-hour Spring semester seminar class and a May mini-session study-abroad trip to relevant sites in Europe. All students receive a scholarship to help cover the cost of the mini-session study tour.

Why “Normandy Scholars”?

The beaches of Normandy are an enduring icon of World War II. They exemplify how memory becomes linked to places and sites, as well as how those links change over time. Normandy Scholars participants venture beyond the beach to discover sites of memory related to WWII across Europe. But our program name recalls the urgent questions that those beaches still represent: How do we remember the Second World War? What has been forgotten? And what do we still have to learn?

Normandy Scholars is back in 2023-2024! Applications are open now through Oct. 6 in the VolsAbroad Portal. Please visit our Student Application page for more information. Contact the Executive Director, Matthew Brauer, with any questions.