Events

On Tuesday, October 3, at 4:30 p.m. in Naylor Auditorium, historian Rachel Martin will speak about the nation’s first school desegregation crisis. In 1956 Anderson County, Tennessee became the first southern school district to desegregate in response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. National media, and a bizarre cast of outside agitators, converged on the small East Tennessee community as 12 Black students enrolled in Clinton High School and the white community responded--at first calmly, then violently. Rachel Martin—who holds a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina and also studied nonfiction writing at the Sewanee School of Letters—has interviewed the survivors of the experience and tells their stories in her new book, A Most Tolerant Little Town. Named by both the New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution an essential book for the summer just past, Martin’s book was also named among the “Best Books of 2023” by The New Yorker. “Rachel Martin’s masterful narrative will stir and break your heart,” says Putlitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch. A native Tennessean, Martin is also the author of Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story. Her talk is sponsored by the Mellon-funded Center for Southern Studies, the Roberson Project, and the University Lectures Committee, and is open to all. 

On January 19-21, 2023, the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race and Reconciliation and the Center for Southern Studies at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee hosted a three-part colloquium of scholars, writers, musicians, and activists whose work engages the significance of unfree labor in the development of the U.S. South after emancipation. Participants brought together insights from many disciplines and professional fields to illuminate both the history of post-slavery unfree labor and the ways this history lives on in the present: how carceral and labor systems improvised after the Civil War have survived, both in the physical and economic infrastructure we inhabit and the practices we continue to tolerate.

Ely Green (1893-1968) came of age as a biracial youth on the domain of the University of the South at the turn of the twentieth century. His autobiography gives a sweeping, first-hand account of Sewanee life during the Jim Crow Era, but does the book tell the whole story?

Dr. Hannah Huber (Southern Studies) and Cliff Whitfield (Roberson Project) discussed the Ely Green Digital Variorum. This digital humanities project un-edits Green's published work in a digital archive by comparing the published versions to the original, unedited manuscript. Dr. Huber's spring 2023 course is centered on the project. Students will think critically about print history and authorship, learn skills in digital archiving and textual encoding, and contribute to the digital variorum. The event was sponsored by the Center for Southern Studies and the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation.

Dr. Marquese Carter's lecture, held February 10, 2022, introduced the varied musical language present in select vocal works of Florence Price (1887-1953), the groundbreaking Black American composer. Dr. Carter discussed Price's significant art song repertoire, addressed frequent performance issues, and discussed common questions in assigning repertoire by Black composers. A tenor, Dr. Carter is president of the International Florence Price Festival and assistant professor of Music at Murray State University in Murray, KY. This lecture was sponsored by the Center for Southern Studies, the Department of Music, and the Center for Teaching.

This virtual lecture was led by Dr. Jada Watson, musicologist and digital humanities specialist at the University of Ottawa, CA, and discussed the status of gender representation in the American country music industry. Examining data from country format radio, Billboard charts, and professional awards, Dr. Watson highlighted challenges and possibilities for inclusion in the Nashville-based industry and beyond. The event was sponsored by the Center for Southern Studies, the Department of Music, and the Center for Teaching. It was held via Zoom on March 18, 2021. To request access to the recording, email Hannah Huber at hlhuber@sewanee.edu. 

Lecture by Dr. V. Camille Westmont, Visiting Assistant Professor and Southern Studies Fellow, held February 25, 2021. In her talk, Westmont discusses the history of convict labor in Southern Middle Tennessee and her work on the Lone Rock Stockade Project.

Hosted by the University’s Center for Southern Studies and held Dec. 1, 2020, this virtual session assisted faculty interested in applying for financial support for course and research development relevant to the study of the U.S. South. The Center’s new digital humanities specialist Hannah Huber detailed her efforts to aid faculty in thinking about how digital humanities can enable new Southern Studies in research and teaching. The event also featured an overview of digital tools and methods presented by the Center’s Fall 2020 digital humanities consultant Alasdair Ekpenyong, a graduate student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. Contact Hannah Huber at hlhuber@sewanee.edu to request a link to the recorded session.

Ketch Secor, songwriter of “Wagon Wheel” and frontman for the Grammy-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show, is in residence at the University, January 13–17, 27–31, and February 10–14. He leads masterclasses with student songwriters and bands, and meets with a number of University classes. He also speaks at St. Andrew’s–Sewanee School and, at John and Bonnie McCardell’s invitation, offers a presentation February 13 for the “Evenings at Chen Hall.” In addition to mentoring students, Ketch is composing during his residency a cantata based on the story of Sarah Cannon, the Tennessee native who originated the character of Minnie Pearl for the Grand Ole Opry. Ketch and Old Crow have been members of the Opry since 2013.

The exhibit, which took place Aug. 28-Oct. 13, 2019, featured pieces of the story of quilting and the community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, beginning in the nineteenth century with the enslaved persons on Joseph Gee’s plantation. It stretches through the desperation of the Great Depression and the struggles of the Civil Rights movement. Events included a panel discussion with Gee’s Bend quilter Louisiana P. Bendolph, Tennessee Williams Playwright-in-Residence Elyzabeth Wilder, and Associate Professor Jessica Wohl, an on-campus sewing circle, and a student reading of Elyzabeth Wilder’s acclaimed play Gee’s Bend.

In a Sept. 23, 2019 lecture, Richard Cellini of the Georgetown Memory Project examines the complicity of American universities in the antebellum slave economy, and its implications for members of these university communities today. Introduction by University of South History Professor Woody Register.

Kiese Laymon, professor in English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi, returned to Sewanee to act as writer-in-residence the week of September 5-10, 2018. Events include a reading from Laymon's latest novel, Heavy: An American Memoir, a panel in “Southern Writing in the 21st Century,” and a workshop led by Laymon to help students understand voice in writing.