Events

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 exihibit, 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.