The Summersell Center for the Study of the South is pleased to announce that the following individuals have been awarded short-term research fellowships for work to be conducted in the libraries and collections of the University of Alabama during the upcoming calendar year:

L. Bao Bui, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: “‘I Feel Impelled to Write’: Social Networking and the Culture of Letter Writing during the Civil War”

Jennifer D. Jones, Princeton University, “‘To Resort More Easily to Sexual Perversion’: Homosexuality and the Politics of Racial Empowerment in the South, 1940-1970″

Robert C. Poister, University of Georgia: “Dinner at the Hotel Cubano: Reinterpreting the Lives and Legacies of Confederate Exiles in the American Sugar Kingdom”

John P. Riley, Binghamton University: “Adjoining Spheres: Fatherhood and the Family in Victorian America”

The Summersell Center is happy to announce that it now has its own section on the University of Alabama’s itunesU channel. Using itunes, connect to itunesU, locate the University’s channel, and you can begin watching or hearing talks, presentations, and other Summersell events that you either missed or that were so spectacular that you want to revisit them again and again! Keep coming back. We’ll be adding new content as it becomes available.

To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the collections housed at the University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South will offer four fellowships in the amount of $500 each for researchers whose projects entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library (http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/), the A.S. Williams III Americana Collection (http://www.lib.ua.edu/williamscollection), or in other University of Alabama collections.

Applicants should send two copies of:

• A current CV
• One letter of recommendation (which may be sent under separate cover)
• A description of the research project, no longer than two double-spaced pages, which includes a description of the particular resources to be used during the term of the fellowship

The deadline for applications to be received by the Summersell Center is March 22, 2013. Decisions regarding awards will be made by May 1, 2013, and research may be conducted anytime between June 1, 2013 and May 31, 2014. Both academic and non-academic researchers at any stage of their careers are encouraged to apply. Because fellowships are designed primarily to help defray travel and lodging expenses, however, eligibility is restricted to researchers living outside the Tuscaloosa area.

Send all application materials to:

Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South
Department of History
University of Alabama
Box 870212
202 ten Hoor Hall
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487

Any questions about the fellowships may be directed to Joshua Rothman, Director of the Summersell Center, at jrothman@bama.ua.edu or 205.348.3818.

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South is pleased to announce the winner of our first biennial Deep South Book Prize is James C. Giesen, for his book, Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton, Myth, and Power in the American South (Chicago). In demonstrating how the supposed agricultural crisis created by the boll weevil’s infiltration of southern cotton was a product of culture and imagination as much as actual crop damage, Giesen’s work is a stunning example of how sometimes much of what we think we know about a subject is just flat wrong. It also reveals more complex and compelling truths. Our hearty congratulations to Mr. Giesen, who is assistant professor of history at Mississippi State University and director of the Center for the History of Agriculture, Science, and the Environment in the South.

Receiving honorable mentions from the Summersell Center are four additional books, each of which provided the book prize committee with hard choices and each of which is deserving of praise in its own right. They are, in alphabetical order:

Wayne Flynt, Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives. A Memoir (Alabama)

Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (Vintage)

Justin A. Nystrom, New Orleans after the Civil War: Race, Politics, and a New Birth of Freedom (Johns Hopkins)

Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848-1865 (Oxford)

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South is pleased to announce the recipients of its short-term research fellowships for 2012-2013. Recipients were chosen from nearly three dozen applications submitted by scholars from the United States, Europe, and Australia, and each will receive an award of $500 to be used to pursue their research on the University of Alabama campus. Fellowship winners and their projects are listed below.

Marcia Chatelain, Assistant Professor of History, Georgetown University: “A Taste of Freedom: Dining Culture and the African-American Struggle for Civil Rights”

Matthew Hulbert, doctoral candidate in history, University of Georgia: “Civil War Memory and Guerrilla Warfare in the South, 1870-Present”

Robert Shapard, doctoral candidate in history, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: “A Prospect of Beauty: Decline and Discourse in the Great Southern Longleaf Forests”

Joseph Thompson, graduate student in southern studies, University of Mississippi: “‘O I’m a Good Old Rebel’: Race, Memory, and Identity in Post-Civil War Popular Song”

The University of Alabama Libraries and the College of Arts and Sciences are pleased to announce the appointment of Frances “Franky” Abbott to the position of Post-Doctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities, a dual appointment in the University Libraries and the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, in the Department of History.  Ms Abbott is completing her doctoral work at Emory University’s Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts.  Her dissertation is entitled Black Migration to Atlanta: Popular Representation and Metropolitan Space, 1990-2011.

In this position, Ms Abbott will be focusing on continuing her research and expanding the outreach of the Alabama Digital Humanities Center, established in 2010 to support faculty digital research in the arts and humanities. She will bring to campus visiting experts in the digital humanities, consult with faculty on specific projects, plan and lead discussions and training workshops, engage faculty and graduate students in the use of digital technology in research and pedagogy.

We are delighted to have Ms. Abbott join us here at the university and look forward to working with her to advance the digital humanities and the study of the South at the University of Alabama.  She will begin her fellowship in early June.

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South is proud to cosponsor a number of exciting events upcoming early in April 2012:

1. On April 5, James Loewen, bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, will be speaking on the subject of “Sundown Towns: Racial Exclusion in the South.” Professor Loewen’s talk is free and open to the public, and will take place at 6 pm in Smith Hall 205 on the University of Alabama campus.

2. Also on April 5, Patterson Hood, lead singer of the band Drive-By Truckers, will be participating in a public conversation with NPR music critic Ann Powers and University of Alabama American Studies professor Eric Weisbard. This event will begin at 7:30 pm and will take place in the recital hall of the Moody Music Building on the University of Alabama campus.

3. On April 10, the Emmy-nominated short film, “A Village Called Versailles” will be screening at the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa. Chronicling the efforts of a Vietnamese-American community to rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the film will show at 7 pm. It will be preceded by a reception at 6 pm and followed by a question-and-answer session with the film’s producer and director S. Leo Chiang. This event is free and open to the public.

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South is proud to cosponsor the “Tuscaloosa Get Up” concert featuring Lee III and the Glory Fires, The Dexateens, and The Alabama Shakes on Friday, March 23, at 8 pm at the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa. In conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, all proceeds from the show will go toward rebuilding a home for a family displaced by the tornado that ripped through Tuscaloosa last April 27. For more information, click here.

To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the collections housed at the University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South will offer four fellowships in the amount of $500 each for researchers whose projects entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library (http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/), the A.S. Williams III Americana Collection (http://www.lib.ua.edu/williamscollection), or in other University of Alabama collections.

Applicants should send two copies of

• A current CV
• One letter of recommendation (which may be sent under separate cover)
• A description of the research project, no longer than two double-spaced pages, which includes a description of the particular resources to be used during the term of the fellowship

The deadline for applications to be received by the Summersell Center is March 16, 2012. Decisions regarding awards will be made by May 1, 2012, and research may be conducted anytime between June 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013. Both academic and non-academic researchers at any stage of their careers are encouraged to apply. Because fellowships are designed primarily to help defray travel and lodging expenses, however, eligibility is restricted to researchers living outside the Tuscaloosa area.

Send all application materials to:
Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South
Department of History
University of Alabama
Box 870212, 202 ten Hoor Hall
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487

Any questions about the fellowships may be directed to Joshua Rothman, Director of the Summersell Center, at jrothman@bama.ua.edu or 205.348.3818.

On November 3-4, 2011, the University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences, the History Department, and the Paul W. Bryant Museum will host “Black and White in Crimson,” a symposium on race and sports at the university. Events will be held at the Bryant Conference Center, and speakers will include several former athletes and coaches. See the poster link for more information.