Contact: Sheryl Hayes
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
PH: 434-924-6562
Email: sheryl@virginia.edu
April 22, 2010
For Immediate Release
VFH and UVA Arts & Sciences Collaborate to
Present South Atlantic Studies Forum
Public Invited
Charlottesville, VA—The first South Atlantic Studies Forum will take place on Wed., April 28, in Newcomb Hall Art Gallery, from 12:30 to 5 p.m. The forum will feature panel presentations by 10 Ph.D. candidates at the University of Virginia, all of them writing dissertations within the broad area of South Atlantic studies. This event is the culmination of the Public Humanities Program in South Atlantic Studies, a new joint initiative sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and UVa's College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The initiative grows out of the VFH-UVa collaboration on the South Atlantic Humanities Project.
The South Atlantic Fellows represent a variety of different disciplines: history, politics, English, Spanish literature, anthropology, and art history. During the seminar leading up to the South Atlantic Studies Forum, they heard guest talks by resident Fellows at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. These VFH Fellows, some of whom are writing books within South Atlantic studies, discussed their own research and shared writing strategies. Seminar director Hilary Holladay of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities advised the student participants on writing for audiences beyond their own disciplines and led them in workshop discussions of their papers. The South Atlantic Fellows also received $1500 each from UVa in support of their dissertation research.
During the inaugural Forum, the South Atlantic Fellows will present papers as part of three panels: "Creating Communities," "Bounding Borderlands," and "Plantation Legacies of the South Atlantic." Topics include History Ph.D. candidate Scott Spencer's “Robert Baden-Powell and the Bonds between the South African Constabulary and the Boy Scouts,” Politics Ph.D. candidate Ana Alves's “Interstate Violence in Latin America: Two Puzzles,” English Ph.D. candidate Steve Knepper's “Southern Studies and the Agricultural Legacy of the Plantation,” and Art History Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Elliott's "Constructing Cherokee Plantations." The forum will conclude with a keynote lecture by Dr. Claudrena Harold, assistant professor of history at UVa. Her 4 p.m. talk is titled “From South Carolina to Johannesburg: Cultural and Political Articulations of the Global South in the Black Radical Imagination.”
For the Forum program and a list of the 2010 Public Humanities Fellows in South Atlantic Studies, visit www.virginiafoundation.org/research/fellowships. The Forum is free and open to the public. Hourly parking is available in the Central Grounds Garage on Emmett St. UVa’s Newcomb Hall is located at the fourth level of the parking garage.
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is a non-profit educational organization, created in 1974. VFH is a catalyst for the cultural, civic, artistic, and educational vitality of the Commonwealth whose purpose is to understand the past and confront issues in the present, in order to help shape a more promising future. VFH seeks to discover and share untold stories, encourage lifelong learning, and promote civil discourse.
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“Virginia Foundation for the Humanities -- Shaping our Common Story”