Tag: John Giggie


Summersell Center Partners with Elmore County Black History Museum

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South’s (SCSS) spring semester has produced new research for its lynching research initiative, the Alabama Memory Project. Eighteen undergraduate researchers are working to document the lives of the thirty known victims of lynching in Elmore County, Alabama, attempting to reconstruct the entirety of the victims’ lives, not just their end. The course is co-taught by SCSS Director Dr. John Giggie and MA student Jana Venable, the current Vivian Malone Fellow and an […]

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The Summersell Scholars Program

The Summersell Scholars Program is a leadership initiative that offers both undergraduate and graduate students the chance to develop new community history programs as well as work in existing ones, enabling them to lead ongoing programs and perform high-level historical research. Scholars share their experiences with each other through a weekly seminar class and the creation of structured reflections on their research. The Spring 2023 Summersell Scholars are Brooklyn Coleman, Molly Elliott, Gavin Jones, and Carson Silas. One current project […]

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MA Student Jana Venable Named Vivian Malone Fellow

MA student Jana Venable began working with the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South as an undergraduate in January 2020, when she enrolled in Dr. John Giggie’s “The Long Civil Rights Movement” course. While a student in that course she began researching lynching and racial violence in her home community of Elmore County, Alabama. Over the last three years Jana has continued that research, working alongside Dr. Giggie and her student colleagues to create a partnership […]

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Violent History: A Southern Conversation

“Southern Conversations” offers an opportunity for students and professors to discuss broad questions and themes in U.S. Southern History. This semester’s conversation will focus on the topic of violence and how it has informed the historical scholarship and historians of the South. Drs. Lesley Gordon, John Giggie, and Joshua Rothman will serve as faculty participants. All are welcome to attend. This semester’s conversation will take place in the Summersell Room (room 251), ten Hoor Hall, at 5:30 PM, on April […]

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Summersell Center Pushes Forward with Numerous Groundbreaking Initiatives

The Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South’s (SCSS) fall 2022 semester marked new developments in its southern queer history project. Dr. John Giggie and Vivian Malone Fellow and doctoral student Isabella Garrison co-instructed the Southern Queer History course, the only course of its kind in the SEC dedicated to southern queer history research. Thirty undergraduates in the course worked with the Summersell Scholars, all returning undergraduate and graduate students, as they met with community leaders to […]

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Department Host Inaugural Session of Southern Conversations

Last April, students and faculty gathered for the inaugural session of Southern Conversations, a series of informal discussions about southern history and historical methodology that is guided by student questions and interests. The first Conversation’s theme, “Gender Matters,” covered the past, present, and future of gender analysis in southern historical scholarship. Drs. Lesley Gordon, John Giggie, and Julia Brock each gave a short introduction of how gender analysis and their own gendered experiences in academia have shaped their academic careers […]

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SCSS Launches Scholars Program

The Summersell Scholars Program is an undergraduate history initiative that was launched in the fall of 2021 by Dr. John Giggie and the Summersell Center for the Study of the South. Dr. Giggie and his students imagined this program as an intentional space for undergraduates to study and reflect upon the meaning of the descriptor, “historian of the South.” Before joining the program, all Summersell Scholars must have taken at least one Summersell course: Race and Injustice; Queer Southern History; […]

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Summersell Center’s Queer History Project Hosts Galloway School Students

Dr. John Giggie and Isabella Garrison hosted high school students from Atlanta who are enrolled in the Galloway School’s southern queer history course. The students were led by Dr. Margaret Montgomery, a UA Department of History alumn, in an experience-based course about researching southern queer history. The visit centered on undergraduate research and experience, with an emphasis on learning the practice of local queer history. The high school students opened their visit with a campus tour led by Summersell Scholar […]

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Alabama Memory Project Seeks to Reclaim Lost Lives, Inspires Future Researchers

The Alabama Memory Project is an undergraduate research course directed by Dr. John M. Giggie and sponsored by the Summersell Center for the Study of the South. Launched in 2017, this project seeks to memorialize publicly the lives lost to lynching in the state of Alabama. Working on a county-by county basis, Alabama Memory students commit themselves to recovering every historical detail possible about each lynching case. Most importantly, this project seeks to not only uncover why these men, women, […]

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Voices of the Enslaved Wins 2022 Summersell Deep South Book Prize

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South and the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at The University of Alabama are proud to announce the winner of the Sixth Biennial Summersell Deep South Book Prize for the best book on the history of the American South: Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (UNC, 2019) by Sophie White, Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Voices of the […]

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Department Hosts Inaugural Session of “Southern Conversations.”

On the evening of April 11, history students and history professors gathered for the inaugural session of Southern Conversations, a series of informal discussions between history students and faculty about southern history. The first Conversation’s theme, “Gender Matters,” covered the past, present, and future of gender analysis in southern scholarship. Everyone started with a delicious meal from Dreamland BBQ. Then, Dr. Lesley Gordon, Dr. John Giggie, and Dr. Julia Brock each gave a short introduction of how gender analysis and […]

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2021 Summersell Deep South Book Prize Nominations

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South and the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at The University of Alabama are pleased to announce that they are receiving nominations for the 2021 Summersell Deep South Book Prize for the best book on the history of the American South. The author of the prizewinning book will be awarded a $2500 cash prize and be invited to give an address and meet with faculty and students at […]

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Summersell Center Director Quoted in Recent Articles

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South Director, Dr. John Giggie, was quoted recently by both U.S. News and Realtor.com. Giggie added commentary to a story for U.S. News addressing a move by some leaders to include wayfinding aides to a proposed expansion of US Hwy 43 through Marengo and Greene Counties that would highlight the area’s important Civil Rights history as a way to boost tourism. Realtor.com interviewed Giggie for context on the historical origins of […]

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Undergraduate Jana Venable Wins 2021 Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award

Elmore County, Alabama native and senior history major Jana Venable has been awarded the 2021 Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award. Venable received the award for her work, “Recovering Hidden Histories: Memorializing Lynching Victims in Elmore County, Alabama,” which she completed as part of Associate Professor and Director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South John Giggie‘s Alabama Memory project, which seeks to recover the lives of black Alabamians lost in decades of race-driven lynching violence.  Venable is […]

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SCSS Works with Partners to Elect Vivian Malone Jones to AWHoF

The Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame recently announced that Ms. Vivian Malone Jones will be inducted into the Hall’s upcoming 2021 class. Malone Jones was one of two students who integrated The University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. Two years later, she was the first African-American to earn a degree from UA. After graduation, Malone Jones worked for the US Department of Justice and later the Environmental Protections Agency. In 1996, former Alabama Governor George Wallace, who had stood […]

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