Tag: Summersell


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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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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Dr. Megan Kate Nelson to Host Workshop

Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, writer and historian, will give a virtual graduate workshop on February 17, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in 251 ten Hoor Hall. Dr. Nelson is the author of The Three-Cornered War (Scribner, 2020) and the forthcoming Saving Yellowstone (Scribner, 2022). Her workshop will focus on the best structure for a dissertation or trade history book, how to pitch and write an op-ed, and how to create a writing practice. Dr. Nelson will address questions from graduate students […]

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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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From Revolt Against Chivalry to Sisters and Rebels: A Life in Southern and Women’s History

Dr. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Julia Cherry Spruill Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and winner of the 2020 Summersell Center for the Study of the South’s Deep South Book Prize, will give her acceptance address on Friday, March 5, at 3 PM CST via Zoom. Her address, entitled “From Revolt Against Chivalry to Sisters and Rebels: A Life in Southern and Women’s History,” will offer perspective and insight into her distinguished career as a student […]

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History of Us Featured in Recent Edition of Collegian

A History of Us An article about Dr. Giggie’s “History of Us” class, the first Black History class taught in an Alabama public high school, was featured recently in the College of Arts & Sciences magazine, Collegian. “On a January morning, 18 Central High School students sat around a circle of tables in their first period class. It’s silent, but it’s not tense—there’s an air of thoughtfulness, of students searching to find their answer to the question posed moments before. […]

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Sisters and Rebels Named Winner of the 2020 Summersell 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 2020 Summersell Prize for the best book on the history of the American South: Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America (W.W. Norton, 2019) by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. Sisters and Rebels is a masterful study of the three “estranged yet forever entangled” Lumpkin sisters […]

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Dept Holds Race, Gender, & War: A Symposium on Military Service in 19th & 20th Century America

Historians from around the country gathered on Friday, March 22, to explore the intersection of race, gender, and war in a one-day symposium on military service in 19th & 20th-Century America. With more than sixty registered attendees, presenters discussed the role and place of African Americans and women in the American military experience during the past two centuries. There were three panels with multiple speakers, followed by Q & A sessions with the audience, a keynote address, and a closing […]

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Amy Murrell Taylor Visits Campus

The History Department was pleased to host Amy Murrell Taylor in November to give a talk on her new book, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps. In her book, Taylor discusses the meaning wrapped up in the physical design and structure of the camps where former enslaved persons fleeing the Confederacy were housed. When these spaces disappeared when the war ended, it left a major mark on the African-American community as they sought equality and agency. […]

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Summersell Center Sponsors Undergraduate Attendance at SHA Conference

  The Summersell Center and Director Dr. John Giggie sponsored the attendance of four undergraduate students – Margaret Lawson, Isabella Garrison, Emma Pepperman, and Morgan Alexander (not pictured) – at the Southern Historical Association’s 2018 Conference in Birmingham, Alabama this past month. The SHA is a major conference on historical research into the American South. The students, who are all planning on pursuing graduate study after graduation, were able to meet and network with graduate students, historians, editors, and The University of Alabama alumni. […]

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John Giggie to Speak About Race, Medicine, & the Founding of the National Museum of Peace and Justice

As part of The Art of Medicine Rounds sponsored by the College of Community and Health Sciences, Prof. John Giggie will be offering a talk entitled, “Race, Medicine, and Southern Landscapes: The Founding of the National Museum of Peace and Justice.” It will be held on Thursday, November 1, at 5.30 in UMC Classrooms 1-3.

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Students and Faculty Attend BrANCH Conference in Cambridge, England

The British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH) held its annual conference at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, October 5-7, 2018. Professors and graduate students interested in all aspects of U.S. History from the period gathered together at Madingley Hall for a weekend of panels, lectures and lively conversations, showcasing the latest research on Nineteenth Century United States history. Four members of UA’s history department attended and participated in the conference. These included PhD student Dawn Wiley who shared her research in […]

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Graduate History Association Hosts Power & Struggle Conference

The University of Alabama Graduate History Association will host its annual Power and Struggle Conference on October 5 and 6, 2018. This year’s keynote speaker is former Bankhead Fellow and current The Ohio State University Associate Professor of History Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt (2009). Jeffries will speak at 7:00 pm, Friday, October 5, 2018, at Smith Hall on The University of Alabama campus. The Charles G. Summersell Memorial […]

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US Army Chief of Military History & Chair of War Studies Department at USMC Command Staff College Visit Department

On March 29, The University of Alabama Department of History hosted a pair of events lead by two military historians. Executive Director of the US Army Center of Military History and Chief of History, Charles R. Bowery, Jr., and Professor of Military History and Department Head of the War Studies Department at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Dr. Christopher Stowe. Bowery and Stowe gave joint presentations to faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students, discussing the Civil War and its […]

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Dr. Victoria Bynum Visits UA

The History Department was honored to host noted Civil War historian, Dr. Victoria Bynum, for a pair of departmental events this March. The Department hosted a screening of the 2016 film The Free State of Jones, based on her 2001 work The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War. Following the screening was a Q&A discussion with Dr. Bynum, as she examined the film’s strengths and weaknesses as an adaptation of her research, as well as provided more information […]

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