Tag: Isabella Garrison


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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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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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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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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The Summersell Center for the Study of the South Continues to Explore Hidden histories

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South has continued the research of hidden Southern history with its two new classes in the fall semester. “Race and Injustice in the Modern South” explores crime, punishment, and race in the American South from enslavement through the rise of mass incarceration in the 21st century, with special attention paid to understanding the impact of these themes on a local level. In “Queer History South,” students explore the lives and […]

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UA Faculty and Students Present at University of Montevallo’s Civic Institute

Last week our faculty and students participated in the annual David Mathews Center for Civic Life‘s  Civic Institute in Montevallo. The panel, organized by Dr. John Giggie and titled “Geographical Imaginations: The Role of Recuperative Storytelling in Southern History and Memory,” explored the transformative potential in little-known, marginalized, and difficult pasts. Panel participants included two UA History majors: Margaret Lawson, who discussed her work on “History of Us,” a course that trains Central High School students to become producers of history as they […]

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Summersell Student Wins First Place in URSCA

History major and Summersell Center for the Study of the South student Isabella Garrison of Raleigh, North Carolina, took first place in the College of Arts & Sciences’ Summit for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (URSCA) poster competition for her presentation on “The Cartography of Southern Queerness.” URSCA allows undergraduate students the opportunity to highlight their research and creativity at UA. Garrison uncovered a deeper understanding of the emergence of the queer movement at the University of Alabama, specifically […]

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History Students Excel at URSCA

The College of Arts and Sciences held its 16th annual A&S Summit for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (URSCA). Five of our students submitted research projects in History, and an additional two of our students worked in the related field of Classics. In the Humanities and Fine Arts Oral Presentations session, Molly Buffington, triple major in History, German, and Latin,  presented A War of Words: The Lutheran-Calvinist Debate on Acts 3:21 and the Eucharist. Her work, a project she […]

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Department Hosts Friends & Alumni at SHA-Birmingham

The Department of History was happy to host a Department Friends & Alumni Meet-Up for all attendees at the 2019 Southern Historical Association Conference in Birmingham this November. Current professors and graduate students were able to mingle with alumni, former and emeritus faculty, and other friends of the department. The event was sponsored by the the Summersell Chair of Southern History Endowment Fund. The Summersell Center for the Study of the South also sponsored membership and housing for four undergraduate students – Margaret […]

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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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