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Tag: Summersell Center for the Study of the South

Summersell Center Now Accepting Short-Term Research Fellowship Applications

To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the manuscript collections housed at The University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South will offer a total of eight research fellowships in the amount of $750 each for the 2023-2024 academic year. Eligible researchers will have projects that entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, the A.S. Williams III Americana […]

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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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Summersell Center Now Accepting Short-Term Research Fellowship Applications

To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the manuscript collections housed at The University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South will offer a total of eight research fellowships in the amount of $500 each for the 2022-2023 academic year. Eligible researchers will have projects that entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, the A.S. Williams III Americana […]

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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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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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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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Dr. John Giggie to Address National Conference on Citizenship

Dr. John Giggie will address the National Conference on Citizenship‘s Learn, Ask, & Share Circle this Wednesday, October 14, at 1 pm CDT. Giggie will discuss his work designing and teaching History of Us, the first Black History course taught in an Alabama public school.  Joining him will be Ms. Margaret Lawson, education/history graduate student and co-creator, and two alums, Ms. Delphia McGraw and Ms. Noa Jordan. Registration is free for this online event. Details are available at the National […]

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Summersell Center Receives Grant to Develop Queer History Website

Dr. John Giggie and the Summersell Center were recently chosen to receive a 2019 Teaching Grant from The University of Alabama College of Arts & Sciences to develop Queer Alabama, the digital humanities website that came out of the course “Invisible Histories,” that was taught this spring. It will fund the work of student Isabella Garrison as she refines and expands the website this summer. The site showcases the research done by students documenting the queer community at The University […]

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Summersell Students Launch Queer Alabama Site

Students in Director of the Summersell Center Dr. John Giggie’s Spring 2019 course Invisible Histories: Queer History South have unveiled the website for their research, Queer Alabama. The website features each of the students’ research projects, all of which analyze the queer community’s impact on The University of Alabama campus and its broader Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Southeastern contexts. Individual projects include the Cartography of Southern Queerness, which looks at maps created by the group to see how their use of coded language changed […]

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Dr. Tera Hunter Visits Campus for Summersell Book Prize

This past semester, Dr. Tera Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, visited campus to receive the Fourth Biennial Deep South Book Prize from the Summersell Center for the Study of the South for her book Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017). Hunter presented a talk on her book and spoke with students at a luncheon. In her book, […]

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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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Summersell Center to Partner With Central High School to Teach About Lynching History

Dr. John Giggie and the Summersell Center for the Study of the South were recently recognized for their efforts to map the history of lynching victims in Alabama and develop a program for teaching about racial violence and southern history at the secondary education level. The Council on Community-Based Partnerships at The University of Alabama awarded Dr. Giggie a grant to expand the Center’s partnership with Central High School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Specifically, the Community Engagement Graduate Fellowship covers the […]

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Summersell Center Students Present at National Conference

Students enrolled in Dr. John Giggie’s Invisible Histories course recently presented research posters at the Queer History South Conference, which was held in Birmingham, Alabama, from March 27 through March 29. Invisible Histories is the first course of its kind in the history department — dedicated to learning about queer history and specifically recapturing the emergence of the queer student movement at The University of Alabama and across the state. Dr. Giggie has taken groups of students to three conferences […]

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Summersell Center Offers Short-Term Research Fellowships

The Summersell Center offers short-term research fellowships intended to assist scholars from outside the Tuscaloosa area with their use of the archival collections and resources held on The University of Alabama campus. Endowment of these fellowships allows us to continue them indefinitely and possibly to expand the number of them we can offer, while freeing up resources for other projects. To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the collections housed at The University of Alabama, […]

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