On February 23 at 6 pm in Gorgas Library 205, historian and journalist Douglas Blackmon will be giving a lecture and presentation based on his book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. The book, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2009, was also made into a documentary film currently airing on PBS. This event is presented in coordination with New College, and is cosponsored by the Dean’s Office and the College of Arts and Sciences, the Blount Undergraduate Initiative, and the Departments of American Studies, Criminal Justice, Gender and Race Studies, History, and Journalism. Refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase and signing. For more about Mr. Blackmon’s work and the film based upon it, please visit http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/.

Please join the Summersell Center and the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama as we welcome Waights Taylor Jr. Mr. Taylor is a Birmingham native and a University of Alabama graduate. His new book, “Our Southern Home: Scottsboro to Montgomery to Birmingham–The Transformation of the South in the Twentieth Century,” weaves together the story of his family with those of Rosa Parks, Clarence Norris, and the wrenching transformations that defined the South in the twentieth century. Mr. Taylor will be reading from and signing copies of his book on February 21 at 4:30 in Lloyd Hall Room 324 on the University of Alabama campus

The Summersell Center welcomes Professor Michael Fitzgerald of St. Olaf College, who will be previewing some of his forthcoming work on Reconstruction in the state of Alabama. Professor Fitzgerald is the author of several books on Reconstruction and Alabama, including The Union League and Social Change in the Deep South During Reconstruction (1989) and Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile 1860-1890 (2002). His lecture will take place on January 19 at 4:30 pm in Gorgas Library Room 205. Refreshments will be served.

On November 17 at 4:30 in Lloyd Hall room 324, Danielle McGuire, Assistant Professor at Wayne State University, will lecture on her book, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power . The book, which situates the story of the civil rights movement in the context of black resistance to the routinized sexual assault of black women, has already won the 2011 Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians, the 2011 Lillian Smith Book Award, and the 2011 Julia Cherry Spruill Prize from the Southern Association for Women Historians. Read more about the book at http://atthedarkendofthestreet.com. A reception and book sale will follow the talk.

On October 26, Mark Auslander, Professor of Anthropology at Central Washington University, will be speaking about his new book, The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family. Focusing on divergent narratives about an enslaved woman named Kitty and her relationship to James Osgood Andrew–her owner, a Methodist bishop, and the first president of Emory University’s Board of Trustees–Professor Auslander explores both the “real” story of Kitty and her family, and examines how the stories we tell about slavery shape our histories and memories across time. Professor Auslander’s talk will take place at 4:30 pm in Lloyd Hall room 324. It is open to the public, refreshments will be served, and the book will be available for sale. For more about the book, please visit http://www.theaccidentalslaveowner.com/.

Join the Summersell Center, the University of Alabama Press, and the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library for a reading and talk in celebration of the publication of B.J. Hollars, Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America (University of Alabama Press, 2011). Thirteen Loops recounts the story of three innocent victims, all of whom suffered violent deaths through no fault of their own: Vaudine Maddox in 1933 in Tuscaloosa, Sergeant Gene Ballard in 1979 in Birmingham, and Michael Donald in 1981 in Mobile. The event will take place on October 5, at 5 pm at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library on the University of Alabama Campus.

B.J. Hollars is the editor of You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside The Story. He received his M.F.A in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama and has published in North American Review, Ninth Letter, and The Southeast Review, among others. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

In partnership with the Oxford American magazine, the Summersell Center will present ABALABIP!, the last of a series of concerts being held to celebrate the Year of Alabama Music.

The concert will take place on Saturday, September 10, at 8 pm, at the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa. Tickets are ten dollars and can be purchased at http://www.oxfordamerican.org/news-events/events/2011/sep/10/abalabip-tuscaloosa-alabama, or by calling 501-320-5730.

Performers will include:
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Jazz bass superstar and Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Inductee Cleve Eaton & The Alabama All Stars
North Alabama alt-country folk players The Bear
Huntsville hip-hop sensation G-Side

For questions and additional information, see http://www.oxfordamerican.org or contact the Summersell Center directly.

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, New College, and the Oxford American Magazine invite you to join them for a conversation with G-Side, Huntsville’s own hip-hop sensation, about the realities of making music in Alabama today.

In advance of their performance as part of the ABALABIP! concert series event in Tuscaloosa, G-Side will be interviewed by NPR Music critic, author and New College adjunct faculty member Ann Powers.

Please join the Summersell Center for our first event of the 2011-2012 academic year, as we welcome Gary Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. Professor Gallagher will be delivering a lecture entitled “The Civil War in Recent Films: How Hollywood Shapes What We Know.” This event will be held in Gorgas Library Room 205 at 4 pm on September 8.

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War, the Summersell Center will be hosting a roundtable discussion panel on April 11, 2011, at 4pm in Room 205 of Gorgas Library. The first of a series of gatherings to be held annually over the next four years, this year’s roundtable will ask panelists to discuss the significant military, political, social, and cultural considerations that faced the United States and its residents as the war approached and then began in earnest. Panelists will include:

John Giggie, University of Alabama
Caroline Janney, Purdue University
George Rable, University of Alabama
Harold Selesky, University of Alabama