To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the collections housed at the University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South will offer four fellowships in the amount of $500 each for researchers whose projects entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library (http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/), the A.S. Williams III Americana Collection (http://www.lib.ua.edu/williamscollection), or in other University of Alabama collections.

Applicants should send two copies of

• A current CV
• One letter of recommendation (which may be sent under separate cover)
• A description of the research project, no longer than two double-spaced pages, which includes a description of the particular resources to be used during the term of the fellowship

The deadline for applications to be received by the Summersell Center is March 16, 2012. Decisions regarding awards will be made by May 1, 2012, and research may be conducted anytime between June 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013. Both academic and non-academic researchers at any stage of their careers are encouraged to apply. Because fellowships are designed primarily to help defray travel and lodging expenses, however, eligibility is restricted to researchers living outside the Tuscaloosa area.

Send all application materials to:
Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South
Department of History
University of Alabama
Box 870212, 202 ten Hoor Hall
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487

Any questions about the fellowships may be directed to Joshua Rothman, Director of the Summersell Center, at jrothman@bama.ua.edu or 205.348.3818.

On November 3-4, 2011, the University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences, the History Department, and the Paul W. Bryant Museum will host “Black and White in Crimson,” a symposium on race and sports at the university. Events will be held at the Bryant Conference Center, and speakers will include several former athletes and coaches. See the poster link for more information.

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama is proud to announce it will award a prize biennially for the best book on the history of the Deep South. The winner of the prizewinning book will receive a cash award of $500.

Books nominated for the next awarded prize must have been published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011. Two copies of each nominated book should be mailed by February 1, 2012 to:

Deep South Book Prize

Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South

202 ten Hoor Hall

Box 870212

University of Alabama

Tuscaloosa, AL 35487

Questions or requests for additional information may be addressed to the Summersell Center at summersellcenter@ua.edu or at 205.348.3818.

The Summersell Center is proud to announce its partnership with the Oxford American magazine in hosting ABALABIP!, the last in a series of concerts celebrating the Year of Alabama Music, to be held on Saturday, September 10, at the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa. Information can be found in the press release below:

The Summersell Center is pleased to announce the recipients of its short-term research fellowships for the 2011-2012 academic year. Recipients were chosen from more than two dozen applications by scholars from both the United States and Europe, and each will receive an award of $500 to be used to pursue their research on the University of Alabama campus. Fellowship winners and their projects are listed below.

Matthew Amato (doctoral candidate in history, University of Southern California), “Exposing Humanity: Photographic Dimensions of American Slavery, Antislavery, and Emancipation, 1840s to 1870s”

Lindsay Byron (doctoral candidate in literary studies, Georgia State University), “Narratives of Psychiatrically Institutionalized Sexually ‘Deviant’ Southern Women”

Scott Matthews (Ph.D., history, University of Virginia), “‘Up Against the World Like It Is’: Documentary Expression in the South, 1925-1965″

Russell Pryor (doctoral candidate, history, Carnegie Mellon University), “Work, Nature, and the American Dinner Plate: Making Chicken in the Twentieth Century United States”

On April 11, 2011, the Summersell Center for the Study of the South will be convening the first of four annual roundtables to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. This year’s roundtable will include comments from four prominent historians on different aspects of the war’s outbreak, and will begin at 4 pm in Gorgas Library Room 205. The event is open to the public.

On March 23, Anne Rubin, Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868, will deliver a lecture entitled “Beyond Archives and Illustrations: New Directions in Digital History.” Professor Rubin will consider the relationship between historical research and emerging digital technologies and will include a demonstration of her new work, a digital history project tracing the history and memory of Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864. Professor Rubin’s presentation, cosponsored by University Libraries and the Department of English, will also help inaugurate the opening of the Alabama Digital Humanities Center in Gorgas Library. The event will take place in Gorgas 205 at 5 pm.

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South and New College will be hosting Emory University American Studies Professor Allen Tullos, who will speaking about his new book, “Alabama Getaway: The Political Imaginary and the Heart of Dixie.” Robin D.G. Kelley calls the book a “loving yet critical meditation on contemporary Alabama and the burden of the past” and suggests it is “American studies at its best” and “a penetrating reflection on why this former seat of the Confederacy exists in the national imaginary as both a political, economic, and cultural backwater and a site where the Goliath of Jim Crow was slain by humble descendants of slaves.” Howell Raines writes that “Alabama Getaway” is a “masterful book about a wounded, neurotic, maddening, and–for those of us born to its soil–an enduringly lovable place.” Please join us for what promising to be a stimulating evening on March 7 at 5 pm in Smith Hall 205.

On February 2, 2011, award-winning Alabama author Wayne Greenhaw will speak and sign copies of his latest book, “Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.” Co-sponsored by the Summersell Center, the University of Alabama Libraries, and the WBH@100 Collaborative Group, the event will begin at 5:30 pm at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library on the second floor of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall on the University of Alabama Campus. For more information, contact Jessica Lacher-Feldman at jlfeldma@ua.edu.

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South now has a presence on Facebook. Choose to “like” the Center and receive news about and invitations to all upcoming events on your Facebook feed.