C A R O L I N E MARSHALL DR AU GHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS & HUMANITIES Winter 2009

Lewis Nordan and the Heartbreaking Laughter of Transcendence and Hope: A Symposium

We are pleased to present the second of ten books, including, most recently, annual Caroline Marshall Draughon Requiem, Mass. Center for the Arts & Humanities Symposium, this year on renowned International scholars Manuel Broncano author Lewis “Buddy” Nordan, an and Marcel Arbeit will travel from Auburn graduate and nationally ac- Spain and the Czech Republic to join claimed author of eight books, in- Alabamians Bert Hitchcock, Don cluding Music of the Swamp and The Noble, and Constance Relihan to pay Sharpshooter Blues. The day-long tribute to Nordan’s heartbreakingly symposium, referred to by some as the playful prose. art “Buddyfest,” will be held on January students will display drawings rendered 23 at the Hotel at Auburn University from the stories and theater students will and Dixon Conference Center. It will enact a dramatic reading of “How Bob be a cross-disciplinary celebration of Steele Broke My Father’s Heart.” Nordan’s achievements, bringing to- gether a host of well-known writers, Other participants include Lee Martin, international scholars, seasoned experts director of Creative Writing at The Ohio in Alabama and Southern literature, as State University; Robert Rudnicki, asso- well as Auburn University’s own art ciate professor and director of Graduate and theater students. Studies, Louisiana Tech University; Barbara A. Baker, Caroline Marshall Nordan will deliver the keynote address Draughon Center; Roberta Maguire, at 7 pm, and he will be introduced by associate professor, University of his good friend North Carolina writer Wisconsin Oshkosh; Terrell Tebbetts, Clyde Edgerton, who has described his Cox Chair in American Literature, Lyon passion for Nordan’s writing by say- College; and Mary Carney, Gainesville ing that he would rather read a story State College. by Lewis Nordan “than win money.” Edgerton will sing his rendition of Following the successful first annual Nordan’s “Sugar Among the Chickens” symposium, “Albert Murray and the and offer an appreciation of the much Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation,” the beloved author. Nordan Symposium will be digitally Clyde Edgerton recorded and electronically posted to Celebrated author Hal Crowther will iTunes for classroom review, and papers offer his appreciation of Nordan, ti- from the symposium will be edited into tled “Critical Barbs: Archer or Arrow a forthcoming volume to be published Catcher” at 1:15 pm and will be in- by Pebble Hill Books. The program troduced by Southern literary scholar will be of interest to both a general and Noel Polk. Crowther’s remarks will scholarly audience as well as to all afi- be followed with talks by Edward cionados of great Southern storytelling. Dupuy, dean of Savannah College of For more information please see www. Art and Design, and John Dufresne, auburn.edu/cah. former student of Nordan’s and author Director’s Note

Happy New Year! The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities begins 2009 with a full calendar. We are very proud to host the Lewis Nordan symposium in January and are looking forward to welcoming Buddy back to Auburn, where he earned a Ph.D. in Shakespearean studies. Later in January, we’ll partner with Landmarks of Montgomery and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts to host Cultural Crossroads, a symposium on Alabama in the 1830s. The Alabama Book Festival will be the highlight of April, and we will wind up the spring with a symposium on the War of 1812. Undertaken in partnership with Horseshoe Bend National Military Park and funded in part by the , the gathering will bring together an international slate of scholars.

e thank our many partners Other winter/spring programs include the Center’s participation in a university- and funders for their support wide look at Charles Darwin, occasioned by the anniversaries of his birth and of the Caroline Marshall the publication of Origin of Species, and the 2009 New Perspectives: Art and the W Academy, Views from Alabama Historically Black Colleges and Universities. As Draughon Center for the usual, this series of lectures will be held both on campus and out in the state. Arts & Humanities. We I could go on about the programs and initiatives of the Center, but the short version could not accomplish our work of this increasingly long story is that the arts and humanities are thriving at Auburn without them. and around the state. Thanks to the leadership of the College of Liberal Arts, the partnership of so many of individuals and entities both near and far, and support from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Alabama Humanities Foundation, Funders and and other generous funders, we embark on a great new year. partners include Jay Lamar Alabama Historical Association, Alabama Humanities Foundation, Alabama Power Foundation, Alabama A Visit with Dr. David Scobey Public Library Service, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Alabama State Council on the Arts, Alabama This past November, the Center Writers’ Forum, Alabama Water hosted a campus visit from Dr. Watch, Arts Car Tag Fund, Auburn David Scobey, founding director University College of Agriculture, of Arts of Citizenship at the Auburn University Libraries, Auburn University of Michigan, inaugural University Vice President for director of the Harward Center Outreach, David Mathews Center for for Community Partnerships at Civic Life, Jule Collins Smith Museum, Bates College, and past chairman Kettering Foundation, Landmarks of of Imagining America: Artists Montgomery, Montgomery Museum and Scholars in Public Life, a national consortium of institutions that supports the of Fine Arts, National Endowment for civic work of university artists, humanists, and designers. Nationally recognized the Arts, Old Alabama Town, Osher as a leader in the theory and practice of community-based learning, Scobey is the Lifelong Learning Institute, Rosa author of several well-respected publications, including “Putting the Academy Parks Museum, Southern Poverty Law in Its Place” and Empire Study: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Center, University of Alabama Press. Landscape. Scobey discussed Imagining America’s recent report, “Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University,” with the Pebble Hill Faculty Committee.

2 Art and the Academy: Views from Alabama’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities

New Perspectives, the Center’s annual role of scholastic philosophy in his life, lecture series focusing on Alabama’s the underlying spirituality in his art and rich visual arts heritage, continues for teaching relative to the concept of the a third year with Art and the Academy: universal, and his work and African Views from Alabama’s Historically Black American art in general in the context of Colleges and Universities. The programs his years in Alabama. David Driskell will will look at art made in and for institu- join McGee for a discussion of his art and tions of higher learning, artists who were teaching, in particular his formative years academically trained, and artists who as an educator at Talladega College. taught in and shaped the development of those institutions’ art departments. The Ellen B. Weiss will consider the work P. H. Polk, George Washington Carver historically black academy is the particu- and career of architect Robert R. Taylor, in the Laboratory, 1930, Gelatin print. an M.I.T. graduate who spent his career Paul R. Jones Collection, University of lar focus of the series. Alabama. at Tuskegee designing buildings, devel- The project aims to bring visibility to the oping campus infrastructure, supervis- long-overlooked significance of these art- ing construction, and heading the boys’ ists, institutions, and traditions to the his- industrial department with its twenty tory of American art. Much of the con- some trades divisions. Weiss will seek sidered work was created during a period to deepen understanding of Booker T. when access and resources for African Washington’s educational vision by ex- American artists and institutions were amining the design and construction severely limited by laws and culture, yet history of the campus. Weiss is Favrot the resulting murals, paintings, structures, Professor of the History of Architecture and photographs play a defining role in at Tulane University. the evolution of American visual culture. Art and the Academy lectures will be Amalia Amaki, professor of Art held as a series in Auburn and individu- History and curator of the Paul R. Jones ally in Montgomery, Normal, Talladega, Collection at the University of Alabama and Tuskegee. Funding for the series in Tuscaloosa, will present two programs comes from the Alabama Humanities David Driskell, Night Vision (for Jacob for Art and the Academy. The first looks Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lawrence), 2005. Collage and gouache at Tuskegee photographer P.H. Polk, on paper, 22 x 16.5 in. Private Collec- Auburn University co-sponsors are the who captured campus and community tion. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, NY. life from the late 1920s through the ear- Jule Collins Smith Museum, Office Photograph by Kevin Ryan. David C. ly 1980s. The topic of Amaki’s second of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, Driskell © lecture is the life and work of artist and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and educator Hale Aspacio Woodruff, who Department of Art. State partners include played a significant role in educating and Alabama Agricultural & Mechanical advancing the work of generations of University, Alabama Department of African American artists. Archives and History, Talladega College, and Tuskegee University. Julie L. McGee is curator of African American Art at the University Museums Visit www.auburn.edu/cah for a full at the University of Delaware and author schedule of speakers and dates. of David C. Driskell: Artist and Scholar (2006). She will discuss the significant

3 C A R O L I N E MARSHALL DR AU GHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS & HUMANITIES * CALENDAR OF EVENTS

[JANUARY] 1/15 7 p.m. Thursday: “Sustainability as Citizenship,” 2/26 Noon Thursday: “Robert R. Taylor and lecture by Lindy Biggs. Just Folk Coffeehouse, Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs Elba. College of Liberal Arts Speakers Bureau for Booker T. Washington,” lecture by Dr. Ellen program. Weiss, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery. New Perspectives lecture 1/21 3 p.m. Wednesday: “Dead or Alive: The Code series. Duello in East Alabama,” lecture by Dr. Bert Hitchcock, Special Collections and Archives, [MARCH] Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Discover Auburn 3/2 3 p.m. Monday: Liberal Arts Darwin Lecture Series. Panel, featuring Elizabeth Breston Knight, 1/23 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday: Lewis Nordan and the Giovanna Summerfield, Brigitta Brunner, Margaret Heartbreaking Laughter of Transcendence and Fitch-Hauser, Robert French, and Chris Qualls. Hope, Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon 3/3 4 p.m. Tuesday: “Arts and the Black Academy at Conference Center. Mid-Century: David C. Driskell in Conversation,” 1/28 Noon Wednesday: “In the Path of the Storms: lecture by Dr. Julie L. McGee, with Dr. David C. Bayou La Batre, Coden, and the Alabama Coast,” Driskell, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, lecture by Frye Gaillard, B.B. Comer Memorial Auburn. New Perspectives lecture series. Public Library, Sylacauga. Draughon Seminars in 3/5 3:30 p.m. Thursday: “Leading the Way: Women, State and Local History. Poetry, and Social Movements in 18th Century 1/31 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday: “Alabama in the Britain,” lecture by Dr. Paula Backscheider, 1830s,” Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Special Collections and Archives, Ralph Brown Cultural Crossroads Symposium. Draughon Library. Discover Auburn Lecture Series. [FEBRUARY] 2/15 Sunday: Entry deadline, “River of Words”, a K-12 3/10 4 p.m. Thursday: “Hale Aspacio Woodruff, the art and poetry contest. Academy, and the Paul R. Jones Collection,” lecture by Dr. Amalia K. Amaki, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn. New 2/17 4 p.m. Thursday: “P. H. Polk’s Perspectives lecture series. Images of Alabama,” lecture by Dr. Amalia K. Amaki, Jule Collins [APRIL] Smith Museum of Fine Art. New Perspectives lecture series. 4/18 Saturday: Alabama Book Festival, Old Alabama Town, Montgomery. 2/24 4 p.m. Thursday: “Robert R. Tay- [MAY] lor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washing- 5/22 - 5/23 Friday and Saturday: The Creek War and War ton,” lecture by Dr. Ellen Weiss, of 1812 in the South: A Symposium, Jule Collins Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Smith Museum of Fine Art and Horseshoe Bend Auburn. New Perspectives lecture series. National Military Park.

check www.auburn.edu/cah for more info check www.auburn.edu/cah for more info

4 C A R O L I N E MARSHALL DR AU GHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS & HUMANITIES

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Frye Gaillard: 2009 Draughon Lecturer

Frye Gaillard has been named scholar for the 2009 Draughon Seminars in State and Local History. Gaillard, writer- in-residence in English and history at the University of South Alabama, has written more than 20 books, including Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America (2004) and With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions (2008). He is co-author with Sheila Hagler and Peggy Denniston of In the Path of the Storms: Bayou La Batre, Coden, and the Alabama Coast. Undertaken as a community history project, In the Path of the Storms is a powerful portrait of two of Alabama’s most distinctive communities. Inextricably tied to the sea, with roots going back to the French settlements of the 18th century, Bayou La Batre and Coden share a rich and complicated culture that has faced drastic changes, including a significant influx of refugees from Southeast Asia, the challenges of higher fuel prices and cheap imported seafood, and battering hurricanes, culminating with Hurricane Katrina. Gaillard’s study is an encouragement for other communities to capture their own fascinating history and stories. In the Path of the Storms is a publication of Pebble Hill Books, a partnership between the Center and the University of Alabama Press.

The Draughon Seminar series is funded by the Kelly Mosley Endowment in honor of Dr. Ralph Brown Draughon, president of Auburn University from 1947 to 1965. Draughon was a historian with a deep commitment to both state history and public education. The lectures are offered free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to libraries, local history and heritage organizations, and other community groups in the state.

Dr. Howard Goldstein: Breeden Eminent Scholar

The Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Howard Goldstein as the Daniel F. Breeden Eminent Scholar for the Humanities. Goldstein, a professor in the College of Liberal Arts Music Department, will hold the Breeden chair during spring semester 2009. As part of his appointment, he will coordinate a wide variety of performances, classroom instruction, and outreach activities for the Tasman String Quartet, which will be in residence at Auburn University from February 15 through March 15, 2009.

The Daniel F. Breeden Eminent Scholar chair was established in 1989 to provide support for both the academic and the outreach missions of the College of Liberal Arts. The chair is supported by an en- dowment from Dr. Daniel F. Breeden; the Center facilitates its selection and activities.

Trained at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Dr. Goldstein has 35 years’ experience playing in and conducting orchestras, both internationally and here in our community. His belief in the importance of orchestral music to the cultural life of a community led him to seek teaching and outreach possibili- ties for fellow musicians that would enrich both the university and the community. Dr. Goldstein is especially interested in rekindling an enthusiasm for string instruction and hopes that the Tasman Quartet’s month-long residency “will inspire a redoubled effort to retain string players on a permanent basis, so that we will be able to offer this essential com- ponent of music education and performance to our students as well as the state.”

check www.auburn.edu/cah for more info check www.auburn.edu/cah for more info

4 5 2009 Alabama Book Festival

The fourth annual Alabama Book Festival will be held on April 18, 2009, in the Old Alabama Town historic district of Montgomery. Designated by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel as one of the top fifty arts events – and the top literary event – for the 2007 Year of Alabama Arts, the festival will feature 50 authors and presenters in six concurrent venues, from 10 am to 4 pm The festival is free and open to the public.

The festival showcases writers and artists, with a commitment to highlighting both Alabama artists and those from outside the state who are not readily or often available to Alabama audiences. Last year’s program featured a wide range of genres and art forms, including book arts, storytelling, and illustrators, as well as poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and works for children and young adults.

Visit www.alabamabookcenter.org or email [email protected] for more information about the festival and volunteer opportunities.

Center for the Book Offers Statewide Writing Contests

The Alabama Center for the Book, in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, offers writing and art contests to students of all grade levels. Letters About Literature is a reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, presented in partnership with Duck Pond at McClellan, Target Stores. To enter, young readers write a personal letter to an author explaining Mitch Nolte, Grade 7, Saks how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves. The contest Middle School, Anniston, AL. theme encourages young readers to explore their personal responses to a book and then express those responses in a creative, original way. The deadline for the 2009 contest has passed, and we look forward to awarding the winners at the Alabama Book Festival in April.

But it’s not too late to submit an entry for River of Words! River of Words is an environmental art and poetry contest created to promote watershed awareness, literacy, and the arts among our nation’s youth. Students are invited to explore the natural and cultural history of the rivers, lakes, and streams of Alabama—and the puddles and ponds of their own backyard—and then to express, through poetry and art, what they discover. The Alabama Center for the Book co-sponsors this initiative with the Auburn University Environmental Institute, Auburn University Libraries, Alabama Water Watch, and Auburn University College of Agriculture.

For more information about River of Words, visit www.riverofwords.auburn.edu.

6 Collaboration with the mathews Center Assists Communities with Public Forums

In August 2008, the Center launched a year-long collaboration with the David Mathews Center for Civic Life and five communities around the state to convene, moderate, and report on deliberative forums related to public education. The Mathews Center is a non- partisan, tax-exempt entity established for the purpose of fostering public deliberation and innovative community decision making.

The project is led locally by community partners, including local libraries, chambers of commerce, community foundations, local schools and churches, and county extension offices in Anniston, Chatom, Collinsville, Elba and Prattville.

In these forums, citizens weigh the attractions, weaknesses, costs and consequences of differing perspectives on how to approach an issue. Most important, citizens identify acceptable and unacceptable tradeoffs and create common ground for action on the Carver Community Center, Anniston, AL. issue.

Christopher McCauley, a graduate student in Auburn’s MPA program, and Jennifer Jones, a doctoral candidate in political science, assist with moderating the forums and consider the experience a unique contribution to their graduate education. “It is my hope that by organizing and moderating these forums, communities all throughout the state will use the deliberative process when trying to solve conflicts within their local boundaries,” says McCauley. Librarian Jennifer Wilkins believes deliberation can do that. “After convening forums,” she says, “I see my community coming together in a way that no other outreach library program has achieved in my 10 years as librarian at Collinsville Public Library.”

Check the events calendar on www.auburn.edu/cah and drop in on a forum near you.

The Creek War and War of 1812 in the South: A Symposium The Center and Horseshoe Bend National Military Park will co-sponsor a symposium on the Creek War and the War of 1812 on May 22-23 in Auburn and at the park. The symposium, funded in part by a grant from the National Park Service, will feature Jeremy Black (America as a Military Power, 1775-1882), Gregory Dowd (A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815), David and Jeanne Heidler (Old Hickory’s War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire), and Gregory Waselkov (A Conquering Spirit: Fort Mims and the Red Stick War of 1813-1814).

“This gathering will assess the state of scholarship on the wars from start to finish, celebrate the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, and kick off the commemoration of a conflict that changed the course of Creek Indian and American history,” says Dr. Kathryn Braund, professor of J.L. Holmes Map. history at Auburn University and co-organizer of the symposium. Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Horseshoe Bend National Military Park—located just 30 miles from Auburn—is one of four War of 1812 parks in the National Park System and site of the 1814 battle in which General Andrew Jackson led an army of 3,300 men to defeat 1,000 Upper Creek warriors.

For a full list of presenters and registration information, visit www.auburn.edu/cah.

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ENTER S UMANITIE & S RT E TH FOR N O H G U A R D L L A H S R A M E N I L O R A C

Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities Pebble Hill 101 Debardeleben St. Auburn, Alabama 36849

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer .