In this episode, we speak with actress and director Brenda Bynum and documentary filmmaker Hal Jacobs about the creative work they have done on the life and work of Lillian Smith and on Smith's importance to them. Brenda Bynum worked, for years, with the Alliance Theater in Atlanta and taught in the theater department at Emory for seventeen years. She is the writer/director/performer of "Jordan is So Chilly," a one-woman show on the life of Lillian Smith. Hal Jacobs is a documentary filmmaker wh...
Nov 11, 2024•51 min
In this episode, we conclude our series on Lillian Smith and Religion, examining the intersections of religion, race, class, gender, and sexuality. We are joined by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell, pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church, Rev. John Harrison, pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church, Dr. Jennifer Morrison, Assistant Professor of English at Xavier University Louisiana, Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt, and Rev. Annanda Barclay, co-host of the podcast Moral Repair: A Black Exploration of Tech. We spoke...
Oct 02, 2024•47 min
This is the part two in a five-part series examining Lillian Smith's thoughts on religion in relation to issues of race, class, and gender. We are joined by Rev. Annanda Barclay, co-host of the podcast Moral Repair: A Black Exploration of Tech, and Rev. John Harrison, pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia. In this episode, we speak with Rev. Barclay and Rev. Harrison about Lillian Smith's essay "The Three Ghosts" and Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as...
Sep 25, 2024•58 min
This is the part two in a five-part series examining Lillian Smith's thoughts on religion in relation to issues of race, class, and gender. We are joined by Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt, Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell, pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Rev. John Harrison, pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Merritt, Rev. Dr. Boswell and Rev. Harrison about Lillian Smith's essay "Two Men and a Bargain" a...
Sep 18, 2024•50 min
This is the part two in a five-part series examining Lillian Smith's thoughts on religion in relation to issues of race, class, and gender. We are joined by Dr. Jennifer Morrison, Assistant Professor of English at Xavier University Louisiana, Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell, pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Rev. John Harrison, pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Morrison, Rev. Dr. Boswell and Rev....
Sep 11, 2024•57 min
This is the first in a five-part series examining Lillian Smith's thoughts on religion in relation to issues of race, class, and gender. We are joined, in each of these episodes, by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell, pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Rev. John Harrison, pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia. In this episode, we speak with Rev. Dr. Boswell and Rev. Harrison about the Winter 1944-45 issue of Lillian Smith and Paula Snellin...
Sep 04, 2024•57 min
This episode is a small selection of recordings from the Laurel Falls Camp Collection Recordings, a collection of 105 digitized recordings from 78-rpm lacquer discs and magnetic tapes we discovered at the center. This recording will be part of a year-long exhibit on the life and work of Lillian E. Smith at the Mason Scharfenstein Museum at Piedmont University. The exhibit will debut on September 5, 2024. You can find the recordings here: https://tinyurl.com/466ht5x4 You can find more information...
Jul 24, 2024•17 min
This episode is a recording of "Celebrating Lillian E. Smith," an event that took place on March 20, 2024, at the Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art at Piedmont University. LES Center director Dr. Matthew Teutsch led a panel discussion on Smith's legacy and importance with Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell, Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt, and Dr. Jennifer Morrison. They engaged in a wide-ranging conversation about Smith's work, her pedagogy, and her role within the Civil Rights Movement.
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 19 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Karen Cox, Professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is the author of multiple books, including "Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture" and "Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture." Her current book project explores the Rhythm Club fire, which took the lives of more than 200 African Americans in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1940. Dr. C...
Mar 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Michael Dando, Assistant Professor of Communication, Arts, and Literature at St. Cloud State University. Dando is an award-winning author, artist, educator, and scholar with over twenty years of experience in the classroom. His research and pedagogy explores ways that teachers and students collaborate with communities to create collective, civically engaged democratic opportunities for social justice. We speak about the ways that Lillian Smith's work, specifica...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, we speak with Ravi Howard, Assistant Professor of English at Florida State University. Howard served on the Lillian E. Smith Center's Board. As well, he is an award winning author, receiving the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for his 2008 novel "Like Trees, Walking." In 2015, he published "Driving the King." His work has appeared in Salon, The New York Times, and elsewhere. We speak about his time working with the LES center, the importance of literature in helpi...
Feb 21, 2024•1 hr 5 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Meredith McCarroll, an educator, author, and writing coach. Her work focuses on Appalachia, and her publications include "Un-White: Appalachia, Race, and Film" (UGA Press) and "Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy" (WVU Press). We speak about how McCarroll had to leave Appalachia to learn about it and Lillian Smith, her journey to activism, and the contentious definitions related to region. You can visit her on her website https://meredit...
Feb 13, 2024•54 min
In this episode, we speak with artist and writer Tommye McClure Scanlin. She taught art for decades at the University of North Georgia, and is a world-renowned weaver. We speak with her about the importance of artist institutions on Northeast Georgia, her connection to the Lillian E. Smith Center, and the ways that the center has influenced her own art. Scanlin supports the McClure-Scanlin Visual Artist Residency Award, one of the four residency awards offered by the LES Center. If you'd like to...
Sep 12, 2023•38 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Kamala Dutt, Professor Emerita in the Department of Pathology at Morehouse School of Medicine. She has published three collections of short stories and one novella in Hindi and one poetry collection in English. She has had residencies at the Lillian E. Smith Center for over two decades. We speak about the intersections of literature and science, her memories of her time at the center, specifically her memories of Bill, Nancy, Robert, Pearl, and the Johns who ma...
Aug 31, 2023•37 min
In this episode, our director Dr. Matthew Teutsch explores the correlation between civil rights movements across the United States and the 1967 uprising in Newark. It delves into the socio-political climate, racial tensions, and police brutality that fueled the unrest, as well as the consequential aftermath. Furthermore, it highlights the crucial role of photographer Bud Lee in documenting the Newark uprising. Listen to our interview with Marie Cochran about the relationship between Lillian Smit...
Aug 25, 2023•19 min
In this episode, we speak with Aaron McMullin, the 2023 recipient of the Emily Pierce Graduate Student Residency Award. Aaron is completing her MFA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and she is constructing the Legacy Quilt Project as part of her program. We spoke with Aaron about the Legacy Quilt, her time as a Fulbrighter in India, and about the impact of the residency on her work.
Jul 13, 2023•41 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mae Claxton, Professor of English at Western Carolina University. She teaches classes in Southern, Appalachian, and Native American literature, and her scholarship focuses primarily on Eudora Welty, but she has recently expanded her interests to Horace Kephart, Appalachian women writers, and the Native South. Her current project looks at Appalachian activist women writers of the 20th century, specifically Lillian Smith, Wilma Dykeman, Olive Tilford Dargan/Grace...
Jun 05, 2023•34 min
In this episode, we discuss the LES Center's upcoming P-12 institute "The Civil Rights Movement and the Nine-Word Problem." This is an institute open for regional (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina) educators to participate in a week-long program (June 12-16, 2023) at the LES Center with facilitators Dr. Rev. Benjamin Boswell, Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt, and Dr. Jennifer Morrison. Participants in the institute receive a $200 stipend and professional development hours. Applications are due May ...
Mar 22, 2023•36 min
In this episode, we speak with Sally Stanhope about. "The Civil Rights Movement in Northeast Georgia," last year's P-12 professional development institute at the Lillian E. Smith Center. We speak with her about what she took away from the institute and why she would encourage educators to attend this year's institute, "The Civil Rights Movement and the Nine-Word Problem." Stanthope has 18 years of teaching experience at various levels from elementary to undergraduate. Stanhope has also served in...
Mar 01, 2023•32 min
In this episode, we speak with Megan Butchart about the literary journal that Lillian Smith and Paula Snelling published from Screamer Mountain from 1936-1945. Megan is a recent graduate of the University of Alberta where she received her M.A. in English. Her thesis was "The Literary Activism of Lillian Smith and Paula Snelling’s Little Magazine South Today." We spoke with Megan about the importance of the journal, the contributors, and how the journal got Smith and Snelling in trouble with law ...
Feb 23, 2023•51 min
In this episode, we speak with Caden Nelms, a senior mass communications student at Piedmont University and host of Rolling Through Life, a podcast that focuses on disability awareness and the stories of Caden and his friends, and Dr. David Sells, Assistant Professor in the Department of Exceptional Childhood Education at Piedmont University. We spoke about disability awareness, access, and more.
Feb 13, 2023•53 min
This is a recording of the Lillian E. Smith Lecture Series Panel "Jim Crow, The Holocaust, and Today." We apologize about any moments where the audio may be unclear. In John A. Williams' Clifford's Blues, the protagonist Clifford Pepperidge is placed in Dachau in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. Originally from New Orleans and the United States, Clifford came to Europe to play music in the jazz scene, and he experienced freedom as a Black man. However, once the Nazis rose to power, he was arre...
Jan 26, 2023•1 hr 15 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jane McPherson, Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Director of Global Engagement at the University of Georgia. She conducts archival research exploring how local Georgia histories of charity and social work entwine with ideologies of white supremacy and capitalism, and asks questions about how these histories still echo in social work practice today. We discuss how Lillian Smith has impacted her social work research and scholarship, the import...
Nov 30, 2022•41 min
In this episode, we speak with Lauren Woods, the recipient of the 2022 McClure-Scanlin Visual Artist Residency Award. Woods is an Assistant Professor of Art & Art History at Auburn University. She is an artist whose practice and creative research explore the concept of mythic time. Artworks become a space to examine notions of nostalgia, desire, power, beauty, death, and embodied expression. Personal myth is developed visually across various mediums such as painting, video, and dance perform...
Aug 11, 2022•36 min
In this episode, we speak with the Dr. Audrey Clare Farley and Dr. Sara Moslener. Dr. Farley is a historian of twentieth century American fiction and culture. She is the author of "The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt." Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Washington Post, and many other outlets. Dr. Moslener is a professor of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University. She is the founder of the After Purity P...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Julia Brock from the University of Alabama and Dr. Stephanie Chalifoux from the University of West Georgia about their ongoing work at the Lillian E. Smith Center. Over the past few years, they have come to the center to catalogue the items at the center. This includes everything from books to silverware. We spoke with them about their work, Lillian's siblings, and much more. Dr. Brock mentioned finding a SNCC pin at the camp. It wasn't a SNCC pin; rather, it w...
Jun 24, 2022•31 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jennifer Morrison, Assistant Professor of English at Xavier University where she teaches African American literature and other courses. We spoke with her about the importance of Lillian Smith, connections between Smith and Ernest Gaines, the importance of libraries, and much more.
Jun 06, 2022•1 hr 11 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Michael Bibler, Robert Peen Warren Distinguished Associate Professor at Louisiana State University. Recently, he taught a course at LSU entitled "Baldwin's Queer South," and students read Lillian Smith alongside Baldwin and other authors. We spoke with him about the intersections between Lillian Smith and James Baldwin, his recent course, and much more.
May 13, 2022•50 min
In this episode, we speak with Piedmont University students Julia DeMello and Montana Thomas. Julia and Montana were part of the chorus for the world premier performance of "How Am I to Be Heard?" and oratorio based on the life and work of Lillian E. Smith. In this episode, we speak with them about raking part in the oratorio, what they learned about Lillian E. Smith, and more. https://www.piedmont.edu/calendar_event/world-premiere-how-am-i-to-be-heard/
Apr 22, 2022•26 min
In this episode, we speak with speaking with L.J. Harrison. He marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s, after graduating from college, he taught history in Stephens County and elsewhere, and he served for five years on the Toccoa City Commission and as mayor of Toccoa. We spoke with him about the movement, the importance of teaching history, and Lillian Smith.
Mar 30, 2022•38 min
