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 donate and support these awards, please visit our website: https://www.piedmont.edu/lillian-e-smith-center/giving/ Or, you can email us at [email protected]

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 make the center special for her, and much more.

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 Smith and Martin Luther King, Jr. https://soundcloud.com/user-396382788-289349527/marie-cochran-dope-with-lime-ep-12?si=3cef4a6b61414493a585d1f36b8581a0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

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.

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 Lumpkin, and more. We spoke about her current project, Laurel Falls Camp, pedagogy, and much more.

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 1, 2023, and you can learn more about applying at www.lesp12.com. The second part of this episode highlights some of the records we found at the LES Center. We are in the process, thank to a Council of Libraries and Information Resources grant, of digitizing these recordings and creating tools for educators and scholars to access them and use them in the classroom. The recordings are from Laurel Falls Camp for Girls all the way to the 1960s.

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 a variety of administrative roles including Academic Coach, Class Dean, and Service Learning Coordinator and at the Atlanta History Center designing virtual field trips. She now teaches at Chamblee High School, advocates for inclusive schools, and works with the Stone Mountain Action Coalition to free Stone Mountain Park from its Lost Cause legacy. You can find out more about this year's institute and how to apply at lesp12.com.

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 enforcement and the community. "Buying a New World With Old Confederate Bills": https://tinyurl.com/3spwy4kv "Evelyn Scott and Southern Background": https://tinyurl.com/yvtys4h4 Megan's research detailing individuals connected with the journal: Subscribers - https://arcg.is/1PSXiG0 Reader Essay Forum Respondents - https://arcg.is/19CP1T0 Contributors - https://arcg.is/0uCSu40

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.

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 arrested. Clifford writes in his diary from Dachau, “If you ain't for the Nazis, you're against them, and you wind up here. The South was like that. That's why I left.” Individuals such as Lillian Smith, Kelly Miller, William Patterson, and more saw the links between the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany. They pointed out, as Morehouse student Henry E. Banks did in April 1933, following the Nazi boycott of Jewish business, the need “to condemn the racial policies of Hitler and oppose injustice wherever it is found” and to recognize the same impulses in the United States. James Q. Whitman, in Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law points out how Nazi lawyers used Jim Crow laws to inform the Nuremberg Laws and more. Through a panel discussion, “Jim Crow, the Holocaust, and Today” will explore the intersections between the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany, discussing the historical context and also the importance of knowing this history for today. The panel will consist of Dr. Thomas Aiello (Professor of History and Africana Studies at Valdosta State University), Dr. Chad Gibbs (Director of the Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies at the College of Charleston) and Dr. Jelena Subotić (Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University).