Event Lectures and Symposia Collecting Survivals: Sapelo Island Georgia and the Search for Gullah Folk
Date and Location
-
When: Wednesday, April 10, 2024
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT
-
Where: Thomas Jefferson Building - Whittall Pavilion (LJG45E)
10 1st Street SE, Washington, DC 20540
Part of Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lectures
Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.
Melissa Cooper, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Newark
Noted historian Melissa Cooper, who specializes in the study of African American cultural and intellectual history and the history of the African Diaspora, discusses her research on the emergence of "the Gullah" in scholarly and popular works beginning in the 1920s and the 1930s. Using Georgia as a case study, Dr. Cooper explores the forces that initially inspired interest in Black southerners’ African heritage and the legacies of early research and publications that made Sapelo Islanders famous, including historic fieldwork and documentation materials that are now part of the AFC Archive.
The Botkin Lecture series is part of AFC's ongoing public programming activities highlighting the fields of folklife, ethnomusicology, oral history and related disciplines; foregrounding its archival holdings; and fulfilling its congressionally mandated mission.
Free and Open to the public, but tickets are required.
Accessible seating is available upon request. Please request ADA accommodations at least five days in advance by contacting 202-707-6362 or ada@loc.gov.
Featuring
-
Melissa Cooper, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Newark External
Melissa L. Cooper is an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University–Newark specializing in African American intellectual and cultural history, and the history of the African Diaspora. Dr. Cooper has taught in New Jersey public high schools, and is active in efforts to reverse gaps in student achievement and to foster diversity among educators and scholars. Her most recent book, published in 2017, is Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race and the American Imagination.