Program on Public Life

Spring 2008

• Symposium: Civil Rights and the Body in the American South
  Fri. and Sat., Feb. 29 and Mar. 1
  
  
• Southern Intellectual History Circle Annual Meeting
  Thur.-Sat., Feb. 28-Mar. 1
  
  
• Civil War Symposium, in honor of Alan Stephenson,
  donor of the Stephenson Chair in Civil War History
  Sat., Mar. 29
  
  
• William Ferris and His Documentary Films
  Wed., Apr. 9
  
  
• New Perspectives on African American History and Culture
  Fri.-Sat., Apr. 11-12
  
  
• Beyond the Sunbelt: Southern Economic Development
  in a Global Context
  Sun.-Mon., Apr. 13-14
  
  
• Richard Wright Centennial
  Fri.-Sun., Apr. 11-13
  

Fall 2007

• Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Advent of American Mass Culture, 1890-1930
  October 4-5, 2007
  Addressing topics ranging from popular music to celebrity and organized sports, the conference will highlight the role of blacks as creators, disseminators, and consumers of mass culture at a time when Americans were pioneering modern mass culture. Click here to read more.

Author Caryl Phillips will
read from his work Oct. 4

• Speculating on the South: Reimagining the Historical South through Scholarship and Art
  November 6-8, 2007
  This conference will feature works of art that “speculate” on or present alternate histories about the American South by.Randall Kenan, Kevin Willmott, Harry Turtledove, Alice Randall, Natasha Trethaway and others.Conference participants will examine fiction and non-fiction that conjectures on what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War. Click here to read more.
  

• The Perils of Public Homage: Thomas Ruffin and State v. Mann in History and Memory
  November 16, 2007
  Across North Carolina, Ruffin, who served as chief justice from 1833 to 1852, is considered the greatest jurist in the state’s history, despite his authorship of State v. Mann (1830), the most notorious judicial opinion in the history of American slave law. On Friday, November 16, experts in the law of slavery and the study of public memory will gather on the UNC campus to reconsider the judge and his opinion within our historical legacy. Click here to read more.