Daily Archives: September 18, 2020

Professor Matthew Cressler (Religious Studies)

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Professor Matthew Cressler was born in Connecticut and raised in Auburn, Alabama. He earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Northwestern University in Chicago, his M.T.S. in Religions of the Americas from Harvard Divinity School in Boston, and a B.A. in History and Theology from St. Bonaventure University in New York. Currently, he is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Charleston and specializes in African American Religious History and Catholic History in the United States. As a teacher who teaches about African American religion as well as race, religion, and politics in the United States at a school located in the South, Professor Cressler tries to teach his classes in ways that connect those subjects to Charleston specifically. He incorporates the history of religion and enslavement as well as the origins of African American religion in South Carolina into his courses in order to root the subjects he teaches in the local community. Although Professor Cressler has a professional connection to the South, he also has a personal connection rooting back to his childhood. Aside from growing up in Alabama, Cressler was raised by an Italian American Mother from New York and a southern father, making him, as he says, “a northern southerner or a southern northerner I guess”. He still feels as if he has a deep personal connection to the South but has an outsider perspective as well because of his mother and the fact that he has spent most of his adult life in the North. Currently, Professor Cressler’s research is centered on white Catholic racism which focuses on how historically white Catholics fought against efforts to integrate schools and public accommodations, ultimately supporting racism in America over the 20th century.     

Prof. Mike Duvall (English)

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Professor Duvall

Professor Duvall is an Associate Professor in the College of Charleston’s English department who specializes in the late 19th and early 20th century’s literature and culture. He originally wasn’t at all interested in studying English and got a BS in psychology before moving into the field he works in today. He goes so far as to say “in fact, I hated English. For the record, I did.” Eventually, he just had the right class at the right time that showed him what he now loves about English, which he decided to minor in. His passion moved from psychology to English and literature, which he later got his Masters in at Georgia State University, then got his PhD at the University of Maryland. It was during his PhD program that he decided he would focus on late 19th and early 20th century literature.

While he did grow up in the South in Atlanta, he says “personally, I don’t necessarily think of myself as Southern.” He grew up in an apartment complex where he was around people from all over the country where he experienced diversity in terms of class. While he is from here, he is conflicted about saying he is Southern because of the many bad associations that come with it, many of which he bought into in the past.

While he doesn’t study the South per se, much of his teaching ends up focusing on the South because he teaches regionalism and local colorism in literature, which often comes back to the South. Another connection he has to the field is a piece he co-authored on representation of inheritance of race. Many of the writers he has to teach in his classes focusing on regionalism and colorism focuses on the writings presenting plantation life and southern race relations in a positive light and the writings that respond to those, claiming they aren’t accurate. He will also be teaching a class on Mark Twain, but he doesn’t consider Twain to be Southern as he lived in several places across the country and just used Southern ideas and the South in his writing. According to him, what defines a Southern writer more than anything else is a writer who tries to present his idea of what the South is.

Currently, he is working on two big projects. One is on the writer of the first book published by an Asian American in the United States in 1887. He is doing research on his life and where he came from. His other major project is focusing on a satirical anti-socialist novel written in 1906 about socialism and the problems with unions. Neither of these really focus on the South, but they do both fit into his focus on turn of the century literature. He believes what kept him from focusing more strongly on the South is the constant battle over racism and segregation that he saw growing up in Atlanta with the debate over the use of the Confederate battle flag.