Dr. Julia Eichelberger has taught at the College of Charleston since 1992 and became the director of the college’s Southern Studies program in 2017. She is currently Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature. She attended Davidson College for her bachelor of arts in the english language and literature/letters. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is where she earned her PdD in the same subject. Born in South Carolina, she moved around the Low Country throughout her life. Even growing up, Dr. Eichelberger was aware of America’s views of the South. Media and literature throughout the country make it clear their condescending viewpoints. Thus, it’s no surprise she grew up with an internalized want to be normal or “Northern”. True, the South has many issues to be addressed: poverty as a class system, the upkeep of white supremacy, but she believes the South is largely misunderstood. Eichelberger grew up in a household surrounded by social justice which illuminated these issues to her since childhood. Such influences later led Eichelberger to become interested in studying literature; examining characters in a world like our own who adapt with rules and assumptions made by some ulterior power.
This study of literature brought Eichelberger to her focus upon Eudora Welty. She has published two works upon Welty: Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First Century Approaches, and Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949. Welty has influenced Eichelberger’s teachings through her narrative writings of the South. Her ability to capture the Southern voice, humanizing the region by its citizens rather than characterizing it, gives a new perspective. Thus, Eichelberger values the telling of Southern history through stories and narratives as opposed to the easily villainized South in other forms of media. She claims it creates a connection to history and literature as the reader can see themselves within the narrative’s cast. History becomes reality, making present issues within the South, such as racism, easier to understand. Eichelberger believes literature creates a clear understanding of how conditions came to be and how we can continue writing in order to improve our own society.
This idea is crucial in Eichelberger’s course. She aims to help students improve and celebrate Southern culture. She brings to light the realization that racism not only happens in the South. Just as activism is not exclusive to the North. She asks students to be proud and enjoy all kinds of Southern culture. There are traditions to embrace and help us understand who we are. Eichelberger has allowed the Southern Studies department to show how lucky we are to be a part of something much bigger than our education.
