Studying the South

Check our Spring 2020 course offerings. Students can study abroad, complete the First-Year Experience requirement and other Gen Ed requirements, make progress towards a major or the Honors College program, or enjoy an elective course, all while studying the South. If you haven’t taken Intro to Southern Studies (SOST 200), this Spring might be a good time to do so.  Students in this semester’s SOST 200 are enjoying visits from faculty and community members who study the South and contribute to its well-being. They’ve examined archival documents in Special Collections and enjoyed a walking tour of the neighborhood with Dr. Annette Watson/

We also heard old-time music played by the Pluff Mud String Band. Fisher Wilson, one of the members of the band, earned a C of C Music degree in 2019 after having taken SOST 200 in his senior year. Go here to see and hear them play!

Ian Gleason, fiddle, and Fisher Wilson, Banjo.

This week four more faculty visited the SOST 200 class.  Students had read articles by Dale Rosengarten on sweetgrass basket artists and on Jews in South Carolina, and heard her talk about her work in person. Students had also read work on Charleston architecture by Nathaniel Walker, and they heard him talk about his research on the development of “modern” Charleston in the early 20th century.

We also read the introduction to Gibbs Knotts’s book The Resilience of Southern Identity: Why the South Still Matters in the Minds of Its People. Dr. Knotts talked to students about his work, and then we heard from Dr. Jordan Ragusa, who co-authored a new book with Gibbs Knotts, First in the South, on the South Carolina primary.

Dr. Jordan Ragusa

Still to come: visits from an environmental historian (Dr. Hayden Ros Smith) who’s written a book on rice cultivation, and from cultural anthropologist Brian Walter who’s researching the way people in our area are responding to flooding and rising sea levels. Finally we’re looking forward to learning to sing spirituals from the distinguished and talented Ann Caldwell.

Oh, and students are beginning to conduct research for their final projects, each on a topic they have chosen. Topics due by Monday, students! I’ll see y’all Tuesday in the library.

Dr. Watson discusses prisoners who were held in the City Jail.