Deborah McDowell
@dem8z
Reader, writer, teacher, gardener, seamstress, contrarian. Alice Griffin Professor Emerita of English, Former Director-Carter G. Woodson Institute, U of Virginia. Please, no DMs unless I know you. For professional matters, please contact me via UVA.
fictionalizes Elvis’s relationship w/Big Mama Thornton, whose music he appropriated, although he only dimly understands its meaning. He confesses to her, “I’m making forty thousand dollars a day offa it, and you know what, I don’t have the faintest notion what that song means.” 2/
Just ran across this passage from BELOVED printed in my hand on a slip of paper inserted between the pages of THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. Then I sat still as my tears started falling.
The harvest is plentiful this summer. Loved working on this, the third book to be released by a former Carter G. Institute Fellow. I predict that it too will spark much spirited conversation. Congratulations to Rutgers Professor Nicole Burrowes.
The booksellers/book lovers pose for a picture with my “grandson” and me. The books, all 40 boxes of them, are now gone, leaving a full shelf of literary anthologies, going back to my undergrad days. They also left the teaching texts falling apart at the seams, sticky notes in between the pages. 1/
Hot off the press, another bookfrom a former fellow of the Carter G. Woodson Institute @UVA: Delali Kumavie’s new monograph, published by @columbiaup.bsky.social. Thrilled to have worked w/the author on this brilliant project from its very inception. It’s bound to spark lively conversations.
The latest book in the Carter G. Woodson Series, an imprint of the University of Virginia Press. As you explore presses for your first (or next) monograph, consider UVA Press. The series and acquisitions editors actually read your manuscripts and provide extensive feedback.
Look at my little 3-year-old “grandson,” ready for a wedding, walking like a grown-up already!!
Guy Ramsey is all the things—jazz pianist, composer, scholar, and gem of a person. See his books here.
One of the panels on my scholarship. Robert 0’Meally (Columbia), who sent his remarks from Paris. Laura Helton (U of Delaware, former Woodson fellow), Lyndsey Beautin (McMaster U, former fellow), Bryan Wagner (Berkeley, former PhD student).Toni Perry (Smithsonian, former fellow, is out of frame.
Susan Fraiman (UVA-English), Thadious Davis (Professor Emerita-UPenn), Giulia Fabi (University of Ferrara-Italy), Beth Colon @uvapress.bsky.social on my work as editor. Covers in the background: Fabi’s presentation on various Italian translations of my ed. of Nella Larsen’s QUICKSAND and PASSING.
Baby girl on her tippy toes adjusting the alphabet. She will be one year old next month.
Is there a more perfect flower than ranunculus? Even a week old, the beauty of this birthday bouquet still delights.
The 75th Birthday bash at Boar’s Head Inn was a blast on Friday. The festivities continued through yesterday & today. I am thoroughly exhausted but filled w/joy. So grateful to my friends and family, who pulled out ALL the stops. Thanks to you my friends on this site and for your well wishes too!!
dissertations cum monographs were also published posthumously, their foundational research influenced scholars who published monographs before them. Perhaps there is a story to be told/an article to be written abt the asynchronous role literal publication plays in the reproduction of knowledge. 2/
Amazing panel celebrating the posthumous publication of Reginald Butler’s THE EVOLUTION OF A RURAL FREE BLACK COMMUNITY, GOOCHLAND COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1728-1832. He was a wonderful colleague and friend. One member of the audience weeps as she expresses her deep appreciation for Professor Butler’s work.
Re-readingTIME TO TEACH (@jeannetheoharis.bsky.social & Pamela Horowitz), a synthesis of the lectures on the Southern Civil Rights Movement that Julian Bond delivered over two-plus decades to students at UVA, as well as other universities. Fuming all over as I read the account of the Freedom Rides
OTD in 1940 Horace Julian Bond was born. Social activist, co-founder of SNCC, legislator and professor, Bond shared in this 1975 letter—on the eve of its bicentennial—his hopes for the future of democracy in the United States.
@bakerdphd.bsky.social This is the abstract page. Don’t wish to pile on or misrepresent, but I’m curious as to why the director be listed here?
You may find amusing this letter from the late Julian Bond. He absolutely loved the term “Maryland Farmer”and used it frequently in speeches.