Kathryn Braund at First Fridays

On March 1, 2013, Kathryn Braund visited Pebble Hill as part of the First Fridays at Pebble Hill series.

Braund, Hollifield Professor of Southern History at Auburn University, discussed her latest book, Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812.  Tohopeka contains a variety of perspectives and uses a wide-array of evidence and approaches, from scrutiny of cultural and religious practices to literary and linguistic analysis, to illuminate this troubled period.

First Fridays at Pebble Hill is an opportunity for the public, faculty, staff, and students to experience the arts and humanities in action. 

Alexander Stille at Pebble Hill

On February 28, 2013, Alexander Stille visited Pebble Hill to discuss his book The Force of Things: A Marriage in War and Peace, the interesting story of Stille’s parents—his father from czarist Russia and his mother from the American Midwest—and their unlikely and tumultuous marriage. Their story is a microhistory of the mass migration of Jews from Fascist-dominated Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and the coming together of two very different worlds. 

Stille discussed the writing of the book, as well as the challenges and benefits of writing family history.  He is an expert on Italian politics and the author of several books, including Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic and The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European County with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. 

Following the book reading, Stille discussed the role of journalist and writer in politics, especially as an outsider to a country as important and interesting as Italy.  Students were particularly interested in Stille’s journey as a writer, which has led him on many exciting adventures.  He is currently the San Paolo Professor of International Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism in New York. His awards are many, and we are grateful for his visit to Auburn University.   

First Fridays at Pebble Hill

First Fridays at Pebble Hill is a new series and gives the public, faculty, staff, and students an opportunity to experience the arts and humanities in action.

• Friday, February 1: "Page to the Stage: Preview and Discussion of She Loves Me," Professor of Theatre Daydrie Hague and cast members. 
• Friday, March 1: "Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812," Professor of History Kathryn Braund.
• Friday, April 5: "What is it like to win on Jeopardy?" with Sunny Stalter, English Professor, and Howard Goldstein, Music Professor. 

All programs will be held at 4:00 pm at Pebble Hill, 101 S. Debardeleben St., Auburn, Alabama. A brief reception will follow each program. 

Becoming Alabama: This Goodly Land

Barbara Brown Taylor and Debra Moffitt featured at Auburn Writers Conference

On Friday and Saturday, October 12-13, the third annual Auburn Writers Conference will open its doors to aspiring, emerging and established writers and readers.

This year’s theme is “The Winding Road: Travel, Identity, and theSearch for Voice.” Embracing the broadest definition of “travel”—whether in our heads or on the road—the conference invites writers and readers who “hear the beckoning call of discovery and new cultures, as well as those who believe that the greatest voyage may be an exploration of the places we call home.”

Sponsored by the Auburn University Department of English, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities and the Collegeof Liberal Arts, AWC features talks and workshops on craft, publishing and promotion for poets and fiction and nonfiction writers.

Among this year’s presenters are Barbara Brown Taylor and Debra Moffitt, both contributors to Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality. Edited by poet Jennifer Horne and writer-producer Wendy Reed, Circling Faith is a volume of essays on the joys and struggles of spiritual life.

Taylor, the Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia, is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times-bestseller An Altar in the World and the acclaimed memoir Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith. Taylor studied at Yale Divinity School and Emory University and was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1984.

Moffitt is the award-winning author of Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life and the forthcoming Garden of Bliss: Cultivating the Inner Landscape for Self-Discovery. Her work has appeared in Faith and Form: The Journal of Religion, Art and Architecture, The European, Venture Inward and other publications in the U.S. and Europe. Awake in the World presents spiritual practices from around the world from meditation to walking labyrinths, pilgrimages and retreats.

On Friday, October 12, Moffitt will lead a workshop on the creative process from the birth of an idea to its launch into the world. It will include tools to tap into powerful resources of creative energy, get structured and create a writing discipline.

Both writers will appear, along with the editors, on a Circling Faith panel on Saturday. A third contributor, singer-songwriter and memoirist Marshall Chapman, will perform on Friday night.

Information about registering for the conference and workshops can be found at http://www.cla.auburn.edu/awc/.

Symposium on the War of 1812

The first in a series of symposia commemorating the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813-4 will be held on Saturday, August 25 in the Special Collections & Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library. "...Toward a Larger Stage: The War of 1812, the CreekWar and the Idea of America,” will focus on the pivotal events of two hundred years ago in Alabama, the Southeast, the United States, and the world.

The first symposium will focus on connecting the audience to the compelling and significant events that occurred in 1812, the first year of the larger War of 1812 and an important precursor to the conflict building between Creek nationalists, the Red Stick faction, and Anglo-American settlers culminating with the Creek War and the ultimate Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March of 1814. The program will place these events in a local, national, and international context, as well as the cultural context of Indians, Americans, British and Canadians. 

This 1812 bicentennial symposium is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and refreshments will be provided.

Schedule

•       9:30-10:00 a.m.       Registration
•       10:00-10:15 a.m.     Welcome and Introduction
•       10:15-10:45 a.m.     William Dean: “Europe and the Napoleonic Wars in 1812”
•       10:45-11:15 a.m.     Harold Youmans: "A ‘Close-Quarter’ Future: The U.S. Navy in 1812”
•       11:15-11:30 a.m.     Break
•       11:30-12:00 p.m.     Sebastian Lukasik: “The War of 1812: The Canadian Perspective”
•       12:00-12:15 p.m.     Question and Answer Session
•       12:15-1:30 p.m.       Lunch (On Your Own)
•       1:30-2:00 p.m.         Adam Jortner: “Nations and Security in the Old Northwest: Prelude to              Horseshoe Bend”
•       2:00-2:30 p.m.         Kathryn Braund: "Wild, Ungovernable Young Men”
•       2:30-2:45 p.m.         Break
•       2:45-3:15 p.m.         Gary Burton: "Mounting Tensions Along the Federal Road in 1812: The Murder of Thomas Meredith”
•       3:15-3:30 p.m.         Question and Answer Session

Sponsors

• Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

• Friends of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, Inc.

• Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities

• Auburn University Libraries  

Call for Creative Submissions

The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University and the Auburn Writers Conference invite writers to participate in “The Winding Road: Travel, Identity, and the Search for Voice” to be held on October 12-13, 2012, in Auburn, Alabama.

Offering instruction, practice, perspective, and community in a relaxed setting, AWC features small-group workshops, panel discussions, and readings from emerging and established authors.

Conference attendees are invited to read their short fiction, creative nonfiction and/or poetry. To be considered for a reading slot, please submit a 300-500 word excerpt of creative writing appropriate for a 15-minute presentation by August 1, 2012. Please include a brief cover letter that indicates connection to the conference’s theme.

Email submissions as an MS Word attachment to Maiben Beard at maiben@auburn.edu. In the subject line of your email, please include: Conference: [Your Last Name, Title of Submission].

For more information, visit the conference website, or find us on Facebook and Twitter (#AWC2012).