Spring 2016: Volume 8, Issue 2
Institute for African American Research
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher to Speak at USC
About Summer Research
Dr. Kwakiutl L. Dreher is an Associate Professor in the English
Department at the University of Nebraska. Using a Senior Summer Research
Fellowship for the summer of 2015, provided by the University of South
Carolina’s Institute for African American Research, Dreher continued work on
a creative writing project tentatively titled Widow’s Row. This project relates to a
row of houses in Columbia, South Carolina assigned this nomenclature in the
1990s after all of the men living on this block had died, leaving behind a row of
widows. Dreher conducted research concerning these widowed homes, with the
bulk coming from oral histories collected from residents and/or their children.
Dreher positions her project alongside numerous works of popular culture in
the last few years which address problems of slavery, race, and segregation. For
Dreher these works, though advantageous, focus on antebellum slavery and the
civil rights movement to the detriment of those studying and providing artistic
contours to the post-civil rights era.
Widow’s Row is set during the 1970s in Burton Heights, an all-black
neighborhood in Columbia settled by African American families, including
Dreher’s, during the segregated 1950s. Within her work, Dreher analyzes this
often overlooked African American middle class, which helps to reveal the
extent to which African Americans were able to access the fruits of the civil
rights movement. The 1970s was the crucial time when many believed that
the civil rights movement successfully paved the way for African Americans to
enjoy the socio-cultural, historical, and political fruits of that movement. School
busing integrated K-12 as well as colleges and universities across the state; a new
batch of African American politicians assumed their place in the South Carolina
legislature; and as the ‘white only’ signs came down, retail stores, restaurants,
and other businesses opened their doors to African Americans.
Integration, however, brought devastation to the African American
woman entrepreneur. Dreher’s research within Columbia phone books
uncovered how integration delivered a deathblow to the African American
seamstress after African American women were allowed not only to enter in but
to try on clothes in former ‘white only’ retail/department stores. Seamstresses
had leaned on craftsmanship to nurture an identity within their own
communities; the community of women, in turn, honored them by allowing
them to design clothing specific for their body type. The final product rendered
to each customer a one-of-a-kind wardrobe; so, each piece sewed made a woman
special. Integration forced these dressmakers to put the Singer sewing machine
in storage. In her anticipated mongraph Widow’s Row, Dreher hopes to portray
how the African American female entrepreneur (re)negotiated her identity once
the Singer was put away.
Offices
L239, 2nd floor
Thomas Cooper Library
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: 803-777-0645 / 4472
Inside This Issue
Page 2
• Where Are They Now?
Featuring Qiana Whitted
• Visiting Scholar
Page 3
• 2016-2017 IAAR Research
Fellowship Announcement
• Publications, Presentations,
& Awards
Page 4
• Spring 2016 Calendar of
Events
• Staff and Advisory Board
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher’s lecture, “The Activity of Research: The Embers within a Black
Community” will be held on April 13, 2016 at 7:00 PM in Gambrell Hall, Room 431.
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher
IAAR Helps
Sponsor
Visiting Scholar
The IAAR will help sponsor
an extended visit from
the International Comic
Arts Forum Conference
2016 keynote speaker, Dr.
Michael Chaney. Chaney
is chair of African and
African American Studies
at Dartmouth College
and editor of Graphic
Subjects: Critical Essays on
Autobiography and Graphic
Novels. While on campus,
Dr. Chaney will meet with
faculty interested in African
American research, visit
classes, and give a talk about
his work on the enslaved
artisan Dave the Potter
that derives from to his
forthcoming book, I Wonder
Where Is All My Relation:
Diaspora, Materiality, and
the Poetics of Dave the Potter.
Key to this analysis is an
exploration of the public
outcry that some comics
generated. Frequently,
parents, librarians, and
legislators argued that these
stories contested traditional
authority figures and the
status quo of American
society.
Where Are They Now? Featuring
Qiana Whitted
Professor Qiana Whitted, a member of IAAR’s
Advisory Board, was awarded one of the 2010-2011 IAAR
fellowships as a faculty member. Her research examined
comics from the 1950s in order to expand our understanding
of how issues of segregation and racial prejudice were
challenged in post-World War II American popular culture.
The research on race, history, and graphic novels that Whitted
completed has contributed to classroom resources as well as
two articles on “Comics and Emmett Till” and “Comics and the ‘Good Kind of
Trouble’ in The Montgomery Story and the March Trilogy” along with a forthcoming
book under contract with Rutgers University Press. The grant supported trips to
archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York and
the Library of Congress.
Qiana Whitted, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies,
published two articles: “Black Culture, Speculative Fiction, and the Past as Text in
Jeremy Love’s Bayou,” in Essays on Teaching With Graphic Narratives and “The Blues
Tragicomic: Constructing the Black Folk Subject in McCulloch and Hendrix’s
Stagger Lee,” in The Blacker The Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and
Sequential Art. She also presented a paper in Sweden at Stockholm University’s
“Future in Comics” Conference about “Race and the Failed Futures of EC Comics.”
Professor Qiana Whitted has also been awarded a Visiting Scholars Grant
from the Office of the Provost to help support the upcoming International Comic
Arts Forum Conference (ICAF), April 14-16, 2016 at the University of South
Carolina in Columbia. ICAF is an annual academic conference for scholars who
study comics, graphic novels, and other forms of sequential art. Programming also
highlight the diversity of representation in comics with scholarly papers that explore
the creative advances of marginalized voices, prompting the question: how can a
form that is so well known for caricature be repurposed to tell more complex stories
about difference? Guest artists Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), Howard Cruse (Stuck
Rubber Baby), Cece Bell (El Deafo), Dominique Goblet (Faire semblant c’est mentir);
Sanford Greene (Power Man & Iron Fist, Runaways) and writer Roy Thomas (former
Marvel editor-in-chief ) will anchor the conference proceedings with first-hand
accounts of their work and experience in comics. All events at ICAF 2016 are free
and open to the public.
IAAR 2016-2017
Fellowship Application
Announcement
Publications, Presentations & Awards
Tisha Felder and Joy Rivers et al, did a poster
presentation “Promoting breastfeeding among
African American women, USC College of
Nursing Research and Scholarship Day 2015,
Columbia, SC. April 25, 2015. And also
presented at Promoting Black Breastfeeding
Week. Learn at Lunch Seminar Series,
Lactation Support Initiative, Healthy Carolina,
USC, Columbia, SC. August 26, 2015. They
discussed “A pilot investigation of infant feeding
preferences and attitudes toward breastfeeding
amoung pregnant African American women,”
at the Upstate Area Health Education Center
Research Symposium, Greenville, SC September
25, 2015.
Lucy Annang Ingram et al, have several
publications in press, including: “Can
technology decrease sexual risk behaviors
among young people? The results of a pilot
study examining the effectiveness of a mobile
application intervention.” American Journal
of Sexuality Education, “Examining the
relationships between religiosity, spirituality,
internalized homonegativity, and condom
use amoung African American men who have
sex with men in the Deep South.” American
Journal of Men’s Health, and “Challenging
ideas on race: A necessary first step for
undergraduate pedagogy addressing African
American health disparities.” Pedagogy in Health
Promotion. And have published “Photovoice:
Assessing the long-term impact of a disaster
on a community’s quality of life.” (2015
March 20 Epub) Qualitative Health Research.
(pii:1049732315576495).
Catherine Keyser has published “Bottles,
Bubbles, and Blood: Jean Toomer and the
Limits of Racial Epidermalism,” in Modernism/
Modernity, April 2015.
Brent Morris was named one of USC’s 12
Breakthrough Stars in research and scholarships
by the Office of Research for 2016. He
presented a paper entitled “Dismal Freedom:
Self-Emancipation, Marronage, and the
Resistance Communities of the Great Dismal
Swamp” as part of a distinguished panel titled
“Finding Freedom: New Perspectives on
Movement, Mobility, and Self-Emancipation
form Slavery in the Early Republic,” at the
annual meeting of the American Historical
Association, January 2016.
Sueanna Smith was named 2015-2016 short
term fellow at the American Antiquarian
Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society
and gave a talk on early African American
freemasons and material culture at each
institution. She was awarded a Love of Learning
Award from Phi Kappa Phi.
Carlton Yingling presented “Belief Blasphemy,
and Legacies of Black Religiosity: Santo
Domingo’s Cultural Politics of Difference
and the Haitian Revolution,” at the New
Scholarships on the Black Atlantic Symposium
at the University of Utah, October 2015.
Andrew Kettler was granted the University
of South Carolina, John A. and Anne Rice
Award for Excellence, August 2015. He was also
awarded a Walter Edgar History Scholarship
from the Columbia Committee of the National
Society of the Colonial Dames of America in
the State of South Carolina, March 2105.
Jennifer Taylor was accepted by the Yale Public
History Institute hosted by the Gilder Lehrman
Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance,
and Abolition (2015). She also presented at
National Council on Public History panel The
National Park Service: Hedging and Edging
Around Inclusivity: “Reconstruction History
on the Edge: The Failed Attempt to Construct
a Reconstruction National Park Service Site in
Beaufort, South Carolina” (April 2015).
Kelly Goldberg and Kenneth Kelly. Identifying
the “Illicit Slave Trade”: Exploration of
Exchange Networks in 19th Century Guinea.
Poster presented at the Society of American
Archaeology Conference, San Francisco, CA,
April 2015. Kelly Goldberg was also awarded
a 2015 SPARC grant and a Ceny Walker
Graduate Fellowship.
The Institute for African
American Research is proud to
announce the 2016-2017 IAAR
research fellowship. These
competitive awards support
projects in any area of African
or African A m e r i c a n
r e s e a r c h and primarily
focus on e n c o u r a g i n g
r e s e a r c h and creative
activities to generate projects
that will enter the mainstream,
raise public awareness and
have the potential to secure
additional funding for
extended study. These grants
emphasize interdisciplinary
research, seek to encourage
development of traditional
g r a n t a p p l i c a t io ns , a nd
work to promote scholarly
interchange.
USC faculty and graduate
students on all campuses are
eligible to apply for one of the
limited number of available
fellowships. The awards for
faculty will be $2,500 and
$1,500 for graduate students.
The deadline to submit grant
proposals is April 1, 2016 at
11:59PM with awards being
announced by May 6, 2016.
Grant proposals and
questions may be emailed to
Lindsay Arave at
[email protected]. For
more information please visit
our website.
Spring Calendar of Events
“Examining the Perceptions and Outcomes of a Colorectal Cancer Screening
Navigation Program of Medically Underserved Black Americans”
Deeonna Farr, Department of Health, Promotion, Education & Behavior, Arnold School of Public Health
February 3, 2016 at 3:30 PM
Room 412, Thomas Cooper Library
“Developing a Story-telling HIV Prevention Intervention for
African American Women through Community Engagement”
Dr. Alyssa Robillard, Department of Health, Promotion, Education & Behavior, Arnold School of Public Health
February 24, 2016 at 3:30 PM
Room 412, Thomas Cooper Library
“Colonial Legacy and African Post-Independence Regime Survival”
William Akoto, Department of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences
March 23, 2016 at 3:30 PM
Room 412, Thomas Cooper Library
“Mocha Mamas Milk: Exploring African American Moms’ Experiences With
Feeding Their New Babies”
Dr. Tisha Felders & Dr. Joy Rivers, College of Nursing
Staff
Dr. Daniel Littlefield
Director
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4832
Lindsay Arave
Administrative Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4472
Andrew Kettler
Graduate Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-0594
Brian Robinson
Graduate Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4835
April 6, 2016 at 3:30 PM
Room 412, Thomas Cooper Library
“The Activity of Research: The Embers within a Black Community”
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher, Department of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April 13, 2016 at 7:00 PM
Room 431, Gambrell Hall
The Mission of the Institute for African American Research
The central mission of the Institute for African American Research (IAAR) is
to encourage the scholarly study and public understanding of race and black
life, principally in the United States, the South, and South Carolina, but also
throughout the African Diaspora and the world. We will pursue our mission
as an interdisciplinary and collaborative center for research focused on people
of African descent in the South and beyond. The IAAR operates under the
guidance of an advisory board with representatives from departments across the
university’s campus.
Visit us on the web and join our ListServ at www.cas.sc.edu/iaar
On Facebook at
www.facebook.com/IAARUSC
Or On Twitter at
www. twitter.com/IAARUSC
IAAR Advisory Board
Dr. Daniel Littlefield
Dr. David Crockett
Dr. Todd Shaw
Dr. David Simmons
Dr. Kimberly Simmons
Dr. Terrance Weik
Dr. Qiana Whitted
Dr. Marvin McAllister