The University of Georgia Libraries will celebrate research with three virtual events this October. One event features a roundtable with some of the top experts in their field, while another showcases student work, and a third highlights a new resource freely available to researchers across the world.
The first event, scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 12, celebrates the launch of the Georgia Open History Library, a free digital resource comprised of nearly 50 academic books exploring the history of Georgia, all of which were published by the UGA Press.
During the virtual event, scheduled for 6 p.m., historian Catherine Kerrison, professor emerita of History at Villanova University, will address the broad historical and intellectual significance of curated open digital resources, which allow both scholars and an informed public to challenge the narratives of those who would erase the complexity of our early national history.
In addition, the community can learn more about the resource at the Special Collections Libraries through an interactive exhibit featuring original manuscripts from the state’s early history alongside touch screens that provide access to the e-books.
Later that week, on Thursday, Oct. 14, UGA students will share their research into historic documents recently donated to the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The work, under the direction of Barbara McCaskill, professor of English, relates to enslavement in Jones County, Georgia, particularly the lives of William and Ellen Craft, a formerly enslaved couple who fled Georgia and became activists for freedom, later returning to the state to open a school.
During the Zoom webinar, undergraduate students Lla Anderson and Ayana Arrington will demonstrate interactive storymaps focused on Ellen Craft’s childhood. In addition, doctoral candidates Luke Christie and Sidonia Serafini will present their research on the Bowen family Bible, which includes a register listing the names of Black mothers and their children enslaved by the Bowen family.
The research materials were part of a donation from the estate of William Lamar Cawthon, Jr. (1946-2016), a lawyer and author who researched and wrote extensively about antebellum Clinton. As part of the donation, two study rooms at the Main Library were dedicated in memory of the Crafts, and two rooms were dedicated to Mary Blount Bowen Green, a schoolteacher who was a descendant of the Bowen family.
On Oct. 19, the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies will host its second Food, Power, and Politics Lecture, which this year celebrates the 75th anniversary of the National School Lunch Act.
The roundtable brings together Wendi Gosliner, project scientist at the Nutrition Policy Institute at the University of California; Susan B. Levine, professor emeritus from the University of Illinois-Chicago, who wrote School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program, among other books; and Andrew R. Ruis, a fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wrote the book Eating to Learn, Learning to Eat: The Origins of School Lunch in the United States. The Zoom webinar is scheduled for 5:30 to 7 p.m.
Registration is required for all three virtual events. For more about these talks, check the events section at the Libraries’ homepage, libs.uga.edu.