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The Joy of Juneteenth with Dr. Opal Lee

Photo Credit James D. Teed

September 6, 2022 | Nicholaos Jones

The Humanities Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), in partnership with United Women of Color (UWOC), recently hosted The Joy of Juneteenth with Opal Lee, a multi-event program spread across the City of Huntsville.

Dr. Opal Lee is a former education and long-time activist who was present in the White House when President Joseph Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on June 17, 2021. This Act establishes June 19, or “Juneteenth,” as a federal holiday—the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1983. The Juneteenth holiday commemorates the anniversary of the last African American slaves being freed in Texas in 1865, two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. Lee’s invitation to the White House, and her nickname as “Grandmother of Juneteenth” derives from her walking 2.5 miles in various cities between Fort Worth, Texas and Washington D.C. in order to raise awareness about the significance of Juneteenth.

The Joy of Juneteenth with Opal Lee was a collaboration of the UAH Humanities Center and UWOC with Alabama A&M University, the City of Huntsville, Highlands Elementary School PTA, Madison County Commission District 6, Oakwood University, and St. John AME Church. Regarding the program, Dr. Nicholaos Jones, Director for the Humanities Center, remarks, “Just as the Tennessee River derives its strength and splendor from many contributing streams, Juneteenth’s recognition as a federal holiday is the outcome of many voices over many years. Dr. Lee’s efforts, as an activist, author, and educator, have been—and continue to be—instrumental in helping to achieve this recognition. The planning by so many groups to bring Dr. Lee to Huntsville are a fitting testament to Dr. Lee’s efforts, and I believe it is also a model for how universities and community organizations can work together to enrich our city.”

Dr. Lee’s visit to Huntsville spanned three days. On Saturday, August 27, Dr. Lee met with Ms. Violet Edwards, Madison County Commissioner for District 6, as well as other local dignitaries for a welcoming reception at the Bob Harrison Senior Advocacy and Wellness Center.

Dr. Lee met with Ms. Violet Edwards, Madison County Commissioner for District 6

Photo Credit James D. Teed

On Sunday, August 28, she attended morning service—and made some brief remarks—at St. John AME Church in downtown Huntsville.

On Sunday, August 28, she attended morning service—and made some brief remarks—at St. John AME Church in downtown Huntsville.

Photo Credit James D. Teed

Dr. Leslie Pollard, Oakwood University’s President, offered some remarks connecting Dr. Lee’s activism with Frederick Douglass’s question, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Mr. Jeremy Sovoy Jordan directed a musical selection from The Aeolians of Oakwood University, and Oakwood English major Ms. Makayla Mattocks introduced Dr. Lee to the audience. After some brief remarks, Dr. Lee then posed for pictures with attendees and signed copies of her book, Juneteenth: A Children’s Story. (The UAH Humanities Center distributed 100 signed copies of this book to attendees.)

Dr. Lee began Monday, August 29 with a visit to Highlands Elementary School. Students from Kindergarten through Grade 3 greeted her by waving pompoms and chanting “Dr. Lee! Dr. Lee!” During a brief reception, Dr. Lee met with Highlands staff and faculty, administrators from Huntsville City Schools (HCS) and the HCS Board of Education, and representatives from the Huntsville Council of PTAs. As part of Highlands’ ongoing literacy initiative, Story Time with Principal Dixon, Dr. Lee then read her book to students in Grades 4 through 6. HCS’s ETV also provided streaming access to local schools, and the UAH Humanities Center subsequently donated a signed copy of Dr. Lee’s book to each public school in Huntsville.

On Sunday, August 28, she attended morning service—and made some brief remarks—at St. John AME Church in downtown Huntsville.

Dr. Opal Lee read to the students of Highland Elementary 

Photo Credit James D. Teed

On Monday afternoon, Dr. Lee journeyed to Alabama A&M University. She received a guided tour of the campus in one of A&M’s zero-emission electric buses. Dr. Lee then attended a luncheon in the Knight Center with Dr. Daniel Wims, Alabama A&M’s President, as well as representatives from Zeta Phi Beta, Dr. Lee’s sorority. 

Dr. Lee concluded her visit to Huntsville with a Monday evening appearance at UAH. Dr. David Puleo, UAH’s Provost, received Dr. Lee at a small reception. Dr. Sean Lane, Dean for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at UAH, then welcomed Dr. Lee and guests to a well-packed Charger Union Theater. Mr. Tommy Battle, Mayor of Huntsville, issued a proclamation declaring August 29 Opal Lee Day in the City of Huntsville. WAFF’s Margo Gray concluded the evening by moderating a discussion with Dr. Lee about the history and significance of Juneteenth. 

Reflecting upon Dr. Lee’s visit, Ms. Angela Curry (B.A. Political Science, 2000), Executive Director for United Women of Color, remarks, “We were honored to work with the Humanities Center to provide this educational opportunity to Huntsville. Dr. Lee’s visit was nothing less than remarkable. At each event, her boundless energy and authenticity inspired everyone in her presence. Her words, ‘become a committee of one,’ boast the values of unity and collaboration that are foundational to United Women of Color’s methods of service.”

Photo Gallery of Dr. Opal Lee's Visit

Photo Credit James Dr. Teed  

Researchers in the Challenge, Metacognition, and Perception (ChaMP) Lab study how peoples’ understanding of difficulty affects their judgments and task engagement. Our work is both basic and translational: we want to know why and how the human mind assesses task difficulty (basic research) and how this assessment affects peoples’ engagement in real-world settings (e.g., human-automation teams, academic procrastination, translational research). Diversifying our research approach allows us to share our expertise with the greatest impact: we identify opportunities for growth and offer recommendations to address their underlying cause. For questions about this lab, please contact Dr. Lisa Vangsness at llv0003@uah.edu

UAH Theatre announces the 2022-2023 season (#18) and it is REVOLTING! 

This year, we have focused on comedy, good feels, and REVOLUTION! Join us as we examine women and the revolution, an important cultural musical, and a readers series of new and diverse work all in the Black Box Theatre in Morton Hall.  

The SPARK Readers Theatre Series #1

The Underpants Godot by Duncan Pflaster

The Underpants Godot is about a director who's surreptitiously rehearsing for an avant-garde production of “Waiting for Godot”, with the main characters played by hot dudes in their underpants instead of old men. A representative from the notoriously litigious Samuel Beckett estate crashes a rehearsal to investigate and decide whether the performance should be allowed. The play is a hilarious meta-theatrical piece about the limits of adaptation and interpretation.

Directed by Karen Baker

• October 13 at 7:30 pm
• FREE
• Morton Hall Black Box Theatre

The Spark is a staged reading series performed in front of a live audience. Actors read from scripts and the stage directions are read aloud. This unique presentation of a play has all of the timing and emotional dynamics of a live performance without the demands of fully produced theatrical work. A well-executed staged reading can serve as the springboard for a number of successful theater projects and give audiences access to material they may never have otherwise. The series will highlight plays by diverse authors about diverse matters relevant today.

The Revolutionists

by Lauren Gundersen 

In a country divided between the haves and the have-nots, and facing the threats of domestic terrorism and civil war, four women come together to unite as a sisterhood and fight back using the magic of theatre. When deposed queen Marie Antoinette, playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, and freedom fighter Marianne Angelle join forces, the Reign of Terror will cower and a free France will rise. They hope. Fingers crossed. A comedy based on true stories, The Revolutionists is a play that will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you cheer: Vive la Femme!

“…a sassy, hold-on-to-your-seats theatrical adventure…

Directed by Amy Guerin

• November 2,3,4,5 - 9,10,11,12 at 7:30 pm
• November 6 & 13 at 2:30 pm
• $15 - Student Free
• Morton Hall Black Box Theatre

The SPARK Readers Theatre Series #2

Play to be announced

Directed by Amy Guerin

• February 13 at 7:30 pm
• FREE
• Morton Hall Black Box Theatre

HAIR

UPDATE 3-24-2023: This semester’s public performances of the musical “Hair” was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. UAH has refunded the full amount of all tickets.  Guests can learn more about the Theater program, as well as past public performances here.

Book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado

Music by Galt MacDermot

The American tribal love rock musical Hair celebrates the sixties counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded and fringed glory. To an infectiously energetic rock beat, the show wows audiences with songs like "Aquarius," "Good Morning, Starshine," "Hair," "I Got Life" and "Let The Sun Shine." Exploring ideas of identity, community, global responsibility, and peace, Hair remains relevant as ever as it examines what it means to be a young person in a changing world.

Directed by Karen Baker

• March 29,30,31, April 1 - 5, 6, 7, 8 at 7:30 pm
• April 2 and 8 at 2:30 pm
• $20 - Students Free
• Morton Hall Black Box Theatre

For questions about this year's season, please contact theatre@uah.edu 

The Joy of Juneteenth brings Dr. Opal Lee to the City of Huntsville to discuss the history and significance of celebrating the anniversary of the day General Gordon Granger proclaimed the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas.

Known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” Dr. Opal Lee was present on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, thereby establishing June 19, or “Juneteenth,” as a federal holiday. Ms. Lee said, on that day, “Now we can celebrate freedom from the 19th of June to the 4th of July!”

Opal Lee was born in Marshall, Texas in 1926 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1937. On June 19, 1939, at the age of 12, her family’s home was destroyed. Neither she nor her family allowed this to deter them from making an impact in their community. Ms. Lee has served on many boards and with many organizations, including Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity, Habitat for Humanity, and the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society—an organization dedicated to preserving the history of Fort Worth’s Black populace. During her tenure as Chairman of the Community Food Bank, the organization received the 1.3-million-dollar 33,000 square foot facility that now serves 500 families per day.

Ms. Lee is the oldest living board member of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, a national movement started by the late Dr. Ronald Myers to have Juneteenth declared a National Holiday. At 90 years of age, to bring awareness to the need for celebrating Juneteenth nationally, Ms. Lee began a walking campaign from Fort Worth, TX to Washington, D.C. She walked 2.5 miles in cities across the country to represent the 2.5 years it took after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation for enforcement to reach Texas and free the enslaved. In 2019, Ms. Lee launched an online petition campaign that garnered over 1.6 million signatures to continue the crusade for holiday observance. Earlier this year, Texas Congressman Marc Veasey and 33 other members of Congress nominated Ms. Lee for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to “advance understanding and respect between individuals of different backgrounds and socioeconomic levels.”

During her visit to Huntsville, Ms. Lee will meet with dignitaries from across the city, attend a church service at St. John AME; sign copies of her book, Juneteenth: A Children’s Story, at Oakwood University; read her book to students at a local public elementary school; tour the campus of Alabama A&M University; and participate in a public dialogue on the campus of The University of Alabama in Huntsville. The book signing and public dialogue are free and open to the public. Other events are closed or by invitation only.

The Joy of Juneteenth is sponsored by the UAH Humanities Center, and in partnership with United Women of Color. Collaborators for Ms. Lee’s visit also include Alabama A&M University, the City of Huntsville, Highlands Elementary PTA, Madison County Commission District 6, Oakwood University, St. John AME Church, UAH Music, and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Sunday, August 28

Location: St. John AME Church

Time: 10:00 AM

Masks and temperature checks are required for admission to the sanctuary.

Ms. Lee, Deaconess at Baker Chapel AME in Fort Worth, Texas, will attend church service. St. John AME streams their services on their Facebook page.

Location: Moran Hall Auditorium (Oakwood University)

Time: 3:00 PM

This event is free, open to the public, accessible, and child-friendly. Masks are required.

Meet Ms. Lee, and have her sign a copy of her children’s book, Juneteenth: A Children’s Story. The first 100 attendees will receive a free copy of Ms. Lee’s book as a gift from the UAH Humanities Center. (Other giveaways also will be available.)

Monday, August 29

Location: Highlands Elementary School (Huntsville City Schools)

Time: 9:00 AM

This is a closed event, with streaming access available online.

Ms. Lee will read her book, Juneteenth: A Children’s Story, to students as part of Highlands Elementary PTA’s ongoing—and nationally recognized—literacy initiative.

Location: Knight Center (Alabama A&M University)

Time: 11:00 AM

This is a closed event.

Ms. Lee will tour the campus of Huntsville’s oldest Historically Black College and University, founded in 1875.

Location: Charger Union Theater (The University of Alabama in Huntsville)

Time: 6:00 PM

This event is free, open to the public, accessible, and child-friendly.

Hear Ms. Lee discuss the history and significance of Juneteenth, and pick up some free souvenirs from the UAH Humanities Center. Doors open at 5:30 PM. WAFF’s Margo Gray will moderate, and the City of Huntsville will make a special announcement.

For more information on The Joy of Juneteenth event, contact:

Dr. Nicholaos Jones, UAH Humanities Center Director,humanitiescenter@uah.edu or 256-824-2338

Ms. Angela Curry, United Women of Color Executive Directortheunitedwoc@gmail.com or 256-384-4933

The land currently occupied by UAH was a nineteenth-century cotton plantation called Avalon. Starting in the early 1800s, Avalon became one of the largest cotton plantations in Madison County. By 1860, 106 enslaved people worked the land and lived in 35 houses on the property. For several years, UAH history classes have been excavating Avalon-related sites under the direction of Ben Hoksbergen, Redstone Arsenal archaeologist. These classes uncovered the site of the enslaver’s dwelling (between the Nursing Building and Roberts Hall). 

We seek to know more about the enslaved people’s lives here at Avalon. Sadly, not much documentation exists in historical records. So this summer, the UAH History Department and the UAH Archives, with support from the Provost’s Office, enlisted the help of the Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research (TVAR) to use ground-penetrating radar in an attempt to locate where enslaved people were laid to rest on the property.  

Claiborne Sea of the TVAR spent three days in mid-May scanning two areas with ground-penetrating radar for that purpose. One area was near University Drive and the other around the existing Jones-Perkins Cemetery behind Morton Hall. We can’t wait to see what his work shows!

If you are interested in UAH campus history research, please donate to support the work of the UAH History Department, UAH Archives, and our community partners as we learn more about UAH’s history and erect markers to share that history with the community. 

Information provided by the Department of History and Dr. Christine Sears, Department Chair. For questions, please contact history@uah.edu.

An interview with Vishal Rameshbabu - by Dr. Andrei Gandila, UAH Associate Professor of History 

At 10 years old Vishal took his first college-level class, Honors 103 – World History to 1500. He earned an A in that class. To be fair, he didn’t do a perfect job. He lost points on his research paper about the origins of the First Crusade, because it exceeded the word limit. It was twice as long! Now, at 16, Vishal is enrolled in the capstone seminar HY 490 and in HY 401 Daily Life in Ancient Rome, both challenging, writing-intensive, classes. Vishal graciously agreed to share his experience which I’m sure will be a source of inspiration for everyone.

Dr. Gandila: When did you first become interested in history and how did it happen?

Vishal: I have always loved geography, and I’ve been reading atlases my whole life. Over time, I grew annoyed with how relatively stationary the present world was to me, so I looked over historical maps and historical cartographical animations online when I was about eight years old. From then on, it was a rabbit hole into the great states, empires, people, and the past. I soon read encyclopedia articles and watched documentaries about the ancient world, usually about Near Eastern civilizations, which drew my interest towards the cultural and societal history of long-gone cultures and societies.

Dr. Gandila: It is common for children to develop a strong interest for an activity but then to forget about it and move to something else. What kept your interest in history for so long?

Vishal: Nothing else has caught my interest as much as history ever in my entire life, but I expressed my interest in different ways over time, which may have kept my attention towards the subject for such a long time. I learned to channel my passion for history through event organization, writing, and teaching others on an individual basis, which I’ve never lost sight of and never lost my connection with. While my relationship with history has changed significantly over time (from an individual perspective to a broader, more communal perspective), my general interest has not.

Dr. Gandila: I know you have a particular interest in pre-modern history. What is your favorite culture and why?

Vishal: The Bactrians are very interesting to me. Their location at the crossroads between the Indo-Aryans, Hellenistic Kingdoms, and Eurasian Steppe granted them a very unique culture. Whether they were ruled by the mysterious Yuezhi tribes of the Kushan Empire or the Nomadic Hephthalite Empire, they maintained a variety of both odd and familiar practices. To me, there is nothing more incredible than a civilization that fits all the boxes and none at the same time. The Bactrians, who adopted Indian Buddhism and Persian Zoroastrianism but practiced artificial cranial deformation and lived in tents, are just that.

Dr. Gandila: You took HY 103 in the Fall of 2016. The previous fall I had your older brother Rahul in the same class. One day he came to my office and told me half-jokingly that his kid brother Vishal, who is in elementary school, wants to help him with his assignments for my class. You even visited the class one time, so he wasn’t joking. What convinced you that you could handle a college-level class at that age?

Vishal: At the time, whether I could handle the class or not was not on my mind. I saw it as a challenge and a fun experience. I had no idea what the class had in store, but I wanted to go beyond studying history on my own, and I thought HY 103 was perfect for just that. While I may have been naive about the class and its commitments at the time, I definitely made the right decision.

Dr. Gandila: One time, one of your classmates came to me after class and whispered “Who is that kid, and how come he knows so much about everything?” How did you feel in a room with students so much older than you?

Vishal: It was natural to me. I think in the present day I might even be more apprehensive about a situation of that sort than I was then. I just enjoyed the environment for what it was and the age difference between me and my classmates rarely crossed my mind, if ever. In-class discussions, the only thing I cared about was offering my perspective to my classmates regardless of who I was.

Dr. Gandila: What is the most important thing you learned from your college experience so far?

Vishal: Through academic writing and class discussion, I figured out how to communicate information beyond just a series of rote memorized facts. I learned how to offer opinions and insight and tie information together, not only in history but in general. That shift in mentality and experience has helped me immensely in bringing my knowledge further than my own mind. I found that teaching others involved shaping information with your own personal perspective and nuance.

Dr. Gandila: How do you see your future and will it include the study of history?

Vishal: I am likely going to be involved in the academic side of history for the rest of my life. I hope to study history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and enter academia from that point. I’m considering entering historical podcasting or non-fiction historical writing as well. Even if my plan to become a full-time academic historian does not come to fruition, I will definitely be involved in the academic study of history regardless.

Dr. Gandila: Why is history important and why should people care about it?

Vishal: It is impossible to truly understand human society without knowing the context behind everything from the beginning of civilization. In order to think critically about today’s world, and think critically in general, the study of history is a very important tool. History offers cautionary tales and murky waters that real people saw and fought through which are extremely valuable and impossible to replicate in any other field. Even though pre-modern history doesn’t have a direct correlation with the present world, some things never change. The politics of the Late Roman Republic offer significant insight into political intrigue and demagoguery that still ring true today. The rise of Islamic empires in India created similar demographic shifts to the ones of the modern Near East.

Dr. Gandila: We live in a digital age and the focus is shifting from the human experience to technology, robotics, and automation. What is the future of history as a discipline and should students continue to major in history?

Vishal: A fully digitized and automated society requires a lens into the past, especially as societies shift exponentially through technological development and cultural change. In a world where technology morphs the cultural and political landscape to unrecognizable levels, keeping track of the past can only grow more challenging and more necessary. In predicting the future of a dynamic world through past political and cultural events, whether in the realm of diplomacy, policy, or economics, the historical record will be necessary. Understanding traditional military conflict, global diseases, and political failure will also be needed, even in a time where those events grow rare and foreign, as those crises can show up unexpectedly, especially in societies unequipped with the historical knowledge of preventative measures. Studying history should be more viable over time, especially as other careers simplify or become defunct through automation and technological progress, and history grows more necessary to the modern, erratic world. There should be greater demand for historical knowledge in the future, both modern and non-modern, when institutions and societies demand a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the ever-growing and convoluted human past.

For questions about our Department of History, please contact history@uah.edu  

The Department of Art, Art History & Design’s annual juried student exhibition showcases exciting work from students across the disciplines. The show includes studio artworks in Drawing, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture as well as Graphic Design and Animation. Awards selected by Guest Juror Michael Dickins. Congratulations to all participants and award winners. The Exhibit will be on display in both the Wilson Hall and Salmon Library Galleries until May 6, 2022. 

2022 Student Awards List

Campus and Community Awards

Evans Best of Show Award - $1000 – Any Category – Ayuka Schichinohe – “Chef’s Pick”

President’s Award - $500 – Any Category – Ace Lemley – “Cremated Womanhood”

Provost’s Award - $500 – Any Category – Tiffany Hawkins – “Hunter”

Christine Curtis Student Excellence Award - $500 – Any Category – Victoria Scogins – “Untitled”

Dean’s Award for Painting - $250 Painting/Drawing Category – Tiffany Hawkins – “Fate of Rivers”

Jeffrey Bayer Memorial Scholarship Award -  $300 -Tiffany Hawkins

Mayor’s Purchasing Award – Mady Urbanski – “Tempo”

Women’s & Gender Studies Emerging Woman Artist Award - $100 –  Any Category (Female) – Courtlyn Hart – Aspects of One’s Self

Art Club Award (1^st Place)  - $125 –  Any Category – Cari Sheets – “Venus II”

Art Club Award (2^nd Place)- $75 – Any Category – Molly Brazier – “Untitled”

Huntsville Museum of Art Award – Eriel Gibson – “Unstrung Marrionette”

Animation Awards

Pinnacle Solutions Best in Digital Animation Award - $500 – Any Animation (Models and Shorts categories under Animation) – Tucker Youngblood – “11Second Club Animatic”

Media Fusion Digital Animation Excellence in Modeling Award 1^st Place -  $100 –  Animation/3D Models Category – Sophia Stephenson – “1994 Polly Pocket Magical Mansion”

Media Fusion Digital Animation Excellence in Modeling Award 2^nd Place - $50 –  Animation/Modeling Category – Dylan Coleman – “Pendragon’s House”

Media Fusion Digital Animation Excellence in Animation Award 1^st Place - $100 -Animation/Shorts Category – Vaughn Oeth – “Good Omens Animation”

Media Fusion Digital Animation Excellence in Animation Award 2^nd Place - $50 Animation/Shorts Category – koi Vargas-Fernandez – “Salsa Girl”

Digital Illustration Award  - $100 – Digital Illustration Category – Courtlyn Hart – “Gold Star Channel 11”

Photography Awards

Huntsville Photographic Society Photography Award - $100 Photography Category – Madison Dalton – “Seeing Double”

Nick Lavenant Peasant T-Shirt Shoppe Photography Award - $100 Photography Category – Jacob Chatfield – “Misery”

Southerland’s Photo Excellence in Photography Award – $50 Gift Card – Lolia Chiekh “Syria My Love”

Printmaking Awards

Michael Crouse Excellence in Printmaking Award - $100 Printmaking Category – Anna Beam – “Third Story”

Nick Lavenant Peasant T-Shirt Shoppe Printmaking Award - $100 Printmaking Category - Emma Gould – “Borderless”

Katie Baldwin Excellence in Printmaking Award - $50 –  Printmaking Category – Stevie Evans – “Claby”

Painting/Drawing/Mix Media Awards

Erzulie Johnson-Veasey Painting Award - $100 – Painting/Drawing Category – Cari Sheets – “Sketchbook -1”

Mixed Media Award - $100 Mixed Media Category – Alyssa Eady – “Devouring My Inner Sanction”

Graphic Design Awards

Advertising and Marketing Materials Award in Graphic Design- $100 – Graphic Design/Advertising and Marketing Category – Rinata Bauzhanova – “Music Magazine”

Advertising Illustration Award in Graphic Design Award- $50 – Graphic - Design/Advertising Illustration Category – Rebecca Brown – “Hidden Channel”

Sculpture Awards

Chris Taylor Excellence in Sculpture Award –  $150 Sculpture Category – Cindy Dahm – “Suitcase”

Gallery of Exhibition and Reception

Emergence

UAH BFA photography major Justin LaMar Ward's multimedia works explore identity and the ways that the pandemic brought isolation and subsequent introspection. Ward's narrative exhibition is a journey through reckoning, confrontation, disintegration, and eventually - growth.

His combination of photographs and digital imagery, light, and projection invites the viewer to empathize with the experience of loss, grief, and betrayal and to witness the artist’s development of a sense of balance amidst the shifting winds of the pandemic, and ultimately a discovery of interior freedom and an openness to trust and faith.

For those unable to attend the show in person, here are a few pieces from his exhibit. Photo Credit: Maleah Taylor ('22 BFA Graphic Design)

Use Your Outside Voice.

Willoughby Lucas Hastings

Guided by the notion that we only critique the things we love; in Use Your Outside Voice., artist Willoughby Lucas Hastings presents a body of work influenced by growing up in and recently returning to Huntsville, AL. Informed and limited by her white subjectivity she analyzes Huntsville's connection to the period of enslavement and the ideologies and aesthetic traditions that as a result linger in our present. In this exhibition, Hastings flips a familiar phrase to implicate herself and the viewer in the responsibility of thinking critically about our beliefs and how we represent them to the public and at home. Through these artistic interventions in her hometown and personal ancestry, Hastings uses her outside voice to represent opportunities for historical reflection, accountability, and coalition building. As a result, Hastings asks her audience to reflect on how our biases and behaviors are part of a longer history of socialization and confirmed by our daily routines, our chosen communities, the environments we inhabit, and how we remember the past. By contrast, if we adopt a sense of social and situational awareness while confronting the darkest parts of our collective history we begin to make space for grievance, healing, accountability, and more honest relationships in the future.

For those unable to view the gallery in person, here are a few pieces from the show. 

The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences is excited to announce some of our new and returning courses for Summer and Fall 2022. New class descriptions will be added daily! Check back often. If you have questions about courses, please contact our college at cahs@uah.edu or speak with your Academic Advisor. 

ENGLISH

EH 618: Indigenous Women’s Literature

Dr. Alanna Frost frosta@uah.edu

This course will explore issues of identity, representation, and experience in texts written by and about Indigenous North American women. We will engage with a broad variety of texts—fiction, literary criticism, ethnographies, and native-studies criticisms—in order to consider the politics of demarcating what counts as Indigenous women’s literature and what it means to mark a course as concerned with understanding “Indigenous” and “Women.”

HISTORY

HY 399: History of the Modern Olympic Games

Dr. Molly Johnson johnsomw@uah.edu

This course will explore the history of the Olympic Games from 1896 to the present, using the Olympics as a microcosm for exploring broader themes including: nationalism and internationalism, amateurism and professionalism, politics and protest; race, gender, commercialization, media, urban planning, environment, security and terrorism, and the emerging global anti-Olympics movement.

MUSIC

MUX 390: Concert Choir

Dr. Matthew Carey mjc0030@uah.edu

The UAH Concert Choir is an SATB ensemble, comprised of singers with a wide range of experience and ability from almost every college and major on campus. The Concert Choir and Chamber Choir often collaborate with the UAH Wind Ensemble, Huntsville Community Chorus, and Huntsville Symphony.

WORLD LANGUAGES & CULTURES

Spanish 101S: Intro to Foreign Language 

Various Faculty wlc@uah.edu 

NEW! This course will be online for summer and fall with a hybrid model of both synchronous and asynchronous course schedules. You will be required to be at one Zoom class meeting each week, while other material will be completed online asynchronous. Teaches beginning listening, speaking, reading, and writing within cultural contexts. No prerequisites are needed.

ENGLISH 207 AND 208 COURSE INFORMATION:

EH 207-05 - Joseph Taylor

Literature and Culture teaches critical analysis of texts from ancient times through the Age of Discovery. This course introduces students to the methods of literary study through an examination of works in their social, historical, and philosophical contexts. We will examine different genres such as poetry, prose fiction, and drama and oral literatures. These texts will take us from ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) to ancient Greece, from pre modern Britain to medieval Africa, and from early modern Spain to Renaissance England. Our readings will consist mainly of works in translation but will also include texts first written in English. Our main texts for this course will include the ancient Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh, the fifth-century BCE drama Oedipus Tyrannus, the Old English poem Beowulf, the epic of medieval Mali, Sundjiata, the fourteenth-century Middle English poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Canterbury Tales, the sixteenth-century Spanish picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes, and Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. We will also read other supplemental texts relative to the periods/cultures that produced the main texts.

EH 207-06/10 - Ryan Brown

Literature without Environmental Borders explores the ways that humans have constructed not only physical boundaries between them and their environment—like fences, walls and fire—but also symbolic ones in the literature of early civilizations. The course focuses on literary texts depicting and performing human-animal-plant relationships and analyzes the ways these borders are maintained or reimagined today. By reconstructing and deconstructing the literary boundaries created in ancient texts, we hope to understand more about our modern hurdles toward healthier relationships with our environments. The course will explore what it means to be human, what happened to nature, what animals mean to us, fear, love, violence, and the boundless terrains of foundational literature. 

EH 207-07/08/09 - Lacy Marschalk-Brecciaroli

Topic: "Storytelling Animals: Beginnings to 1605"

“One of the most intrinsic things about [humans],” says author Salman Rushdie, “is that we're storytelling animals. The need to understand the world through our stories is profoundly embedded in human nature." In this course, we will study extant literature from ancient times through the so-called “Age of Discovery.” In particular, we will be examining the history of storytelling, of how stories are told and why they are told, in cultures from around the world. To answer these questions, we will analyze works within their social, historical, and philosophical contexts while paying special attention to the forms of stories and their narrative structures and techniques. Readings may include The Odyssey, The Ramayana, The Thousand and One Nights, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Lear, and The Tale of Genji.

EH 208-01/05 - David St. John

(POST) HUMAN WISHES: Monsters, cyborgs, artificial intelligences and everyday humans populate the readings in this survey of literature since the Enlightenment. The authors we study in this class all propose differing answers to the question of what makes humans "human." In addition to tracing the development of literature across the aesthetic movements of Romanticism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism, this class incorporates writers from outside the western canon that have their own novel perspectives. Texts include Frankenstein (Shelley), The Metamorphosis (Kafka), and Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro), along with shorter readings by David Hume, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others.

EH 208-06/07 - Joseph Conway

The Legacy of Frankenstein: Since its publication in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been an endless inspiration to writers and filmmakers: A warning to scientists. A class parable. A prophesy of A.I. or genetic engineering. A feminist critique of patriarchal marriage. An allegory about artistic creation. A study of racism. A mournful meditation on human violence. A good old-fashioned horror story. In this class we will explore The Legacy of Frankenstein beginning with Shelley's original and continuing through writers like H.G. Wells, Karel Čapek, Nnedi Okorafor, Victor Lavalle, and Kazuo Ishiguro, and films like Blade Runner and Bride of Frankenstein.