Field Investigations

While we have a scheduled field trip to the White House of the Confederacy (1201 E. Clay Street) on Saturday, February 22, which will count toward one of your field investigation assignments, the list below is intended to provide additional options for the second field investigation (or, if you are unable to make the Saturday field trip, both field investigation assignments). Please note: the field investigation assignments are due February 28 and March 27, respectively.

If you have additional events to add to this list, please contact me.

White House of the Confederacy Tours & Special Exhibit on the Lost Cause
Location: 
White House of the Confederacy, 1201 E. Clay Street
Date: Saturday, February 22, 11 AM (Organized by Dr. Maurantonio)
Description: The house was home to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, and his family from August, 1861, until the evacuation of Richmond on April 2, 1865.  It served as the political and social epicenter of wartime Richmond.

With the end of the war, the house was headquarters for the U.S. army of occupation and became headquarters for Military District No. 1 during Reconstruction. In 1870, the U.S. Government gave the house back to the City of Richmond, which used the building for its Central School until 1894. The Confederate Memorial Literary Society took possession of the property and established the Confederate Museum in the building, which opened its doors to the public in February, 1896.

In 1976 a new museum building was opened and restoration was begun to bring the appearance of the house back to the period of the Civil War. The restored house was opened to the public in June, 1988. On September 30, 2018, the museum building closed, to give collections staff time to pack up the collection for its move to the Museum’s new facility at Historic Tredegar. The White House remains open daily for tours.

The White House currently holds a large number of furnishings and artifacts that were in the house with the Davis family. All of the remaining items are original to the period, except for the textiles which are reproductions based on original fabrics or period patterns.

 

 

Roundtable Event: Afro-Diasporicities: Memory, Resistance, and Healing in the 21st Century
Location: Carole Weinstein International Center Commons
Date: 
Wednesday, January 29
Time: 5:30-7:30 PM
Description: How does the body remember? In what ways is embodied knowledge stored and passed down from one generation to another? How can the arts be used as a vehicle for steering society towards greater justice? Songs, music, and dances have fortified communities of color with ancestral knowledge, embodied resistance, and healing practices. In this hybrid roundtable, partially discussion and partially music and dance interventions, we turn to the term “afro-diasporicities” to bring into sharper focus how the lived experience of black diasporic beings and their movement, music, culture, and spiritual practices, which are rooted in a place yet historically uprooted and/or rerouted, exist, intersect, and evolve.

Invited guest speakers and practitioners:
Kevin LaMarr Jones, Claves Unidos
Alex LaSalle, with Julia Gutiérrez and Mateo González, Redobles de Cultura
MK Abadoo, Department of Dance and Choreography, Virginia Commonwealth University
Free Egunfemi Bangura, Untold RVA
Lauranette Lee, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

Moderators:
Alicia Díaz and Patricia Herrera, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Richmond

Event is free and open to the public.

 

One Book, One Richmond Keynote: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha
Location: 
Camp Concert Hall
Date: Wednesday, February 5
Time: 7-8:30 PM
Description: The One Book, One Richmond 2019-20 keynote will feature a special conversation between Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, author of What the Eyes Don’t See, and Dr. Karen Remley, former CEO of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Tickets are free but required and available through the Modlin Center for the Arts Box Office.

Released in June 2018, What the Eyes Don’t See is a powerful first-hand account of the Flint, Michigan water crisis and a riveting narrative of personal advocacy by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the founder and director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative. Dr. Karen Remley is the Inaugural Senior Fellow at the de Beaumont Foundation, dedicated to pragmatic solutions to improve public health. She previously served as CEO of the American Academy of Pediatrics, commissioner of health for the Commonwealth of Virginia under two governors, chief medical director of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Virginia, and CEO of Physicians for Peace.
RSVP here 

 

Let’s Talk: Lost Cause
Location: White House of the Confederacy
Date: Thursday, February 6
Time: 6-7:30 PM
Description: The Lost Cause shaped how generations of people have both remembered history and understood their present lives, but its vision of the past isn’t accurate. Join a small group conversation that explores the new exhibit, House of the Lost Cause, and uncovers how the Lost Cause has impacted you and the lives of others. Featuring Caroline Janney, Ph.D. (University of Virginia). Space is limited, registration strongly encouraged.
RSVP here 

 

Contested Ground: Memory, Monuments & Power
Location:
Brown-Alley Room
Date: Wednesday, February 12
Time: 12-1:15 PM
Description: This moderated discussion will include a roundtable on research by Jannette Amaral-Rodriguez (LALIS), Elizabeth Baughan (Classical Studies), Erin Holloway Palmer (Independent Editor), and Will Wasta Werner (Classical Studies and History).

Moderated by: Rob Nelson (Digital Scholarship Lab)

Pizza and drinks provided.

 

Borders, Boundaries, and Global Frontiersfeaturing Dr. Leisy Abrego, Professor of Chicano/Chicana Studies at UCLA
Location:
Cabell Library Lecture Hall, VCU
Date: Wednesday, February 12
Time: 4 PM
Description: Thousands of Central Americans are leaving their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to seek refuge in the United States. What is propelling their mass exodus and why should US society care? This talk provides political and social context of US-Central American relations from the 1980s to the present to better understand how US foreign policies in the region and immigration policies at home play an important role in the current situation.

 

A Conversation about Nonviolent Activism
Location:
Library of Virginia (800 E. Broad Street)
Date: Wednesday, February 12
Time: 6-8 PM
Description: Free and open to the public, this small-group discussion series encourages informed conversations around complex topics affecting Virginia. On the second Wednesday of each month, the Library will screen a segment from a documentary film, followed by a round-table conversation with input from a moderator and historical expert from the Library. Attendees are encouraged to share their perspectives with the group.

February 12’s event features a screening from “Freedom Riders” and conversations around nonviolent activism during the struggle for racial justice. For more information, contact Emma Ito at emma.ito@lva.virginia.gov or 804.692.3726.

Registration is free but strongly encouraged. You can sign up here.

 

Fencing in Democracy: Border Walls, Necrocitizenship, and the Security State
Location:
THC 305
Date: Monday, February 17
Time:
12 noon – 1 pm

Dr. Margaret E. Dorsey and Dr. Miguel Díaz-Barriga (Sociology/Anthropology) will discuss their new book, Fencing in Democracy: Border Walls, Necrocitizenship, and the Security State. The book focuses on studies in U.S. southern border communities and argues that border wall construction manifests transformations in citizenship practices that are aimed not only at keeping migrants out, but also at enmeshing citizens into a wider politics of exclusion.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED by Feb. 10 (lunches provided) at the following link:
https://tinyurl.com/Incommonfeb2020

 

Symposium: Wyatt Tee Walker and the Politics of Black Religion
Location: Camp Concert Hall
Date: Friday, February 21
Times: See below for full program
Note: You do not need to attend the entire symposium to have it count as your Field Investigation Assignment. You can write your paper on one (1) session of the symposium.

9:00am – 10:15am

Conversation I
Aesthetics of Black Religion

Mark BurfordAssociate Professor, Department of Music, Reed College
Claudrena N. HaroldProfessor and Chair, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia
Rhon S. Manigault-BryantAssociate Professor, Department of Africana Studies, Williams College

Moderator
Julian Maxwell HayterAssociate Professor, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

10:30am – 11:45am

Conversation II
Democratic Faith of Black Religion

Ravi PerryProfessor and Chair, Department of Political Science, Howard University
James Manigault-BryantProfessor, Department of Africana Studies, Williams College
Richard WillsSenior Pastor, Friendship Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA

Moderator
Ernest B. McGowen IIIAssociate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Richmond

1:00pm – 2:15pm

Conversation III
Politics of Black Religion;

Adam BondAssociate Professor, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University
Melanie C. JonesAssistant Professor and Director, Katie Geneva Canon Center for Womanist Leadership, Union Presbyterian Seminary
Melva SampsonAssistant Professor, School of Divinity, Wake Forest University

Moderator
Laura BrowderTyler and Alice Hanes Professor of American Studies Program, Coordinator, American Studies Program
University of Richmond

2:30pm – 3:45pm

Conversation IV
Rethinking Black Religion, Rethinking Public Life

Greg CarrAssociate Professor and Chair, Department of Africana Studies, Howard University
Sylvester JohnsonProfessor and Director, Center for the Humanities, Virginia Tech
Tamura LomaxIndependent Scholar and Founder, The Feminist Wire

Moderator
Atiya HusainAssistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Introduction
Thad WilliamsonAssociate Professor, Jepson School of Leadership and Program in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law, University of Richmond

Keynote
Jonathan L. WaltonDean, School of Divinity, Presidential Chair of Religion and Society and Dean of Wait Chapel, Wake Forest University

Concluding Remarks
Corey D. B. Walker, Visiting Professor, Jepson School of Leadership Studies and School of Arts & Sciences, University of Richmond

 

The Jim Crow Cigarette from Richmond to China: An Intimate History
Location:
International Center Commons
Date:
Thursday, February 27
Time:
4:30 – 5:30 PM
Description: 

The global cigarette of the twentieth century had its beginning in Richmond at the factories of Lewis Ginter and John Pope, made of bright leaf tobacco grown in Virginia and North Carolina. Soon this cigarette, developed in tandem with Jim Crow segregation, circulated around the world, including to China where the British American Tobacco Company built a thriving industry. This talk tells the story of how Ginter marketed the bright leaf cigarette first in gentlemen’s clubs in London, and how this cigarette soon came to dominate a global industry. In the process, Jim Crow segregation also inflected global capitalism.

Speaker: Nan Enstad, Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the author of Cigarettes Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism.

 

Walls, Borders, and Partitions in Global Perspective
Location: University of Richmond, Richmond Room
Date: Friday, February 28
Time: 9 AM – 4 PM (see below for session times)
Description: The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent reunification of Germany were met with a mixture of euphoria, anxiety, and hope, inspiring a desire for an end to walls and militarized borders around the world. In retrospect, we were closer to a world without border walls in 1989 than we are today. In 1989 only 15 countries had border walls. As of November 2017, however, over 70 walls separated nations and states—50 of which were constructed following September 11, 2001.

Examples of contemporary border walls include not only the increasingly tense border between the United States and Mexico (930 km), but also Spain and Morocco (19 km) and Israel and the West Bank (708 km).  In many cases, these walls have destroyed more lives than the Berlin Wall, promoting human suffering by intensifying socio-economic inequality, restricting access to resources and social services, and fostering a cycle of division, mistrust, violence, and fatalities.

This conference explores the reasons for the proliferation of walls and their impacts on migration, citizenship, and possibilities for peace as well as their role in reconfiguring border landscapes and communities.

9:15 – 10:30 am | Walls and their Discontents: Migration, Peace, and the Politics of Division

IntroductionDr. Miguel Díaz-Barriga, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond 

“Border Wall Proliferation and Circumvention Strategies”Dr. Élisabeth Vallet, Director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, University of Quebec-Montreal

“The Post-conflict Promise of Peace? Enduring Peace Walls and their Impact on Lived Experience and Memory of ‘the Troubles’ in Contemporary Northern Ireland”Dr. Laura McAtackney, Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University

ModeratorDr. Kathrin Bower, Professor of German Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and Associate Dean, Arts and Sciences, University of Richmond

 

10:45 – 12:00 pm | Walls, Colonialism, and the Politics of Fragmentation

IntroductionDr. Miguel Díaz-Barriga, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond

“The Violence of Israel’s Separation Wall: An Ethnography through Multiple Analytics”Dr. Amahl Bishara, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Affiliate Faculty, Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism & Diaspora, Tufts University

“The Political Ecology of Languagelessness of the Southwest North American Region: Case Studies in the Linguistic Commoditization of Mexican Origin People.”Dr. Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, Regents’ Professor, School of Transborder Studies and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Motorola Presidential Professor of Neighborhood Revitalization, Arizona State University

ModeratorDr. Margaret Dorsey, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond

 

1:45 – 3:00 pm | Keynote

Introduction:  Dr. Katrina Nousek, Visiting Assistant Professor of German Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond

“Making the Iron Curtain: The Violence of Germany’s Wall”Dr. Edith Sheffer, Senior Fellow at University of California Berkeley’s Institute for European Studies

ModeratorDr. Michelle Kahn, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Richmond