In 1983, while working as a scholar-in-residence for the Tennessee Committee for the Humanities, Dr. Williams had the opportunity to travel around the mountains with Richard Chase, the famous Jack Tale collector. During that time, he discussed Chase’s dialect renditions of the Jack Tales along with a number of old English fairy tales which Chase discovered … Read more
This presentation focuses on Oral History and its value to a community. Dr. Williams will share stories from two projects which he directed: the Appalachian Oral History Project and the Great Smoky Mountains Project. In the late 1970s Dr. Williams was one of the campus directors for an oral history project which covered four states … Read more
The South has a rich tradition of folk literature that draws upon oral tradition and colorful language for its substance. Legends, folk history, songs, foodways, customs, and unique dialects permeate the ghost stories of South Carolina and other Southern states. Dr. Williams draws upon the numerous collections of ghost stories and scary tales to create … Read more
The Folklore and oral traditions from the mill villages are rapidly changing as the they go the way of the coal camps in the mountains. Storytelling itself, the connective tissue of the community, has been drastically affected by this change. Dr. Williams has collected stories from mill workers in the Upstate, and he weaves a … Read more
An entertaining storyteller, Dr. Williams portrays the characters from folk tales collected from Appalachian migrants in Cincinnati, Ohio. He highlights the migrants’ deep-seated sense of place as he recreates characters in Appalachian dialect. Especially moving is his version of Cinderella as a poor girl living up a hollar in the Kentucky mountains whose painted fingernails … Read more
This storytelling workshop presents the vocabulary for writers crafting short stories and novels. Who is the story about? What do they want? In exploration of genre expectations, seven basic plots, and the expected paths characters will follow, this workshop helps novice (and experience) writers name the structural elements of stories. The scaffolding of craft is … Read more
This program explores and celebrates the art of storytelling through the tales founded in the southern states of the U.S. with specific origins from South Carolina.
This is a 45-minute one-man show in which Donald Sweeper tells stories shared to him by his ancestors and the elderly people from the community in which he grew up. This performance also includes Gullah folklore and traditions, as well as rites of passages performed by many of the African American Churches from Reconstruction up … Read more
Charleston has always held a fascination for its visitors. Today there remains a nacreous patina that overlays this old city, a pentimento suggestive not only of artifacts beneath the surface but also gradations of history. It suggests an excavation of its centuries-old layers. This presentation allows us to do just that, to venture back through … Read more
