Running with Bulls and The Sun Also Rises

The key scenes in the novel that launched Hemingway’s career take place in Pamplona, Spain, which is world famous for the running of the bulls every morning of the week-long Fiesta of San Fermin. As a devoted fan who had taught The Sun Also Rises for twenty years, Deno Trakas went to Pamplona to run with the … Read more

A Reading from and Discussion of Messenger from Mystery

Novelist Sterling Watson calls my book “a taut page-turner about love and death on the dark side of international education” featuring a “forbidden affair of an American professor and his sultry Iranian student, the Hitchcockian suspense of men and women on the run for their lives in the world’s most dangerous places, and a cast … Read more

The History of Black Children’s Literature

This presentation begins with late 19th century Negro children’s literature to the evolution of the present-day Black children’s literature and features a colorful Power Point.

From Gone with the Wind to Steel Magnolias: In Search of the Real Southern Woman

This entertaining presentation, based on the presenter’s research on Southern women, explores the 19th-century myth of “the Southern lady” and its predominance in popular culture then and now in contrast to the realistic qualities of diverse women of the South from the past into the present.  Audience participation is encouraged.

Cherokee Women—Invincible Spirits

An exploration of the lives of Cherokee women from the time before Europeans arrived in the Americas to the twenty-first century.  Using Cherokee myths, visual images, and artifacts crafted by the hands of Cherokee women, the speaker will weave a story of some of the most powerful women who have walked the earth.  Their bravery, … Read more

A visit from Dr. Ernest Everett Just, Research Scientist

This performance, in which Donald Sweeper portrays Dr. Ernest E. Just Chautauqua-style, is about 35 minutes in length. As Dr. Ernest E. Just, he tells the story of how the doctor succeeded as a research biologist working at the Woods Hold Marine Biology Lab in Massachusetts from 1909 to 1930 while also heading the Zoology … Read more

The Medical University of South Carolina: An Interactive History

This lecture tells the story of the largest medical school in the south, M.U.S.C., whose 19th century origins played a significant role in the history of Charleston, the U.S. South, and American medical education. The rich history of the medical school touches on matters of race, medical experimentation, innovative surgery, nursing, and public health.

South Carolina’s Medical Past

From its earliest inception as a European settlement, South Carolina has been a hotbed of both infectious disease and for innovative approaches to curbing disease and establishing public health. This lecture focuses on the fascinating history of medicine in South Carolina from the 17th to the 21st centuries.