Audio: Alabama Author Podcasts from AFN

The Atlanta Forum Network (part of Public Broadcasting Atlanta) provides free access to podcasts of public lectures and readings. Many of these are readings by and/or discussions with recently published authors. They take place at venues such as the High Museum of Art, the Georgia Center for the Book, and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

Some of these files are in RealPlayer format and some are in Windows Media format. To install RealPlayer, download the free version from the RealPlayer installers page. To install Windows Media Player, download the free version from the Windows Media Player installers page.

If you prefer to save files for later listening, some audios are available as downloadable mp3 files through the WGBH Forum Network, a partner program to AFN. To download, right-click on the "MP3 Download" link and choose "Save Link As ..." (Firefox) or "Save Target As ..." (Internet Explorer). (Left-clicking the link will cause the mp3 file to stream using your default media player.)

American Wars, American Peace (Philip K. Beidler)

The Prince of Frogtown (Rick Bragg)

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (Arnold Rampersad)

Download mp3 audio of Rampersad/Ellison lecture

Resisting History: Gender, Modernity, and Authorship (Barbara Ladd on Zora Neale Hurston)

Download mp3 audio of Ladd/Hurston lecture

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming (Joshilyn Jackson)

Queen of Broken Hearts (Cassandra King)

Download mp3 audio of King reading

Meet the Poet: Sonia Sanchez

Gay Talese: His Portraits and Encounters

Georgia Review: Natasha Trethewey and Stephen Dunn

Download mp3 audio of Trethewey and Dunn readings

Poetry Readings: Natasha Trethewey

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Musician (Daniel Wallace)

Download mp3 audio of Wallace discussion

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Alabama Authors on The New York Times "Notable Books" List

The New York Times recently published its list of "100 Notable Books of 2008." Authors on this year's list that have connections to Alabama are Tony Earley, Edward O. Wilson, and Tobias Wolff. All three have appeared on the Times "Notable Books" list in previous years. Other Alabama writers that have been included in earlier lists are Rick Bragg, Ralph Ellison, Fannie Flagg, Homer Hickam, and Sena Jeter Naslund.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Lewis Nordan and the Heartbreaking Laughter of Transcendence and Hope: A Symposium

The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities presents a Symposium on renowned author Lewis "Buddy" Nordan, an Auburn University graduate and nationally acclaimed author of eight books including Music of the Swamp and The Sharpshooter Blues. The day-long event will be held on January 23 at the Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.

The Symposium will bring together a host of well-known writers, international scholars, experts in Alabama and Southern literature, and Auburn University's own art and theater students. Nordan himself will deliver the keynote address, introduced by North Carolina writer Clyde Edgerton, who will sing his rendition of Nordan's "Sugar Among the Chickens" and offer an appreciation of the author. Celebrated author Hal Crowther will offer his own appreciation of Nordan entitled "Critical Barbs: Archer or Arrow Catcher," introduced by Southern literary scholar Noel Polk.

Other speakers will include international scholars Manuel Broncano and Marcel Arbeit and Alabamians Bert Hitchcock, Don Noble, Constance Relihan, and Barbara A. Baker. Auburn University art students will display drawings rendered from Nordan's stories, and theater students will enact a dramatic reading of "How Bob Steele Broke My Father's Heart."

The Nordan Symposium will be recorded and made available through iTunes, and papers from the Symposium will be compiled in a volume to be published by Pebble Hill Books. The program will be of interest to both general and scholarly audiences and to aficionados of great Southern storytelling.

Read more about the Symposium at the CMDCAH blog.

Find the Symposium schedule, directions, hotel information, and a brief video of Lewis Nordan at the CMDCAH Web site.

Download the Symposium press packet, which includes a poster and a press release.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Audio: Edward O. Wilson on NPR's All Things Considered

On November 30, Alabama author Edward O. Wilson was interviewed by Andrea Seabrook on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered. At the All Things Considered Web site, you can listen to the interview, see (and hear) a narrated slide show about leafcutter ants, and read an excerpt from The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, Wilson's most recent book (co-written with Bert Hölldobler).

Listen to the All Things Considered interview with Edward O. Wilson.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Internet Archive's American Libraries Project

The American Libraries project from the Open-Access Text Archive of the Internet Archive has been making public domain books from libraries around the country available online. Scanned texts can be viewed in facsimile form ("flip books" and/or PDF files) and in plain text form from the American Libraries Web site.

This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape has just added American Library and Google Book Search links to works by some of our 19th Century and early 20th Century authors: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Zitella Cocke, Mary McNeil Fenollosa, Philip Henry Gosse, Milford W. Howard, Booker T. Washington, Howard Weeden, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, Clement Wood, and Martha Young. We're happy that projects like American Libraries are making these and similar works available to readers, students, and scholars everywhere.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Google Book Search Links Added

For the last few years, the Google Book Search project has been scanning books from libraries and publishers around the world and making them available online. Scanned books that are in the public domain are then made available as complete texts in PDF and plain text (html) forms from the Google Book Search Web site.

This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape has just added Google Book Search links to works by some of our 19th Century and early 20th Century authors: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Joseph Glover Baldwin, Octavus Roy Cohen, Mary McNeil Fenollosa, Philip Henry Gosse, Caroline Lee Hentz, Johnson Jones Hooper, Milford W. Howard, Helen Keller, A. B. Meek, John Trotwood Moore, Samuel Minturn Peck, Louise Clarke Pyrnelle, T. S. Stribling, Howard Weeden, and Martha Young. We're happy that projects like Google Book Search are making these and similar works available to readers, students, and scholars everywhere.

NOTE: Some of these works are offensive today, although, at the time of their publication, they were considered mainstream. Some people would prefer that these works fade into justifiable obscurity. However, we think it is important to look at them to see the attitudes and opinions that have been fought over the last few centuries and to see how far we've come and perhaps how far we still have to go.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

First Draft Fall Issue Now Available Online

The Alabama Writers' Forum is a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Working with other organizations, it sponsors community-based programs to promote the appreciation of Alabama's literary heritage and to support Alabama's writers in the various stages of their careers.

First Draft, the AWF's journal, publishes articles about Alabama literary events, author interviews and essays, book reviews, and other items of literary interest. The Fall '08 issue is now available in PDF format from the First Draft page of the AWF Web site. PDFs of earlier issues, from Summer '98 through Spring '08, are also available here.

The AWF Web site also includes book reviews, a directory of literary resources, and announcements of classes, competitions, and publishing opportunities.

Download a PDF version of the Fall '08 issue of First Draft.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Audio: Alabama Arts Radio Series

Alabama Arts, the radio program from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, is broadcast on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM Central Time on Troy University Public Radio. The subjects of these programs include art, music, theater, literature, and arts education.

These radio programs have long been available online. For the last year or so, they have also been available in podcast form. That is, you can subscribe via iTunes and have them automatically downloaded to your computer.

You can also find these podcasts by visiting the Alabama Arts Radio Series blog. Listeners can subscribe to the blog using a reader program such as Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo!.

So far in 2008, Alabama authors interviewed have included Sena Jeter Naslund, Kirk Cornutt, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Ace Atkins, Jake Adam York, and Kathryn Tucker Windham.

Listen directly (streaming) or download these programs from the Alabama Arts Radio Series blog.

Sena Jeter Naslund interview, March 4, 2008

Kirk Curnutt interview, March 25, 2008

Rheta Grimsley Johnson and Ace Atkins interviews, April 8, 2008

Jake Adam York interview, June 3, 2008

Kathryn Tucker Windham interview, October 28, 2008

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Additions to Our Home Page

Sharp-eyed viewers will notice two new additions to This Goodly Land's home page: logos for Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts and Auburn University Outreach.

Since our beginning, administrative and technology support for This Goodly Land have been supplied by the College of Liberal Arts, while University Outreach has long been a sponsor of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities (our parent organization) and its many programs.

The addition of these organizations' logos to our Web site is a grateful acknowledgment of our ongoing relationship with them.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Send Us Your Alabama Literary Quotations!

This Goodly Land and the Alabama Center for the Book are planning a series of Alabama prose postcards similar to the poetry series produced two years ago. Each postcard will feature a quotation from an Alabama author.

We invite you to submit your favorite Alabama quotations. Please indicate the author and the book or short story from which it comes. Example: "It is good to be shifty in a new country," Johnson Jones Hooper, Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs

If your quotation is selected for the series, you will receive a prize. Most likely non-monetary--we're on a tight budget here, folks. :-) The deadline for submission is December 31, 2008.

You can submit your quotation(s) via the Suggestion Form on This Goodly Land's Web site or by email to coatemi[AT]auburn.edu or by snail mail to Midge Coates, Pebble Hill, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5637.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This Goodly Land and the Alabama Reading Association

The Alabama Reading Association is an organization of professionals working to improve literacy and promote reading in Alabama. Those of you who are ARA members may be interested in an article I wrote for the Summer 2008 edition of the ARA newsletter LINES (scroll down for the link).

In previous years, I have given presentations about This Goodly Land at the Annual Fall Conference. This year, the Alabama Center for the Book will have a table in the Exhibitor area, and we will be handing out posters, bookmarks, and our new This Goodly Land temporary tattoos.

Download the Summer 2008 edition of LINES. The article about This Goodly Land is on page 20.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This Goodly Land Receives $10K Podcasting Grant!

We have just gotten word that the "Support the Arts" Alabama license tag fund has awarded This Goodly Land a $10,000 grant. We will be using this money to create audio programs about special topics in Alabama literature and to distribute them free as podcasts.

The money in this fund comes from the extra that Alabama citizens pay to get "Support the Arts" license plates. Our thanks to all of you that have these plates on your cars. You're making it possible for us to produce programs that help learners of all ages find out more about our state and its rich literary heritage.

Please thank your Alabama legislators for this program, and tell them you're proud to live in a state that values the arts.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Encyclopedia of Alabama Launches!

Today, all of us at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities and the Alabama Center for the Book tip our collective hat to the Encyclopedia of Alabama which is making its public debut. Gov. Bob Riley will be launching the Encyclopedia at the 2008 Alabama Humanities Awards Luncheon in Birmingham.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama is an online reference work containing scholarly articles about many aspects of the state including history, culture, geography, and business. It is a joint project of the Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University and is headquartered here on the Auburn campus.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Audio: More Alabama Authors on iTunes

iTunes U is the section of the iTunes Store that has video and audio podcasts created by colleges and universities. These materials include lectures, broadcasts, and learning resources created specifically for students.

All the materials listed here can be downloaded to your computer for free. Some of them can also be streamed, that is, accessed from within iTunes without downloading.

The iTunes software is also free but you must have it on your computer to access these materials. You can get it from the iTunes download page of the Apple Web site.

Stanford University's Stanford Book Salon features author interviews and discussions. These are available free as audio podcasts and can be either downloaded or streamed. Two of the authors interviewed for this series are Alabama authors Tobias Wolff and Nancy Huddleston Packer.

Audio for Book Salon interview with Tobias Wolff

Audio for Book Salon discussion of Wolff's In Pharoah's Army: Memories of the Lost War

Audio for Book Salon interview with Nancy Huddleston Packer

Audio for Book Salon discussion of Packer's Angle of Repose

The University of New Orleans' New Orleans Literature Series consists of lectures on works by authors associated with that city. These are available free as both video and audio podcasts. Both can be downloaded, and the audio podcasts can be streamed. Two of the authors discussed in this lecture series are Alabama authors Shirley Ann Grau and Walker Percy.

Video for lecture on Shirley Ann Grau's House on Coliseum Street

Audio for Grau lecture

Video for lecture on Walker Percy's The Moviegoer

Audio for Percy lecture

American Public Media's American Radioworks program Say It Plain: Great African American Oratory is a radio documentary about black oratory and its role in the Civil Rights Movement. Along with the audio podcast of the documentary, iTunes U also has audio recordings of speeches by black orators and transcripts of those speeches. These free materials can be downloaded, and the audio materials can be streamed. Two of the orators included in this project are Alabama authors Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Audios and transcripts for Say It Plain: Great African American Oratory

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

A Year of Alabama Books

We'd like to introduce "A Year of Alabama Books," a new program from This Goodly Land and the Alabama Center for the Book. "A Year of Alabama Books" is a reading program that coordinates books by Alabama writers to the months of the calendar year. The program is not tied to a particular year; you can pick it up at any point and start from there.

Two reading lists have been prepared: one for children and younger teens and one for adults and older teens. The lists can be used by teachers, parents, book clubs, and anyone interested in getting better acquainted with the wide range of Alabama literature.

The Alabama Center for the Book has printed up bookmarks with both lists and has distributed them to schools around the state. If you would like your own bookmark, a pdf version is available on the TGL Web page for "A Year of Alabama Books." The Web page also has expanded versions of the two lists explaining the monthly tie-ins and making additional book suggestions.

Download the bookmark for "A Year of Alabama Books" in pdf format.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Alabama Authors at the National Book Festival

On September 27, representatives from the Alabama Center for the Book will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Book Festival which is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress. The Festival is a day-long event where representatives from Centers for the Book around the country provide information about their states' literary activities. There will also be presentations by authors, illustrators, and poets throughout the day.

Videos of presentations from previous Festivals are available online at the Library of Congress Webcasts page. Alabama authors who have made presentations include Gail Godwin, Natasha Trethewey, John Lewis, Andrew Hudgins, and Sena Jeter Naslund.

These videos are presented in the RealPlayer® format. If you don't have the necessary plug-in, you can get a free version of RealPlayer® at the Real.com Web site.

If you have difficulties with streaming video files or if you want to watch at a later time, you can also download one or more of these videos to your computer. Click on "Launch in a new window" and choose "Save File". (You will still need the RealPlayer® plug-in to watch the downloaded files.)

Watch Gail Godwin at the 2001 National Book Festival.

Watch Natasha Trethewey at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch John Lewis at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch Andrew Hudgins at the 2005 National Book Festival.

Watch Sena Jeter Naslund at the 2007 National Book Festival.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Randall Williams of NewSouth Books on APT's Face to Face

On August 24, NewSouth Books' Randall Williams was interviewed by Lori Cummings on the Alabama Public Television program Face to Face. Williams discussed the philosophy of NewSouth Books, the realities of the publishing business, and what a prospective author should know when dealing with a book publisher.

NewSouth Books is headquartered in Montgomery, Ala. NewSouth authors profiled on This Goodly Land include John Beecher, Virginia Pounds Brown, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Oxford Stroud, Sue Walker, and Kathryn Tucker Windham.

This program can now be viewed online. The program opens with an interview with first-time author Chris Hagler. Randall Williams' interview starts at about 7:45 min into the show.

Watch NewSouth Books' Randall Williams on APT's Face to Face.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This Goodly Land T-shirts Now Available!

The long-awaited TGL T-shirts are now available from our This Goodly Land "gallery" at Zazzle.com. There are three styles (for gentlemen, ladies, and children) with our new logo in color with a white background and three styles with the logo in white with a black background.

You can buy online or by telephone at 1-888-8ZAZZLE (1-888-892-9953) Mon-Fri 8AM to 10 PM Central Time (6AM to 8PM Pacific Time). This Goodly Land will receive a portion of the purchase price.

View our new TGL T-shirts at Zazzle.com.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Southern Literary Trail

The Southern Literary Trail is a cooperative project involving writers' homes and other literary landmarks in three states: Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Representatives from historic literary sites in eighteen Southern towns are planning events for a Tri-State Festival in March 2009.

The Southern Literary Trail Web site provides a calendar of the events planned for the Festival, information about the writers and their towns, and contact information for the member organizations. There is also a gallery of images of the writers created by artist Maralyn Wilson.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Update: William Bartram Lecture Now on YouTube

The William Bartram lecture given by Dr. John C. Hall (discussed in an earlier entry) has just been made available on YouTube.

Watch Dr. Hall's lecture on William Bartram on YouTube.

We have also added Dr. Hall's lecture to our SplashCast™ channel. To watch it here, scroll down and click on the Start button.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

SplashCast™ Added to Blog

If you scroll down a bit, you'll find a new addition to our This Goodly Land blog. The SplashCast™ application allows us to bring videos together from different sources and make them available to you in one convenient place.

We are currently showcasing the videos from the Albert Murray Symposium (mentioned in an earlier blog entry).

Click on the Start button in the middle of the screen to begin the Albert Murray "show" with the Introduction video. Hover your mouse cursor over the lower portion of the screen to access the controls and/or to select one of the other videos in this "show."

Click on the More Shows button to see videos on Tom Franklin, Homer Hickam, and Edward O. Wilson. We'll add more videos on our authors as they become available and/or as we locate them.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This Goodly Land Fan Page on Facebook®

The “Find us on Facebook®” badge you see in the left-hand column of this blog represents a new step for us. Facebook® is one of the two most widely known social networking programs (MySpace® being the other).

Although Facebook® is open to anyone over the age of eighteen, its user base skews towards high school and college students. Our Page is a way of spreading the word about This Goodly Land to a new audience.

If you’re a Facebook® member, please check out our This Goodly Land Page and become a fan. If you aren't a member (yet), you can still see a public version of our Page.

View This Goodly Land’s Page on Facebook®.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

"Support the Arts" Car Tag Grants

This Goodly Land would like to thank every one of you that has bought a "Support the Arts" Alabama license plate. The extra money you paid to get that plate went into a special fund that supports projects in the arts.

This Goodly Land has benefited from two grants that came from this fund. The first provided seed money to help our project get up and running, while the most recent enabled us to launch our new feature "This Day in Alabama Literary History." Other projects from the Alabama Center for the Book (our parent organization) have also benefited from this fund, most recently the 2008 Alabama Book Festival.

As funding gets harder to come by and belts get tightened, programs that allow private citizens to make a contribution to the public good become increasingly valuable. Please thank your Alabama legislators for this program, and tell them you're proud to live in a state that values the arts.

And, if you haven't bought one of these license plates yet, please consider it. Thanks.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Blasts from the Past: 19th Century Digital Texts

When we began selecting authors to profile in This Goodly Land, there was never any question as to whether we would include authors from Alabama's past. Cultural heritage is precious to all of us, but this is especially true in the South.

There was some question, however, about access to books written by our 19th Century authors. Some of these books have been reprinted, of course. Quite a few are included in the Library of Alabama Classics series from the University of Alabama Press. There was concern, however, that people wouldn't be able to locate copies of non-reprinted books without a close personal relationship with a rare books dealer.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have eased this problem to a considerable extent. It's become a lot easier to find and purchase old or out-of-print books by using the Web to locate dealers with copies for sale. But that's not the only option.

Many groups have digitized 18th, 19th, and early 20th Century books and made them available free to anyone who has access to the Web. Some of these projects allow you to look at images of the actual book pages, while all allow you to read the books in plain text versions.

In This Goodly Land's author profiles, whenever one of an author's "Selected Works" is available online, we provide a link to that text. That way, an interested viewer can check it out immediately instead of having to remember to look for it later. This is one way we hope to increase awareness and appreciation of our historic literature.

Here are some of our favorite digital book projects. If your favorite isn't listed, please share it with us in the Comments section.

Making of America (University of Michigan): 18th/19th/early 20th Century books and some periodicals; paper copies can be purchased

Making of America (Cornell University): 19th Century periodicals such as The Century, Harper's Monthly Magazine, and Scribner's Magazine

Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875 (Indiana University): 19th Century novels

Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): books, oral histories, legal documents, pamphlets

Women Writers Online (Brown University): books, short stories, poems

Project Gutenberg: books, short stories (includes materials in foreign languages); texts can also be downloaded as zipped files; some available as downloadable audiobooks

LibriVox: downloadable audio versions of books, short stories, poems (includes materials in foreign languages); links to Project Gutenberg texts

Text Archive of the Internet Archive: books, oral histories, legal documents (includes materials in foreign languages); texts can also be downloaded as pdfs; paper copies can be purchased

Google Book Search: books (specify "full view" to select only complete texts); public domain texts can also be downloaded as pdfs

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Winston Groom on Profiles with Wendy Garner

This past May, the Alabama Public Television series Profiles with Wendy Garner broadcast an interview with Alabama author Winston Groom (profiled on This Goodly Land). You can watch this interview as streaming video.

Watch "Winston Groom" on Profiles with Wendy Garner online.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Edward O. Wilson on NOVA

This past May, the PBS series NOVA broadcast "Lord of the Ants," a program about Alabama scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. Edward O. Wilson (profiled on This Goodly Land).

When you visit the "Lord of the Ants" Web page, you will find an interview with Dr. Wilson, an excerpt from his autobiography, Naturalist, and capsule summaries for twelve of his books. For the time being at least, you can also watch the program online as streaming video.

Watch "Lord of the Ants" online.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

New This Goodly Land Logo!

As you can see, we have a beautiful new logo for This Goodly Land! It was created by Auburn University Graphic Design student Katie Corven. The curved lines represent both the pages of an open book and the undulations of the Alabama landscape. The green color suggests the lushness of Alabama's forests and agriculture, while the blue reminds us of her waterways.

Ms. Corven designed the logo at the request of a group of Auburn University graduate students in the Department of Communication and Journalism. This past spring, Lauren Mobley, Marisa Webb, Carrie Reif, Shannon Gally, and Carey Moore created an outline for a publicity campaign for This Goodly Land as part of their Public Relations Campaigns class.

In the next year or so, we will be expanding on their efforts and implementing more of the ideas in their campaign. We are extremely grateful for all their great ideas and hard work.

View the MySpace page that the students created for This Goodly Land.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: William Bartram Lecture by Dr. John C. Hall

On March 27, 2008, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities of the College of Liberal Arts in Auburn University sponsored "Bartram's Travels," a lecture about the explorations of Alabama author William Bartram (profiled on This Goodly Land).

The lecture was given by Dr. John C. Hall as part of the Draughon Seminars in State and Local History. Read more about Dr. Hall and the Draughon Seminars here.

Dr. Hall's lecture was recorded and has been made available online.

Download Dr. John C. Hall's "Bartram's Travels" lecture as a free podcast from iTunes.

You must already have the iTunes software on your computer to download this video. You can download the application from the iTunes Home Page.

If you have trouble with the above link, open your browser and go to the Auburn University iTunes page.

Click on the OPEN AU ITUNES link in the center of the page. You will get a pop-up window asking you to launch iTunes. Click on Launch Application. (Again, you must already have the iTunes software on your computer.)

The iTunes Store will open up at the Auburn University section. Click on the icon for the College of Liberal Arts, then click on the icon for Outreach. There will be two tabs (like file folder tabs) near the bottom of the page. Click on the Public Lectures tab. "Bartram's Travels" is the second lecture in the list. Click on the Get Movie button to begin your download.

(This video file is large and has a very long download time. You may need to download very early in the day or late at night to avoid having the system time out.)

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Albert Murray Symposium online

On January 23, 2008, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts in Auburn University, the Auburn University English Department, and Tuskegee University, sponsored "Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation: A Symposium," a scholarly examination of the life and work of Alabama author Albert Murray (profiled on This Goodly Land).

The symposium sessions were recorded and have been made available online. You can watch them as streaming video from YouTube or download them as free video podcasts from iTunes.

Watch the symposium on YouTube:

"Introduction." Speakers: Mark Wilson, Anne-Katrin Gramberg, Auburn University (9:11)

Session One, Part One: "Jack the Rabbit and an Alabama Briar Patch." Speaker: Jay Lamar, Auburn University (19:30)

Session One, Part Two: "Cosmos Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation." Speaker: Barbara A. Baker, Tuskegee University (25:54)

Session Two, Part One: "Albert Murray and Tuskegee Institute: Art As the True Measure of Place." Speaker: A. Caroline Gebhard, Tuskegee University (27:58)

Session Two, Part Two: "Confrontation and Transcendence in Twenty-First Century Blues." Speaker: Jackie McCorvey, Jr., Tuskegee University (14:31)

Session Three, Part One: "Albert Murray and Visual Art." Speaker: Paul Devlin, Stony Brook University (SUNY) (32:11)

Session Three, Part Two: "Dewey's Pragmatism Extended: Education and Aesthetic Practice in Train Whistle Guitar." Speaker: Roberta S. McGuire, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (27:32)

Session Four, Part One: "Murray and Mann: Variations on a Theme." Speaker: Lauren Walsh, Columbia University (23:56)

Session Four, Part Two: "Murray's Mulatto America." Speaker: Maurice Pogue, Michigan State University (26:33)

Session Five, Part One: "Chinaberry Tree, Chinaberry Tree." Speaker: Bert Hitchcock, Auburn University (26:31)

Session Five, Part Two: "Hyphens, Heroes, and Dragons: A Conversation with Albert Murray." Speaker: Don Noble, University of Alabama (12:01)

Keynote Session: "'It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing': Albert Murray, Omni-American." Speaker: John Callahan, Lewis and Clark College (56:44)

Keynote Questions. Speaker: John Callahan (4:44)

Download the symposium as free podcasts from iTunes:

Open your browser and go to the Auburn University iTunes page.

Click on the OPEN AU ITUNES link in the center of the page. You will get a pop-up window asking you to launch iTunes. Click on Launch Application. (You must already have the iTunes software on your computer to download these videos. You can download it from the iTunes Home Page.)

The iTunes Store will open up at the Auburn University section. Click on the icon for the College of Liberal Arts, then click on the icon for the Albert Murray symposium. The symposium sessions will now be available for you to download.

(These video files are very large and have long download times. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may need to download them one at a time to prevent the system from timing out. )

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: "Where Are You From?"

Back in the fall of 2006, when we were getting This Goodly Land ready for public launch, we knew that we would have to address the issue of what constitutes an "Alabama author." We saw and liked an essay written by Todd Keith, then editor of PORTICO Magazine, on what it means to be a Birmingham writer. We asked Todd if he would adapt this to Alabama writers as a whole, and he agreed. "Literary Alabama: Is There Such a Thing As an 'Alabama Writer'?" has been on our site from the beginning.

This past spring, we asked local author and Auburn University English instructor Peter Huggins to make a video with us and say something about his relationship with Alabama. Fortunately for us, Peter had recently published an essay on the meaning of place in literature, and he adapted it for our purpose. The resulting video, "Where Are You From?", is now on our Web site and available for viewing.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This Day in Alabama Literary History

We've just added a fun new feature to the home page of This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape. We call it "This Day in Alabama Literary History."

When you access our home page, a program embedded in the page code automatically checks the day's date and presents you with a list of events in Alabama literary history associated with that date. If you want to see what happened on another date, you can use the menus to select any combination of month and day.

You can subscribe to an RSS feed for "This Day in Alabama Literary History" by clicking on the feed icon in the lower left corner of the TGL home page.

There are still a few blank spots on the calendar that we would like to fill. If you know about a historic event related to Alabama literature and you would like us to include it, please tell us in the Comments section or use the Suggestion Form from the Web site.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog for This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape. This Goodly Land is an online literary map for the State of Alabama. On our Web site, we provide biographical sketches of Alabama writers past and present and link them to the places in Alabama that were/are significant to them.

We'll be using this blog to call attention to new site features, new author profiles, and other things that make us proud. We'll also be making announcements about events such as conferences and festivals where we'll be promoting This Goodly Land. Occasionally, we'll call your attention to items we think are of interest to the Alabama literary community as a whole.

This won't be a daily blog. It may not even be a weekly blog. We will emulate David Byrne and Mr. Ed and only write when we have something we feel is worth communicating. We hope you'll agree with us. Of course, if you don't, that's what the Comments section is for.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape