slideshow of images from "Druid City: A Music Video" Premiere at Jemison Mansion

Here's a slideshow of photos from our December 3, 2014 premiere of "Druid City: A Music Video" featuring the music of local band Bible Study. Special thanks to Courtnee "Voni" Cook, a student enrolled in "The Nineteenth Century City" during the Fall 2014, for sharing these photos with us.

A Look at Tuscaloosa's Past with Katherine Richter

I am now prepping for the Spring 2015 semester while also resting. As promised, however, here are images from my recent visit to the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society's  office in the basement of Jemison Mansion in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. There, Katherine Richter, Executive Director of the society, was kind enough to share some of the many archival documents in this building with me. I look forward to incorporating some of them into my teaching in the year ahead.

Project Runway All Stars and Old-New World London

Final grades have been submitted. I am unwinding in between preparing for the holidays and teaching two new courses for next semester. While watching Project Runway All-Stars tonight, mention was made of the ways in which London - old and new - could inspire outerwear. One designer mentioned how the physicality of the city served as inspiration for his outdoor coat. Hard to let go of ideas that informed this course. The "city," nineteenth century and otherwise, is truly everywhere.

Druid City...the actual video (finally!)

Finally. Here's the music video of the short doc/music video that premiered last night at Jemison Mansion. Special thanks to everyone who made the event a great one.  Steve Davis, Bryce Hospital Historian, was among the guests. One aside: I stopped by Jemison this morning to pick up the student photographs offered in the silent auction and was happy to visit the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, which is on the bottom floor. Katherine Richter, Director of TCPS, shared numerous photos and maps of old Tuscaloosa with me. I already know what I want next year's The Nineteenth Century City class to document (visually or otherwise): the history of women in education here in Tuscaloosa! Speaking of which, stay tuned here for photographs of the images I took this morning while hanging out with Katherine. What a great week. Thanks, Tim Higgins (and Ian Crawford) of Jemison, for everything.

student music video premieres today

 

Today is the big day. The "world premiere" of the students' music video featuring the music of Bible Study, a local band, happens at 5:30-6:30pm at Jemison Mansion, 1305 Greensboro Ave. in Tuscaloosa. The video is couched inside a short documentary about the students' journey toward discovering the tensions between emerging urban life in America (and Tuscaloosa) and this country's more rural past. The photograph pictured here was taken by student Caleb McCants and is one of dozens the students uploaded to a Dropbox account for consideration in the video. Here, we see the students and I walking in front of a downtown church last month, rediscovering in-person Tuscaloosa's urban beginnings in the nineteenth century. 

Please come out and join us. Dr. Robert Mellown will be our guest speaker and a silent auction will be held.