Road Scholars Speakers Bureau

John Beck, Ph.D.           

Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Elon University; author, lecturer

Apex         

H: (919) 602-1460

jbecknc@yahoo.com 

Travel regions: 5-10

About John Beck:

John J. Beck is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Elon University. He was Dean of Arts and Sciences at Vance-Granville Community College in Henderson from 1987-2007. He has also been an adjunct Professor of History at NC Wesleyan College, and Instructor of History and Political Science at James Sprunt Community College, as well as an author and lecturer.

The Changing South: Who’s Benefitting, Who’s Losing?

Over the last 40 years, the South has experienced social and economic change at a dizzying pace. During this period, the South was transformed from a poor region that was still in many respects “the Nation’s number one economic problem” to a golden “go go” region on the move, home to large corporations and banks, a thriving high technology industry, expanding suburbs and shopping centers, and some of the best colleges and universities in the country. Millions migrated south to take part in the bonanza including growing numbers of African Americans, some of them the children and grandchildren of people who had once fled the region to escape poverty and racial oppression. American politics now seemed to turn on Southern priorities and seemed to require Southern leadership. In the words of journalist Peter Applebome, Dixie was “putting its fingerprints on almost every aspect of the nation’s soul, from race, to politics, to culture, to values.” But this dramatic transformation has had its costs, and like all big changes, has generated winners and losers in the region. This talk will explore the costs and benefits of economic and social change and will critically examine some of the remedies that have been offered up to help areas and people left behind.

Requirements: LCD projection system

Southern Cooking, High and Low: A Short History of the Cuisine of the South

Southern cuisine is a blending of the culinary traditions and ingredients of three primary groups: Native Americans, and immigrants from the British Isles and West and Central Africa. This “blend” has resulted in a “core” cuisine in the South that one can find from Virginia to Texas. This “core” is not the whole story: subcultures of the South have supported cuisines--Creole, Cajun, and “Tex-Mex” for example—that differ, sometimes dramatically, from the “core” cuisine. Traditional Southern fare was always primarily cooked and consumed at home; this was not, with some notable exceptions, a cuisine fostered by restaurants. At its upper reaches, an “haute” cuisine created in the homes of the planters and the postbellum affluent families by black female cooks would take common dishes and raise them to new levels with better ingredients, greater levels of expertise, and subtle and often complex variations. Folks of more modest means did this too; the fare they prepared day to day fare would be raised a notch or more in execution for special events—church picnics, wakes, family reunions, and the like. Today, Southern food traditions are being challenged by heavily marketed processed food and chain restaurant fare. At the same time, however, Southern cuisine is being taken in new directions by professionally trained chefs who approach the cuisine with the same reverence as chefs have treated French and other celebrated cooking traditions, but who are intent on exploring its possibilities just as the French chefs have elaborated upon the cooking traditions of their country.

Requirements: LCD projection system