North Carolina Humanities Council

Road Scholars Speakers Bureau

The North Carolina Humanities Council has been offering speakers, free of charge, to public audiences since 1990. All presentations are grounded in the humanities.

This year's catalog of Road Scholars includes 59 speakers whose lectures focus on issues of history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religious studies, linguistics, jurisprudence, history and criticism of the arts, sociology, and certain aspects of social science.

This new listing of speakers brings to the public a variety of presentations that explore the nuances of identity and community. Some of them start in North Carolina, revisiting rural farm life, regional folklore, the dynamics of ethnic populations throughout the state, and the history of local traditions. Others discuss the legacies of historical events including the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Holocaust.

Some explore the history and techniques of art, from Latin American music to North Carolina crafts. Others widen perspectives on a variety of literary genres, including poetry, autobiography, and oral history.

The scholars explore the celebrations and struggles of race relations, the experiences of immigrants, the stories of women in untraditional roles, and the lives and works of historical figures.

They discuss ways to use literature, music, and art as cultural expression, and they contemplate the need for educational reform. These presentations span past and present, factual history and timeless theory, and traditional and innovative interpretations of our literary canons.


>> Road Scholar Travel Regions >>Download Application >> Download Guidelines For grant information, information on a specific speaker or to receive a current catalog by mail, contact: Carolyn Allen Tel: (336) 256-0140 callen@nchumanities.org

2009 Road Scholars Catalog: William Adam Discover the Gilded Age with Richard Morris Hunt, Architect Frederick Law Olmsted—The Father of American Landscape Architecture Fasih U. Ahmed Islam: History, Traditions, and Practices US Foreign Policy Implications in Islamic Countries Rob Amberg The New Road and Today’s Mountaineers William Anderson Cherokee Removal Cultural Impacts: Native Americans in America and Europeans Among the Cherokee The Eastern Band of Cherokees in Western North Carolina Andrew Angyal Green Design and the Quest for Sustainablility Booker T. Anthony The African American Church in Works by Ernest J. Gaines Biblical Images in Literature Gwen McNeill Ashburn Carolina Mountains: Writers and Travelers A Confluence of Remarkable Women Mountain Women in Fiction: Working Without Nets Sherry Austin The Audacious and the Fantastic: The Art of Southern Gothic Joseph Bathanti Autobiography: Writing About Yourself Demystifying Poetry: A Reading The Turf of Hankering John Beck The Changing South: Who’s Benefiting, Who’s Losing Southern Cooking, High and Low: A Short History of the Cuisine of the South Ken Betsalel and Heidi Kelley Beyond the Overcoming Narrative: The Culture and Politics of Disability Travels in Stroke Country Jim Bunch North Carolina’s U-Boats: u-85, u-701, u-352 Douglas Butler The Last Buddhist Kingdom Libya: Ancient Crossroads, Modern Conundrum Tiebele to Timbuktu: West Africa’s Tribal Cultures Karl Campbell The North Carolina Way: Civil Rights and Wrongs in the Twentieth Century Senator Sam Ervin: Just a Country Lawyer David Carr Communities, Conversations, and Cultural Institutions Remembering What to Remember: September 11, 2001 in Fiction Janie Leigh Carter John Day in Liberia: Southern Baptist Missionary and a Founder of the Republic Ben E. Casey On North Carolina Waters: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Katherine Mellen Charron Septima Clark, Citizenship Education, and Women in the Civil Rights Movement William Henry Singleton’s Recollections of My Slavery Days: a North Carolina Slave’s View of the Civil War and Its Legacies William Cobb Radical Education and the Rural South The Second Slavery: Southern Tenant Farmers Kevin Duffus How Shipwrecks Shaped the Destiny of the Outer Banks The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate War Zone: World War II off North Carolina's Outer Banks Georgann Eubanks Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont Anna Fariello Objects and Meaning Through History Southern Craft: A Revival in the Mountains Woman to Woman: The Southern Craft Revival Benjamin Filene Lead Belly, the Lomaxes, and the Construction of America’s Musical Heritage O Brother, What Next? Making Sense of the Folk Fad Small Stories in the Big Picture: How Can Museums Bring Ordinary People’s History to Life? Nathan Ross Freeman Characterization: Exploring Layers of Self The Playwright Advocate: Power of Staged Plays Mary Ellis Gibson Southern Writing as Historical Preservation? Reflections on Landscape, Tourism, and Culture Still Cookin’: Food and Memory in Southern Literature Jaki Shelton Green Building Community Through Writing and Art Culture and Personal Experience Inform a Writer’s Work Umesh Gulati Democratic Reconstruction of Religions and World Peace Mahatma Gandhi—The Man and the Message Bernie Harberts Hoofing It By Mule Across North Carolina Frances Hawthorne Picturing America: Dorothea Lange, “Migrant Mother” Picturing America: Mary Cassatt, “The Boating Party” Picturing America: Martin Puryear, “Ladder For Booker T. Washington” Margaret Hoffman Blackbeard! The Man Behind the Legend Marjorie Hudson George Moses Horton: Uncovering and Celebrating Lost Black History Mosaic Writing: Using Fiction, Poetry, and Memoir in Creative Nonfiction Virginia Dare in Fact and Fancy Vivian Jacobson Chagall and the Bible Chagall and the Women in His Life The Jerusalem Windows: The Twelve Tribes of Israel (Jerusalem, Israel) Randell Jones In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone The Overmountain Men of 1780 and Their Campaign to the Battle of King’s Mountain Scoundrels, Rogues and Heroes of the Old North State		Karen Kilcup American Women’s Humor Restless, Bold, and Unafraid: Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Writing Mark Klempner The Heart Has Reasons: Dutch People Who Rescued Jewish Children During the Holocaust Stan Knick Contemporary Issues Facing Native Americans Knowing Each Other, Knowing Ourselves: Why Study Other Cultures? Mary Elder Lasher Women’s Issues: Similarities Among American, African, and Asian Women David LaVere America without Indians: An Imaginary Journey North Carolina Indians Before the English What Happened to the Lost Colony? Alex Macaulay It’s Not Just a Game: Sports and Society in North Carolina Roots Music and the American South Lucinda MacKethan Gone With the Wind? Never: Scarlett O’Hara and Southern Womanhood Slave Voices in North Carolina Huck vs. Harriet: Historical Debates Over Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Magnuson Moving Into the Carolina Backcountry: Colonial Era Transportation in the Carolinas and Virginia, 1585-1785 General Greene’s Genius: the Strategic Brilliance and Wit of the Race to the Dan North Carolina’s Oldest Roads: Geography, Physics, and Geopolitics of Movement in Pre-Modern Times in the Old North State William McNeill Fannin’ the Heat Away: A Celebration of the Art and Social History of the Handheld Church Fan Outside the Frame: The Astonishing Life of Whistler’s Mother Tango! The Song! The Dance! The Obsession! Joseph Mills Dancing Through the Depression North Carolina in a Bottle: An Overview of the NC Wine Industry and Wineries Lenard Moore The Black Arts Movement (BAM): Another Burst of Poetic Creativity Cultural Writing: Using Music and Visual Art in Poetry Willie Nelms The Crusade Against Illiteracy in the United States: The Life and Times of Cora Wilson Stewart Rockabilly Head to Toe America’s Music Down to Its Roots Roxanne Newton Blood on the Cloth: Ella May Wiggins and the 1929 Gastonia Strike The Fabric of Hope and Resistance: North Carolina Women on Strike Hard Times in the Mill: Working Lives Past and Present Charles Orzech Buddhism, Mortality, and the Search for Happiness Judith Paterson Writing Family and Local History from Genealogical Data, Oral History and Family Lore Sylvia Payne Storytelling: Passing It On Through Oral Tradition We Have Stories to Tell—Family and Personal Stories John Peacock Bryan Grimes: Soldier and Citizen Douglas Freeman and the Southern Intellectual Community James Longstreet: Scalawag or Scapegoat? Marcia Tabram Philips Life as a Moravian in Old Salem: Keeping the Traditions of the Brethren Cindy Ramsey A North Carolina Icon Brought to Life: Sea Stories of Sailors Aboard the WW II Battleship North Carolina Sharon Raynor Breaking the Silence and Healing the Soul: The Oral Histories of Vietnam War Veterans of North Carolina Debunking Sinister Myths: Women's Literature Celebrates Wild Woman and Bad Girls Anne Rogers Archaeology of the Southern Appalachians Cherokee Ceremonial Practices in the 1800s Native Americans and Their Use of the Environment Charlotte Ross Long Legacies: Remarkable Survivals in Appalachian Folklife The Role of the Chestnut in Appalachian Life The Social Function of Narrative in Appalachian Society Lynn Salsi An Appalachian Story Quilt The Crystal Coast North Carolina Alive Tom Sanders Divided Iraq: Why the Conflict? What’s Going on in Latin America? Hiking the Appalachian Trail Todd Savitt Entering a White Profession: Black Physicians in the Turn-of-the-Century South Medical Ethics Through Readers’ Theater: Performance and Discussion Susan Schmidt Hearts a' Busting: Southern Appalachian Literature Landfall Expedition: Tracing Capt. John Smith’s 1608 Chesapeake Voyage Emily Seelbinder The Harlem Renaissance: An Explosion of African American Creativity Sleeping Single in a Double Bed Betty Smith Jane Hicks Gentry Women in Traditional Song: What the Songs Say about Women and the Women Who Sang Them Laurel Sneed Thomas Day, Cabinet Maker: Man in the Middle Richard Starnes The Divided Mind of Civil War North Carolina Natives, Newcomers, and Summer People: Tourism, History, and Culture in North Carolina Billy Stevens Discovering Elvis: Tracing Traditions to the Soul of the King Samson and Delilah: From Pulpits to Pop Stars Sincere Forms of Flattery: Blacks, Whites, and American Popular Music Ella Joyce Stewart Forgotten Rural Black Women: What Happens When the Farms and Men Are Gone? Writing in the Familiar Larry Reni Thomas Carolina Jazz Connections Mary Wayne Watson John Charles McNeill: Poet Laureate’s Home Songs The Sandhills: The Comforts of Tradition and Ritual Reginald Watson The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Motherhood and Manhood Is Bigger Still Here? A Social and Literary Analysis of Richard Wright’s Native Son Anne Mitchell Whisnant Super-Scenic Motorway: The Blue Ridge Parkway Nobody Knows Gail Williams Picturing America: Immigration in North Carolina Picturing America: Purposeful Art or Art For Art’s Sake Billy Yeargin The American Tobacco Culture: Our Heritage Meltonia Young Stories From the Underground Railroad Walter Ziffer Lost in Translation: When Holy Writ Becomes Wholly Wrong Two Christian Responses to Hitler and the Holocaust: Barmen and Le Chambon Witness to the Holocaust