Visiting Brer Rabbit — This weekend my wife and I went to Macon, Georgia, in order for her to do some research for a novella she is writing that is set in and around Macon. On the way home, we drove through Eatonton, Georgia, and we saw two signs. One said “The Home of Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker” and the other advertised the Uncle Remus Museum. On a whim, we stopped to check out the museum. Located in several former slave cabins, the museum has been in operation since 1963. I regularly talk about Harris in my children’s literature classes, so I already knew some key information about him before we toured the museum.
Harris was born in 1848 and grew up on a plantation in Eatonton, where his mother worked as a cook. As a boy, he often visited the slave quarters, and it was during these visits that he first heard the Brer Rabbit stories. He went on to become a journalist, and he occasionally wrote down some of these stories in a column he wrote for the Atlanta Constitution. In 1880 he collected a selection of these stories in a volume titled Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings. Although this book helped perpetuate racist stereotypes, it also helped introduce the Brer Rabbit stories to a wide audience.
We arrived at the museum about 4:00 in the afternoon. The two women who worked there informed us that they closed at 4:00, but they told us to come in anyway, and they went out of their way to be helpful. Both appeared to be in their 60s or 70s. One was an African American and one was white, but both clearly loved the Brer Rabbit stories. When they found out that I knew something about the Brer Rabbit stories, they started pointing out little details and sharing stories about Harris’s associations with Eatonton. At one point, they started completing each other’s sentences. My favorite part of our visit was listening to these women share their passion for Brer Rabbit and his adventures.
When we got back in the car and continued our drive home, I thought a bit about this unexpected interlude on our trip. It seemed fitting to me that we visited this museum during Black History Month. The Brer Rabbit stories play an important role in African American culture, but they also help bridge some of the racial divides that still exist in America. These trickster stories are full of humor and wry observations about human nature, and they appeal to people from many different backgrounds. These stories are obviously tied to the history of American racism, and yet they somehow transcend this history. That’s the thing about Brer Rabbit stories—they are kind of tricky to pin down.
Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department. Here is the latest news:
Pilar Blitvich has been invited as a plenary speaker at the im/politeness conference, which will take place at the University of Athens in Greece in July 2015.
Becky Roeder has recently published two articles. One is titled “The Canadian Shift in Non-Urban Southeastern Ontario: Transmission or Diffusion?” and appeared in the Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics. The other is titled “The Phonology of the Canadian Shift Revisited: Thunder Bay and Cape Breton” and appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. Also, she has just became an editor for the Strathy Student Working Papers on Canadian English for Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines—
February 18 — The Center for the Study of the New South is sponsoring a screening of the film Pride and Joy as part of a cultural series titled “Soul Food: A Contemporary and Historical Exploration of New South Food. The screening will take place in the Student Union Movie Theater at 2:00 pm.
February 19 — The Center for the Study of the New South is sponsoring a panel discussion on “The Future of Food in the New South” as part of a cultural series titled “Soul Food: A Contemporary and Historical Exploration of New South Food. The panel discussion will take place UNC Charlotte Center City at 6:00 pm. http://newsouth.uncc.edu/
February 26 — The Children’s Literature Graduate Organization will sponsor a screening of The Wizard of Oz at the Student Union Movie Theater at 4:30 pm. Mark West will delivery a brief introduction to the film.
Quirky Quiz Question — Joel Chandler Harris’s stories are discussed at length in a scholarly book titled Slavery in American Children’s Literature. What is the name of the English faculty member who wrote this book?