Becoming North Nashville

“Becoming North Nashville” is a collaborative exhibit between Fisk University and Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet High School (MLK). Utilizing the photographic holdings in the Fisk University Franklin Library Special Collections and the Pearl High School archives located at MLK, students from Art and History courses at both institutions will work together to create a public performance in February 2020 and a short-term visual exhibit housed at MLK throughout the Spring and Summer 2020. The goal of the “Becoming North Nashville” project is to use institutional history and archival holdings as a way to create conversations and foster connections within the North Nashville community and between established institutions in the neighborhood. In highlighting the two collections, the “Becoming North Nashville” project examines the history of a community, how that community has shifted and changed over time, and what communal identity means in the midst of the current changes and dramatic shifts in the surrounding neighborhoods and city. The project is a collaboration between faculty, staff, and students at both institutions, including:

Dr. Katharine A. Burnett, Associate Professor of English, Fisk University (principal investigator) Ms. DeLisa Harris, Special Collections archivist, Fisk University Professor Alicia Henry, Professor of Art, Fisk University Dr. Vann R. Newkirk, Provost, Fisk University Dr. Angela McShepard-Ray, Principal, Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet High School

Dr. Katharine A. Burnett book, Cavaliers and Economists: Global Capitalism and the Development of Southern Literature, 1820-1860, was published with LSU Press in May 2019. I've attached a copy of the cover.

Mr. Randall Norton, History instructor, Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet High School Mr. Melvin Black, Pearl High School Archives Ms. Alexandria Green, Art major, Fisk University ('22) Mr. John Davies, English major, Fisk University (‘20)

SEUSS Undergraduate Paper Competition Fisk Sociology Seniors Place First and Second

Three senior sociology majors traveled to Morehouse University to present their senior research papers at the 37th Southeastern Undergraduate Sociology Symposium (SEUSS) held in Atlanta, Georgia, Feb. 22-23, 2019.. The SEUSS Fellows were Shelby Bullock, Teris Taylor, and Alaya Williams. Alaya and Shelby won awards in the undergraduate paper competition. Alaya won first place for her paper entitled, “The Portrayals of Black Men in the Media: A Comparison of Portrayals in Predominantly Black Television Shows Versus Portrayals in Diverse Television Shows.” Shelby won second place for her paper entitled, “How Family Structure Affects Children’s Academic Success.” Both papers were written in the senior sociology capstone course taught by Dr. Dani Smith.

Highlights

Dr. Qingxia Li, is an Associate Professor in Mathematics at

Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics at Louisiana State University in 2010. Before he joined Fisk in May 2014, he was an Assistant Professor at Lincoln University from 2010 to 2014. His research expertise lies in Applied Mathematics and Mathematics Education. He served as PI for two NSF-BPR projects, co-PI for NSF-CREST, and was a recipient for UNCF faculty research grant and Henry McBay Faculty Research fellowships from UNCF. He was selected as an Emerging Scholar by Diverse Issues of Higher Education in 2019.

Dr. ClarLynda Williams-Devane is a Bioinformatician and Chair of the New Data Science and Bioinformatics Department. She is also the PI of the campus wide NSF Computational and Quantitative Initiative. She is also the PI of the Williams-DeVane health disparity informatics (WDHDI) research program. The WDHDI has three aims 1. The biocuration of public metabolic syndrome related data to understand the race/ethnic group, gender/sex, and age disparities of metabolic syndrome and the contributing spectrum of diseases as well as differentiating biomarkers;

2. The biocuration of public health information to understand the disparate contribution of obesity to obesity linked cancer risk between different race/ethnic groups, sex and gender classes, and age groups; and 3. The understanding of the theoretical biological potential of the integration of different 'omic technologies towards understanding the etiology of disease with the hope of better understanding health disparities. The

WDHDI is a unique combination of bioinformatics, biocuration, and text-mining. Dr. Williams DeVane is also the cofounder of the Data Science club and Data Science Research Hub along with Ms. Willysha Jenkins. The Data Science club is a student group that meets on Friday evenings to explore the application of data science tools and methodologies to problems of interest to the group. In Fall 2019, the data science club focused on using the R statistical programming language to perform temperament analysis of the democratic debates with the assistance of Political Science professor Dr. Antwain Leach. Students used and continue to use the results to predict of the outcome of the democratic Caucus polls. The Data Science Research Hub is collaborative working group where faculty can bring their data for students to explore and make new discoveries.

2019 Community Archiving Workshop

On Thursday, May 30, 2019, the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library held a day-long event in partnership with the Community Archiving Workshop, Metro Nashville Archives’ Audiovisual Heritage Center, and Appalshop. This project is part of the national Community Archiving Workshop Training of Trainers Program supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). From 2018 - 2020, archivists and communities around the country are gathering to share resources and preserve and provide access to endangered audiovisual heritage collections. This event brought volunteers from the community together with archives professionals from the Southeast to learn the essentials of archiving analog audiovisual materials.

Kelli Hix AV Archivist at the Nashville Metro Archives giving a demonstration on film inspection.

Participants gained hands-on experience by working with film and tape collections from the Fisk University Franklin Library Special Collections and Archives and had the opportunity to meet together in Fisk's beautiful library. The workshop began with an introduction to the Fisk University Franklin Library Special Collections and Archives, followed by training in essential AV archiving practices. The event was successful with 300 items from the Fisk media collection inventoried and re-housed. As a partner on this grant, Fisk University received $800.00 for digitization of media and an additional $3,000.00 to be used to address the media collections conditions.

Vanderbilt Mellon Partners in Humanities Education Post-Doctoral Fellows

In August of 2018, thanks to a $1.93 million renewal grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the second phase of the Mellon Partners for Humanities Education project began. The grant renewal supports Vanderbilt postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences during the next four years at four partner schools: Berea College, Fisk University, Tennessee State University and Tougaloo College. Fisk University currently hosts two post-doctoral fellows, Dr. Raquel Bostow and Dr. Patrick Raisco.

Dr. Raquel Bostow’s research interests include feminist theory, gender studies, and women’s writing in French, as well as critical food studies and animal studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Medusian Apparitions: Sex and Sense in Contemporary Women’s Writing in French,” which uses the figure of the Medusa as a tool for the radical, feminist realignment of old relationships between female bodies, danger, and death. Raquelle has published articles in Literature & Theology and Modern Languages Notes. At Fisk, she teaches French and is also creating a digital archival exhibit using Omeka, featuring African

American female artists and authors who received a Rosenwald fellowship between 1928 and 1948. The site titled. "Women of Rosenwald: Curating Social Justice Through the Arts (1928-1948)” will be completed in May 2020.

Dr. Patrick Rasico’s research focuses on the relationships between the processes of empire formation, the production of representations of India by Europeans, and how Britons collected and circulated South Asian artwork and artifacts in South Asia and London during the latter part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. His dissertation, “Arenas of Display and Debate: Britishness, Exotica, and the Material Counterflows of Empire in India, 1750—1825,” examined how Britons’ uses, circulation, and display of Indian artworks and antiquities reflected and engendered continuous British reevaluations of the “oriental” nature of Indian and British peoples and geographies throughout the Georgian period. He is presently developing his dissertation into a monograph. Rasico’s article, “Calcutta ‘In These Degenerate Days’: The Daniells’ Visions of Life, Death, and Nabobery in Late Eighteenth-Century British India,” appeared in The Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies in March 2019. At Fisk University, Rasico teaches courses on Modern Asian History and Global British Empire. He is collaborating with fellow Fisk scholars in the development of a digital humanities mapping project related to the Fisk Jubilee Singers’® travels during the late nineteenth century. His contribution will shed light on the little-known history of the Singers’ travels in British colonial Burma and India from 1889 to 1890.

Highlights continued

Fisk Honors Debate Team Scores First Place

Members of the Fisk University W.E.B. DuBois Honors Program ended a successful trip to New Orleans Nov. 6-9, 2019 after participating in the National Association of African American Honors Programs Conference. The Fisk honors debate team took first place in their competition, and Vice Provost for Student Success Dr. Kenneth E. Jones became president of the organization for 2019-20. The debate team, which was only just established during the fall 2019 semester, was strongest among the seven HBCU participants. Before dueling to a win in the finals against host institution, Southern University of Baton Rouge, Fisk had already argued successfully against Florida A&M University and perineal debate powers Miles College, Birmingham, Alabama. Southern had outlasted Morgan State University and Hampton University before going up against Fisk. Debating for Fisk were sophomores Chidera Okeke and Paul Springer, Jr., and senior, Rammon Green. Alternates were Sonia Okekenwa, Bria Savoy, and Chideraa Akapama. Students competing in poster and oral research presentation competitions were Chisom Okwar, Imani Campbell, Tatyana Hayley, and Bria Savoy. Paul Springer, Jr. also competed in the oratorical contest. Legendary HCASC quiz bowl coach Dr. Stafford Cargill fielded a quiz bowl team in that competition from among the Fisk University Honors participants. Dr. Jones was elevated to the presidency of the organization as stipulated by its constitution and bylaws after serving as Vice President for one year. Consequently, the 2020 NAAAHP conference is expected to return to Nashville, Tennessee with Fisk University serving as next year’s host. Established in 1990, the National Association of African American Honors Programs is an organization whose mission is to address the specific needs of honors education for students enrolled at historically black colleges and universities throughout the United States. There are currently over 60 HBCU member institution. (top) Chidera Okeke, Paul Springer, Jr., and Rammon Green (bottom) Chidera Okeke and Paul Springer, Jr., and senior, Rammon Green. Alternates were Sonia Okekenwa, Bria Savoy, and Chideraa Akapama. Students competing in poster and oral research presentation competitions were Chisom Okwar, Imani Campbell, Tatyana Hayley, and Bria Savoy.

National Book Foundation: Writing Survival Comes to Fisk University

On Monday, October 14th, 2019, award-winning writers Danez Smith and Brandon Hobson visited Fisk University for a reading and a dialogue with the campus community. The event was co-hosted by the Fisk University English discipline and the National Book Foundation, the organization that gives out the National Book Award, for which both Smith and Hobson were finalists. The theme of the event was “writing survival,” a topic engaged by both writers’ works. Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer & performer from St. Paul, MN, whose poetry collection Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017) was a finalist for the National Book Award. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and their work has been featured widely including on Buzzfeed, in The New York Times, and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. They wowed the audience with a performance of poems from Don’t Call Us Dead. Brandon Hobson is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation Tribe of Oklahoma and a Pushcart-Prizewinning writer whose work has appeared in such places as Conjunctions and The Paris Review Daily. He read a section from his 2018 novel "Where the Dead Sit Talking", which was a 2018 finalist for the National Book Award, 2019 finalist for the St. Francis College Literary Prize, and Winner of 2018 Reading the West Book Award. His new novel is forthcoming from Ecco next year. He teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. The conversation was hosted by local Nashville poet Ciona Rouse. During the Q&A, Fisk English major Destiny Reed asked whether it is an author’s job to “write the hard stuff.” The panelists responded in the affirmative. Smith spoke about being HIV positive, about being a writer in the twenty-first century, and the importance of social media: one of their favorite poems, they told the crowd, was first published on facebook as a knee-jerk reaction to the death of Tamir Rice. Hobson spoke about growing up in Oklahoma, amid a population with political views very different from his own. After the event La Tanya Rogers, associate professor of English remarked about how extraordinary it was that “not one but TWO National Book Award finalists would gather in an intimate undergraduate space at Fisk University to read from their work and engage the inquiries of our keen students who are, in their own right, budding national voices.”