Southern Futures SouthernFutures

In Part Two, the conversation continues as host Melody Hunter Pillion and bestselling author Tracy Deonn talk Deonn’s novel Legendborn, UNC’s cemetery and its connection to slave history, grief, the mythology of the South, and the cereal boxes whose smells transport us back to the past.

In Part One, host Melody Hunter Pillion and bestselling author Tracy Deonn talk Deonn’s novel Legendborn and the complex and tragic truths in genealogical study, the parallel stories and experiences that can arise on a college campus, and the joy in eating a pineapple popsicle.

In this episode, Sharon P. Holland, Townsend Ludington Distinguished Professor and Chair of American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, spends time storytelling: when she first knew she would be an academic, writing her first book, being a Black equestrian. She also explains the subject of Critical Ethnic Studies, and it's relevance to our society today.

Diamond Holloman, a PhD Candidate in Environment, Ecology and Energy Program at UNC Chapel Hill, and Jeff Currie, the RiverKeeper of the Lumber River, both work to keep communities at the center of their work in Environmental Justice. In this episode, they discuss their community-led work, and why listening is key to real solutions.

In this episode, María R. Estorino, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Director of the Wilson Special Collections Library, explains exactly what kind of knowledge the archives provide for the public, and why this work is important today.

Faculty from the American Studies Department at UNC Chapel Hill, Annette Rodríguez and Seth Kotch, both research lynching and public violence. In this episode, we learn more about the history of public violence, and what resonance this history has today.