March Reading Theme: Road Trip: The Sunny South

Winter, winter, go away… We’re daydreaming of warmer days ahead, or perhaps just of regions where March doesn’t mean the chance of a blizzard. This month’s featured fiction titles all take place in the American South. Fix some sweet tea and set yourself down a spell to read one of this month’s picks.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

High Hearts by Rita Mae Brown: “When her new husband joins the hastily organized Confederate Army, Geneva changes her name to Jimmy, dons a uniform, and enlists to be with her beloved.” (Publisher’s summary)

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote: “In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at Skully's Landing, the decaying mansion in rural Alabama, his father is nowhere to be found.” (Publisher’s summary)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier: “Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic odyssey, hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.” (Publisher’s summary)

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus: “Lucy Marsden is narrowing in on her 100th birthday. She had been married to her husband William More Marsden since she was fifteen. But Willie, a veteran of the Civil War, never recovered from his youthful foray into battle, and more importantly, the loss of his closest friend. And the stories Lucy has to tell of the war, Willie, her life with him, and the tales she heard from his one-time slave Castalia, call to mind a time and a place, a history and a legacy that is not soon forgotten, and a call to justice that never should be.” (Publisher’s summary)

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris: “Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana, until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life. When one of her coworkers checks out, she decides that maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.” (Publisher’s summary)

Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen: “When a ferocious hurricane rips through Southern Florida, the con artists and carpetbaggers waste no time swarming over the disaster area.” (Publisher’s summary)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: “Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.” (Publisher’s summary)

Tending to Virginia by Jill McCorkle: “This is the story of Virginia Turner Ballard, know to her North Carolina relatives as Ginny Sue. It's also the story of her mother, her grandmother, her great aunts, her closest cousin--three generations of women who gather around Virginia to help her at the end of a hard pregnancy, to tend to her, to help her prepare for the fourth generation.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers: “Frankie Addams, a motherless twelve-year-old raised by her father and the family's African-American cook, struggles with conflicting feelings about her brother's upcoming wedding.” (Publisher’s summary)

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: “This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life. A sweeping story of tangled passion and courage, in the pages of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell brings to life the unforgettable characters that have captured readers for over seventy years.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole: “John Kennedy Toole--who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces --wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Toole's heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Toole's suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Golden Apples by Eurora Welty: “Welty is on home ground in the state of Mississippi in this collection of seven stories. She portrays the MacLains, the Starks, the Moodys, and other families of the fictitious town of Morgana. ‘I doubt that a better book about “the South”-one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life and its special tone and pattern-has ever been written’ (New Yorker).” (Publisher’s summary)

Throwback Thursday: Spring Training

While the Major League Baseball teams may not have reported for Spring Training just yet, our Griffin baseball team is hard at work (good luck, guys!).

Most people probably assume that Seton Hill didn’t field a male baseball team until the university became coed in 2002. Actually, baseball on the Hill goes back a bit farther than that.

In 1889, St. Mary’s School for Boys was moved from Saint Mary’s Convent in Blairsville to Seton Hill, into the old Stokes Mansion. From 1908-1914, the boys were housed in the brand-new Maura Hall.

Here’s the 1911 St. Mary’s baseball team.

Looking fierce, lads.

The St. Mary’s School for Boys was discontinued in 1927, and St. Mary Hall became home to the Home Ec program.

Thanks to Bill Black in the Archives for the photos! More information about Saint Mary’s School can be found at https://www.setonhill.edu/who-we-are/identity-traditions/our-history/.

Throwback Thursday: Indoor Recreation-- Bowling

Last week we looked at how students have enjoyed the outdoors in the winter months, but sometimes you just don’t want to venture outside. On those cold, rainy, or otherwise blah days, SHC students could head to the Sullivan bowling lanes if they felt like staying active.

This shot appeared in the Setonian and shows students bowling in 1940.

Three more girls continuing the tradition in the 1950’s.

This clipping from a 1962 Setonian shows the “duck pins” at the end of the lane and also gives us a peek at how pins used to be cleared away and reset back before there were magical electronic “arms” to do it for us!

Thanks, as always, to the Seton Hill Archives for the snaps and stories.

February Reading Theme: African-American Fiction

In honor of Black History Month, February’s Reading Room display features fiction about African-American experiences throughout the history of our nation. You’ll find both the classics and the controversial in this month’s collection.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler: “Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. With more than 100,000 copies in print, Kindred is a classic time travel novel by an acclaimed African-American science fiction writer.” (Publisher’s summary)

Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase-Riboud: “In this brilliant novel, spanning two continents, sixty years, and seven presidencies, Barbara Chase-Riboud re-creates a love story based on the documents and the evidence of the day, but gives free rein to the novelist's imagination. Incredibly written and beautifully evoked, Barbara Chase-Riboud explores the complex blend of love and hate, tenderness and cruelty, freedom and bondage, that made the lifelong liaison between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson one of the most poignant, tragic, and unforgettable chapters in the history of the races, and of the sexes, in America.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt: “The story of the white Carterets and the mixed-race Millers, whose lives are intertwined because the wives are half sisters, delves into a wide range of social and race issues. The novel's depiction of lynchings that occurred during the Wilmington Race Riot proved to be too controversial for readers of the time; however, Chesnutt considered it his best, and modern critics have recognized the novel as a milestone in the Civil Rights movement.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar: “This classic story about a displaced Southern family's struggle to survive and prosper in early Harlem was one of the first novels to depict the harsh realities of ghetto life.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones by Jesse Hill Ford: “In a Tennessee town, the effort of a Negro to procure a divorce excites the forces of bigotry and hatred because his wife's adulteries have been with a white man.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines: “Story of a black woman born into slavery on a Louisiana plantation, freed at the end of the Civil War, who lives for one-hundred more years.” (Publisher’s summary)

Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston: “Now frequently anthologized, Zora Neale Hurston's short story ‘Sweat’ was first published in Firell, a legendary literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance, whose sole issue appeared in November 1926. Among contributions by Gwendolyn Bennett, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman, ‘Sweat’ stood out both for its artistic accomplishment and its exploration of rural Southern black life.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Charles Johnson: “These eight stories, previously published in journals, range widely in form. Throughout, the theme of black consciousness is subtly present, and often Johnson plays with the tension of different worlds in uncomfortable juxtaposition.” (Library Journal review)

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd: “This sweeping debut novel… tells the tale of a 14-year-old white girl named Lily Owen who is raised by the elderly African American Rosaleen after the accidental death of Lily's mother. Following a racial brawl in 1960s Tiburon, SC, Lily and Rosaleen find shelter in a distant town with three black bee-keeping sisters.” (Library Journal review)

Beloved by Toni Morrison: “The story of Sethe, an escaped slave in post-Civil War Ohio, Paul D. who shares the stories of captivity and freedom, and the apparition of Beloved who "has come from the 'place over there' to claim retribution for what she lost and for what was taken from her.” (Publisher’s summary)

No Crystal Stair by Eva Rutland: “Ann Elizabeth Carter leaves her sheltered life as the daughter of an African American doctor in Atlanta to marry a member of the Tuskegee Airmen.” (Publisher’s summary)

Cane River by Lalita Tademy: “Follows four generations of African American women, from slavery to the early twentieth century, as they struggle for economic security and the future of their families along the Cane River in rural Louisiana.” (Publisher’s summary)

Meridian by Alice Walker: “Meridian Hill is a deserted teenage mother who volunteers to help in the local civil rights movement.” (Publisher’s summary)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker: “The lives of two sisters--Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a southern woman married to a man she hates--are revealed in a series of letters exchanged over thirty years.” (Publisher’s summary)

February DVD Spotlight: Films for Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month, Reeves Memorial Library is highlighting films about the African-American experience all through the month of February.  We've got historical films like the slave revolt legal drama Amistad (1997), and masterful documentaries on the civil rights era such as Eyes on the Prize (1987) and A Time for Justice (1994).  In addition, we're featuring notable films about African-American figures from the fields of music, education, business, and sports, as well as films directed by African-American filmmakers such as Spike Lee and Byron Hurt.

Featured titles include:

Ali (2001)

With a towering, Oscar-nominated lead performance from Will Smith, this biopic captures the intelligence, ferocity, charisma, and larger-than-life persona that made boxer Muhammad Ali "The Greatest."

Hoop Dreams (1994)

This sprawling, documentary look at the lives of two African-American boys from inner city Chicago, as they pursue their shared dream of playing professional basketball, reveals much about the American dream and the lives of America's underprivileged communities.

Malcolm X (1992)

From writer-director Spike Lee comes this dynamic and monumental telling of the life of civil rights leader Malcolm X, featuring a powerful central performance by Denzel Washington.

Satchmo (1989)

A reverent and endearing non-fiction look at the life of legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong, featuring never-before-seen home movies and nightclub footage from the 1930s.

Slavery and the Making of America (2005)

This four-part PBS program, narrated by Morgan Freeman, examines the history of slavery in the United States and the role it played in shaping the new country's development.

Check one out today!

Throwback Thursday: Winter fun on the Hill

Seton Hill students have always taken advantage of prime opportunities to participate in winter sports. While these days you might be more likely to buy some Seven Springs vouchers and head up to the mountains, SHC students in years past kept their winter activities closer to home.

These girls went tobogganing in 1940:

The pond that used to be at the bottom of the front hill was a great spot for ice skating when the weather got and stayed cold enough (1958):

And, perhaps most fun of all, there used to be an actual rope-tow ski lift on the front hill! (This shot’s from about 1963.)

Some still preferred tobogganing, however (1963 again).

And here’s a shot from the 1985 Forward:

All in favor of bringing back the ski lift…?

Research Award Accepting Applications!

The Reeves Memorial Library Undergraduate Research Award (yes, it's a very long name) is accepting applications!

If you (or one of your students) have created a really impressive research project in the Spring 2016, Fall 2016, or Spring 2017 semester, we want to see it!

The project can be a podcast, a website, a video, a traditional research paper, or whatever other format you can think of, as long as it has a "collection research" component to it (i.e., case studies and lab work don't count, but literature reviews you did as background for them would).

For more information, application instructions, or to volunteer as a faculty evaluator, visit http://setonhill.libguides.com/award.