{"id":25676,"date":"2015-10-16T14:54:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T18:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=25676"},"modified":"2016-07-19T11:16:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T15:16:28","slug":"summer-seminar-on-slave-narratives-at-yale-helps-english-professor-on-sabbatical-delve-into-historic-harms-and-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/summer-seminar-on-slave-narratives-at-yale-helps-english-professor-on-sabbatical-delve-into-historic-harms-and-trauma\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer seminar on slave narratives at Yale helps English professor on sabbatical delve into historic harms and trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"

During her sabbatical, Eastern Mennonite University English<\/a> professor Marti Eads<\/a> is studying how, in one author\u2019s fiction, \u201cthe Civil War conflict reverberates in one Appalachian community even after most people there are no longer consciously aware of its relevance.”<\/p>\n

For Eads, this theme has resonated since her childhood in western North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad remembers hearing his mother talk about overhearing quarrels between her grandfathers,\u201d said Eads. One grandfather had fought for the Confederacy, spending time as a prisoner of war, and the other had fought for the Union.<\/p>\n

Eads\u2019 project also includes themes of slavery and historic harms and trauma \u2013 both of which she\u2019s integrated creatively into coursework and training, literary research and a dialogue\/discussion series with formerly incarcerated men.<\/p>\n

Sabbatical allows immersion in important themes<\/h3>\n

The texts she\u2019s chosen to focus on are by Ron Rash, professor of Appalachian culture studies at Western Carolina University. Rash\u2019s novel The World Made Straight<\/em> <\/a>(Henry Holt, 2006) as well as many of his short stories, \u201cconsider the ways in which the Civil War conflict reverberates in one Appalachian community even after most people there are no longer consciously aware of its relevance,\u201d she says. [A movie of the same title<\/a> directed by David Burriss and staring Jeremy Irvine and Noah Wyle was released in 2015.]<\/p>\n

Eads has already published one product of her sabbatical, an essay titled \u201cNot Just Whistlin\u2019 Dixie: <\/strong>The Civil War\u2019s Legacy in Ron Rash\u2019s <\/a>The World Made Straight<\/a>,\u201d <\/em>in The Cresset. She continues to read, research, write and dialogue with community members through the end of this semester.<\/p>\n

Eads, who has taught English at EMU since 2003, is drawn to teaching texts that focus on trauma and its effects, such as Toni Morrison\u2019s \u201cBeloved,\u201d a novel about a mother who escapes from slavery only to be recaptured and taken back to a plantation in Kentucky.<\/p>\n

One reason for that draw is because \u201cEMU students seem to find these texts most meaningful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Reading through a trauma awareness lens<\/h3>\n

As part of her preparation for this multidisciplinary project, Eads underwent some unusual \u201ctraining.” First, she completed Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience<\/a> (STAR) Level I training offered by EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding<\/a>. The curriculum \u2013 learning about cycles of violence, responses to trauma, and the effects of unhealed trauma \u2013 led her to different perspectives on the literature she was studying.<\/p>\n

\"Marti<\/a>
Marti Eads (seated, middle) was among 27 educators selected out of 83 applicants to participate in the Council of Independent Colleges American history seminar on slave narratives at Yale University last summer. (Courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then she traveled to Yale University to participate in a prestigious American history seminar<\/a> about slave narratives sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges.\u00a0<\/a> In the company of other scholars, she learned more about slavery and abolition in American culture and history.<\/p>\n

\u201cRe-reading Harriet Jacobs’ and Frederick Douglass’ slave narratives, which I teach regularly, and reading other slave narratives for the first time through the lens of trauma theory advanced my understanding of the obstacles enslaved people faced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One memorable afternoon in Yale\u2019s Bass Library, she perused the first editions of two slave narratives, but \u201cbest of all (so poignant!),\u201d she posted to Facebook that day, \u201cwas seeing a handwritten manuscript of Jupiter Hammon’s \u2018Essay on Slavery.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her colleagues in the seminar, who came from around the United States, were most interested in EMU initiatives for trauma healing such as STAR and Coming to the Table<\/a>\u2014programs that Eads says \u201ccan help people move beyond suffering to hope and healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eads plans to take the two-day \u201cTransforming Historical Harms<\/a>\u201d workshop, offered by Coming to the Table, an affiliate program of CJP focused on racial reconciliation, to deepen her knowledge.<\/p>\n

Becoming conversant in the language and dialogue of trauma awareness and healing isn\u2019t only useful for textual analysis and teaching, Eads says. As a part of her project, she will be reading short stories and discussing many of these themes with residents of Gemeinschaft Home, a therapeutic, transitional home for individuals recently released or diverted from incarceration located in Harrisonburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During her sabbatical, Eastern Mennonite University English professor Marti Eads is studying how, in one author\u2019s fiction, \u201cthe Civil War conflict reverberates in one Appalachian community even after most people ... read more about Summer seminar on slave narratives at Yale helps English professor on sabbatical delve into historic harms and trauma<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,12503,5642,356,12537],"tags":[6795,6085],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-25676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-cjp","category-faculty-and-staff","category-language-and-literature","category-star","tag-diversity","tag-marti-eads"],"yoast_head":"\nSummer seminar on slave narratives at Yale helps English professor on sabbatical delve into historic harms and trauma - 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