A Conference
Jointly Sponsored

By

Clemson University and Furman University

With

The Humanities Council SC
and
The Greenville County Library System
and
Upcountry History Museum

The Conference is free and the public is welcome.
Please join us as we search for a usable past and a sustainable future.

On March 8, 9, and 10, 2007, Clemson and Furman Universities will host an interdisciplinary conference on the South Carolina Upcountry. The goal is to frame questions about the Upcountry's past and present in ways that will offer insight into the origins of contemporary challenges. The emphasis on a "usable past " is designed to attract a wide and varied audience and to generate dialogue among scholars, the public, civic and political leaders, and the media. The meeting, which will begin in Clemson on Thursday, March 8, and move to Greenville for the evening of March 9 and all of Saturday, March 10, will feature plenary sessions on each day, interspersed with panel sessions of visiting scholars, students, and other experts. Plenary speakers include Vernon Burton, John David Smith, Theda Perdue, Ron Rash, Lacy Ford, David Carlton, and Charles Reagan Wilson.

The conference will be held on the Clemson campus at the Madren Conference Center, in Greenville at the Hughes Branch of the Greenville County Library System, and on the Furman campus at the Younts Center.

SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 8 at Clemson University's Madren Center
Registration: 8:15--9:00

9:00: Welcome
Madren Center Ballroom
Dr. Doris R. Helms
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost
Clemson University

9:00<+>10:15: Plenary Session 1

Piedmont Pastoral: Race and Place in Thomas Dixon's The Flaming Sword

Speaker: John David Smith, University of North Carolina-Charlotte
Commentator: Robert A. Pratt, University of Georgia

10:30<+>12:00: Session 2
Red Hills and Rednecks: Culture in the Upcountry
Meeting Room 3

Bea Bailey, Clemson University
"Toward a More Perfect Reunion: Ben Robertson and the Southern Renaissance"

Steve West, Catholic University of America
"Origins of a New South Stereotype: The South Carolina Upcountry and the Birth of the Redneck, 1890-1915"

Commentator and Session Chair: Rob Hart, State University of New York, Buffalo

10:30<+>12:00: Session 3
An Upcountry Window: Life in the Anderson District
Meeting Room 4

Session Chair: Dot Yandle, Clemson, South Carolina

W.J. Megginson, Independent Scholar
"African-Americans in the Upper Piedmont, 1784-2007"

Kim Wilson, University of Texas
"Religion and Politics in the Antebellum Anderson District"

Commentator: Fred Holder, Seneca, South Carolina

12:00
Luncheon
Madren Center

1:30<+>3:00: Session 4
How We Travel, How We Live
Meeting Room 3

Anne Dunning, Clemson University
"Getting Moving: Transportation Practice and Possibilities for Upstate South Carolina"

Steve Sperry, Clemson University
"Measuring Sprawl's Consequences: Linking Impervious Surface and Biodiversity Change with Land Use Planning"

Commentator and Session Chair: Jason Van Driesche, Upstate Forever

1:30<+>3:00: Session 5
Upcountry Memory and Remembrance
Meeting Room 4

Session Chair: Dot Yandle, Clemson, South Carolina

Patrick C. Pritchard, Wesleyan College
"Talking Stones, Informed Imagination, and the Recovery of Lost Memories"

Bruce E. Baker, Royal Holloway, University of London
"Reconstruction and Public Memory in Anderson County, South Carolina, 1905-1920"

Commentator: Fred Holder, Seneca, South Carolina

3:15<+>4:45: Session 6
Changes in the Land
Meeting Room 3

Tyler Boulware, West Virginia University
"Who Were the Cherokees?: An Outsider's Perspective"

Joyce Ann Wood, Anderson University
"Adnah Church Road: A Case Study of Land Use Patterns in Upcountry South Carolina"

Commentator and Session Chair: John Barrington, Furman University

3:15<+>4:45: Session 7
Local People and Local Identities
Meeting Room 4

Linda Howe, Clemson University
"Farmers, Mechanics, and Nurses: Development of Nursing Education in Upstate South Carolina"

Keira V. Williams, University of Georgia
"Just a Small Town Girl? Susan Smith and Local Identity in South Carolina"

Commentator and Session Chair: Courtney Tollison, Furman University

7:30: Plenary Session 8
Madren Center Ballroom

Upcountry Memories: The Literature of Ron Rash and Ben Robertson

Speakers:
Ron Rash, Western Carolina University
Lacy K. Ford, University of South Carolina

Commentator: Dot (Robertson) Jackson, Birchwood Center

FRIDAY, MARCH 9 AT CLEMSON'S MADREN CENTER
Registration: 8:15--9:00

9:00<+>10:30: Session 9
Civil Rights and Wrongs
Meeting Room 3

Will Gravely, University of Denver
"Rebecca West Comes to Greenville: Reappraising the Earle Lynching Trial of 1947"

Stephen Lowe, University of South Carolina, Columbia Extended Campus
"Resentment, Resistance, and Accommodation: The Civil Rights Movement in the Upcountry"

Commentator and Session Chair: Marian Strobel, Furman University

9:00<+>10:30: Session 10
Upcountry Memories in Conflict
Meeting Room 4

Session Chair: Rod Andrew Jr., Clemson University

W. Scott Poole, College of Charleston
"A Spirit Amongst These Hills: The Politics of Memory in Anderson, Greenville, and Pickens Counties"

James O. Farmer, University of South Carolina-Aiken
"The Past in the Present: A Piedmont Community and its Mixed Legacy"

Commentator: T. Lloyd Benson, Furman University

10:45<+>12:15: Session 11
Big Questions, Small Places:
Research by Clemson University Undergraduates
Meeting Room 3

Session Chair: T. Josh Bell, Clemson University

Elizabeth Averyt, Clemson University
"The Second Battle for Victory at Cowpens"

Andrew R. Hand, Clemson University
"Rearing, Recovery, and Remembrance: Life after Textiles in Pacolet, South Carolina"

Brynn DeHay, Clemson University
"Seeds of Secession: The Mentalities of Agrarian Reformers as Fire-eaters"

Commentator: Paul Christopher Anderson, Clemson University

10:45<+>12:15: Session 12
A New South? Race, Community, and Politics
Meeting Room 4

Scott Reynolds Nelson, College of William and Mary
"Livestock, Boundaries, and Public Space in Spartanburg:African-American Men,
Elite Women, and the Spectacle of Conjugal Relations"

Carmen Harris, University of South Carolina-Upstate
"Building Black Families and Communities in the Post-Slavery Upstate"

Lewis Reece, Anderson University
"The Radical Center: James Orr and the Political Culture of Reconstruction"

Commentator and Session Chair: Bernard E. Powers Jr., College of Charleston

12:30<+>1:45: Lunch and Plenary Session 13
Madren Center Ballroom

The Rise and Fall of the Textile South: A Retrospective

Introduction: Pamela E. Mack, Clemson University

Speaker: David Carlton, Vanderbilt University

FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 9, AT HERITAGE GREEN, GREENVILLE

5:15<+>6:45: Reception, Upcountry History Museum

7:00<+>8:00: Plenary Session 14
Hughes Branch of the Greenville County Library System

The Survival of South Carolina's Indian People

Introduction: Bogue Wallin, Upcountry History Museum

Speaker: Theda Perdue, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

SATURDAY, MARCH 10, AT YOUNTS CENTER, FURMAN UNIVERSITY
Registration: 8:15--9:00

9:00<+>10:15: Plenary Session 15
Shaw Hall

Sounds of the Upcountry:  Music and a Regional Identity

Introduction: W. Scott Poole, College of Charleston

Speaker: Charles Reagan Wilson
Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi

Commentator: A.V. Huff, Furman University

10:30<+>11:45: Session 16
The Changing Face of Public History
Conference Room 110

Rodger Stroup, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
"A Retrospective on Public History"

Michael Schaffer, Michael Schaffer Film Productions, Cambridge, Masachusetts
"Merging History and Media:Keeping History Current with Changing Technologies"

Commentator and Session Chair: Craig Hadley, The Living History Group

10:30<+>11:45: Session 17
Religion and Cultural Shifts in the Upcountry
Shaw Hall

Darren Grem, University of Georgia
"From Christ-Haunted to God Blessed: Thinking About Post-War Prosperity and the Evangelical Upstate"

Sam Britt, Furman University
"Where Bethel Meets Benares: Negotiating Sacred Space among Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists
in Upstate South Carolina"

Claude Stulting, Furman University
"Conversion and Dialogue: The Metamorphosis of Religious Attitudes in the Upstate"

Commentator and Session Chair: Matt Lassiter, University of Michigan


12:00:
Luncheon
Younts Center

1:15<+>2:30: Session 18
How We Play: Sports and History
Shaw Hall

Russ Buhite, University of Missouri, Rolla
"John Henry Moss, The South Atlantic League and Professional Baseball in the Upstate"

Tom Perry, Newberry, South Carolina, and Mac Kirkpatrick, Lander University
"Cotton Mill Village Sports"

Commentator and Session Chair: Steve Richardson, Furman University

1:15<+>2:30: Session 19: Entrepreneurs in the New South
Conference Room 110

Judy Bainbridge, Furman University
"Plodding, Working, Talking Greenville: Alester G. Furman as Community Developer"

Edward Lee, Winthrop University
"Nothing Could be Finer: John Anderson, His Automobile, and the Rise of a New South City"

Commentator and Session Chair: Kirk Karwan, Furman University

2:45<+>4:00: Session 20
Power and the Idea of Progress: Urban Renewal in Greenville and Spartanburg
Shaw Hall

Michael Borer, Furman University
"When One City's Past Drives Another's Future: Remaking Fenway Park in Greenville"

Betsy Teter and Beatrice Hill, Hub City Writers Project
"Remembering Spartanburg's Southside:
The Hub City Writers Project Revisits South Carolina's Largest Urban Renewal Project"

2:45<+>4:00: Session 21
Phi Alpha Theta:
Research on the Upstate by Furman Undergraduates
Conference Room 110

Mary Bays, Furman University
"If These Walls Could Talk: The Historic Blythe-Goodwin-Hagood House"

Will Bryan, Furman University
"Conestee Mills: The Environmental Effects of the
Rise of Greenville on a 'Shimmering Bosom of Moonlit Waters'"

Commentator and Session Chair: Debbie Spear, Upstate History Museum

4:15<+>5:30: Plenary Session 22
Shaw Hall

Studying Place and Region in a Transnational World

Introduction: Bernard E. Powers Jr., College of Charleston

Speaker: Orville Vernon Burton, University of Illinois

5:30<+>6:30: Farewell Reception
Younts Center Lobby

For information as well as directions to the Madren Conference Center and the Martin Inn at Clemson University, please click here.

Upcountry Conference Contact Information:

Steve O'Neill
Department of History
Furman University
Greenville, SC 29613
Phone: 864.294.3072
FAX: 864.294.2295

Thomas Kuehn
Department of History
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634
Phone: 864.656.3153
FAX: 864. 656.1015