Clemson team publishes slave narrative anthology

Published: April 29, 2010

By Hannah Sykes

CLEMSON —  A Clemson University Creative Inquiry team’s work has been published by the University of South Carolina Press. “I Belong to South Carolina: South Carolina Slave Narratives,” an anthology of firsthand accounts documenting the everyday lives of slaves across the Palmetto State, will be released in May.

Associate professor of American literature Susanna Ashton and her team of undergraduate and graduate students collaborated to produce the 344-page book. In addition to editing and proofing the texts, the team spent two semesters researching cultural and literary history of slave narratives. Students also wrote scholarly essays in collaboration with Ashton to accompany the book’s seven narratives.

Ashton and the students, many of whom now have graduated, will host a book reading and signing at noon May 27 at the South Carolina Center for the Book in the State Library in Columbia.

Ashton is an associate professor of American literature and associate chairwoman of Clemson’s department of English. She is the author of “Collaborators in Literary America 1870-1920” and co-editor of “These ‘Colored’ United States,” an anthology of African-American writing of the 1920s. She has written extensively on African-American book culture, slavery and literary history.

Former students who worked on the project include:

• Robyn Adams of Springfield, Va., a graduate student in public history at North Carolina State University;
• Deanna Panetta of Cumming, Ga., a graduate student in public history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
• Langston Culler of Lugoff, a graduate student in English literature at the College of Charleston;
• Maximilien Blanton of Westfield, N.J., a specialist in the United States Army;
• Laura Bridges of Greenville, an employee at Southern Eye Associates;
• Kelly Riddle of Fountain Inn, a recent graduate planning to attend graduate school for library science; and
• Cooper Hill of Seneca, a graduate student in history at Clemson.

Creative Inquiry is a unique opportunity for undergraduate research and engaged learning at Clemson. Students and faculty conduct team-based research, typically over the course of three or four semesters.

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