Landrum Library Speaker Series: “Something in These Hills: the culture of family land in southern Appalachia”
March 25 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Date: March 25, 2025
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Landrum Library
Speaker: Dr. Mike Coggeshall, Professor of Anthropology at Clemson University
What is the “something in these hills” that ties mountain families to family land in the southern Appalachians? This talk explores two themes: the duality of the southern Appalachians as both a menacing and majestic landscape and the emotional relationship to family land characteristic of long-term residents of these mountains. How can the same geographical space be both? Utilizing the voices and perspectives of long-term residents, the talk provides a more fundamental understanding of the ”something in these hills” that holds people in place.
John M. Coggeshall, Professor of Anthropology, Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Clemson University, attended Southern Illinois University-Carbondale where he achieved a Ph.D. in Anthropology. In 1988, he joined the faculty of Clemson University where he is currently employed. Dr. Coggeshall has an interest in American regional and folk groups and sense of place in southern Appalachia. He has published: Something in These Hills: the Culture of Family Land in Southern Appalachia (University of North Carolina Press, 2022); Liberia, South Carolina: an African American Appalachian Community (University of North Carolina Press, 2018); Carolina Piedmont Country (University Press of Mississippi, 1996); Vernacular Architecture in Southern Illinois: the Ethnic Heritage (with J. Nast, SIU Press, 1988); “Symbols of Division: Plantations along South Carolina’s coast,” Home Cultures, 5:1 (2008); and “A culture of servitude: the impact of tourism and development on South Carolina’s coast” (with L. Faulkenberry, K. Backman, and S. Backman), Human Organization 59 (2000). He is currently researching “A Slow Life But a Good Life: Stories from the Southern Appalachians” (book manuscript in press with Clemson University Press).
*Books will be available for purchase with cash or check.
The Landrum Library Speaker Series programs are made possible thanks to our partnership with the Spartanburg County Public Libraries.
Contact Pam Torlina, pam@conservingcarolina.org, with questions or for more information.
