I am an essayist, poet, and scholar whose research and teaching explore intersections of race/gender and the natural world including especially rural folkways/foodways in the context of what has been called “the plantationcene”—a natural world whose relationships have been violently rearranged by plantation slavery.
I am the author of The Goddess of Gumbo: Poems https://a.co/d/jgQb4oZ and my poetry, essays, and scholarship have appeared in journals such as Common-place, Mississippi Quarterly, Callaloo, and the Southern Review. My book of literary criticism,
Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess (The New Southern Studies Series) https://a.co/d/bUpY8cZ breaks important ground as the first full-length literary treatment exploring the collision of Harlem and Charleston Renaissance artists and intellectuals over the meaning and ownership of Gullah Geechee culture in the period between the world wars.
At Presbyterian College, I teach African American/Southern literature, direct the Southern Studies minor, and serve as faculty advisor to PC’s award-winning student newspaper The BlueStocking. But I could never be accused of being an “ivory tower scholar.” Sure, I love the library as much as any English professor—I love research and long periods of time devoted to writing and study. But I’ve also consciously chosen to balance those periods of introspection with my passions: cooking and gardening; singing and Southern music; mindful living and contemplative practice. Atypically for an academic, I’ve been actively engaged in every community I’ve joined—up to and including being drafted by my neighbors to run for City Council and serving two years as Vice Mayor of Charlottesville, Va.
After retiring from politics in 2007, I combined my commitment to service with my great love—gardening—and, along with my partner and the team of dedicated volunteers we attracted, I co-founded and administered not one but two church-based community gardening/hunger ministries. (The first “grew” its own neighborhood-based leadership and is operating independently; the second is a thriving independent entity that’s grown into a model for the diocese) https://trinityepiscopalcville.org/bread-roses/about-us/
No one who lives more than a few years in Virginia escapes without a few choice Jefferson quotes, and this is one of mine. Writing to his friend and legal mentor George Wythe while working on the revision of the Virginia code of laws, he said:
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness … Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
Jefferson was steadfast in the belief that liberal education in the humanities is the bedrock of an informed and active citizenry, one prepared to assume leadership in society. With Jefferson, I put my faith in liberal education—for its ability to make students aware of their cultural birthright, to awaken them to their social and civic responsibilities, and to encourage them to seek the common good.
And of course, as with Jefferson, there will be gardening, too.