Apr 25 Thursday
When her mother passed along a cookbook made and assembled by her grandmother, Erica Abrams Locklear thought she knew what to expect. But rather than finding a homemade cookbook full of apple stack cake, leather britches, pickled watermelon, or other “traditional” mountain recipes, Locklear was surprised to discover recipes for devil’s food cake with coconut icing, grape catsup, and fig pickles. Some recipes even relied on food products like Bisquick, Swans Down flour, and Calumet baking powder. But why was that surprising? In this talk, Erica Abrams Locklear draws from her new book, Appalachia on the Table, to explore where her—and the nation’s—Appalachian food script came from. In her talk she will focus on the representations of foods consumed, implied moral judgments about those foods, and how those judgments shape reader perceptions of those depicted. The question at the core of Locklear’s analysis asks, How did the dominant culinary narrative of the region come into existence and what consequences has that narrative had for people in the mountains? One aspect of her talk will feature archival materials from Appalachian Virginia that demonstrate long-standing culinary knowhow, despite century-old narratives that once suggested otherwise.
Erica Abrams Locklear is a professor of English and the Thomas Howerton Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is the author of Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People and Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies. She is a seventh-generation Western North Carolinian who loves good food, books, and conversation.
May 11 Saturday
Don't throw that broken thing away--Rethink, Reuse, Repair Fair is here to teach you how to give new life to old stuff!
Connect with people and businesses who specialize in repairing and reusing objects. Extending the lifespans of our possessions reduces waste as well as environmental impacts.
Vendors will be able to help visitors repair their things on site or provide the contacts and resources for future repair services. There will also be brief workshops and demonstrations for people to learn something about how to repair things on their own.
May 17 Friday
The second annual WATERWORKS new works festival runs May 17 through June 2 at Live Arts Theater in downtown Charlottesville. The three-week festival features 19 new theatrical works from local and global playwrights, 16 directors, and over 50 performers. Other featured works include Locally Sourced, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, and Community Deep Dive educational workshops. Start and end times vary; visit livearts.org for tickets and information.
May 18 Saturday
May 19 Sunday
May 23 Thursday
May 24 Friday
May 25 Saturday
May 26 Sunday
May 30 Thursday
Most students of the Civil War believe the story of Robert E. Lee’s 1862 Maryland Campaign is complete, and that new studies must rely on interpretations long since accepted and understood. But what if this is not the case? What if the histories previously written about the first major Confederate operation north of the Potomac River missed key sources, proceeded from mistaken readings of the evidence, or were influenced by Lost Cause ideology? Dr. Alexander Rossino demonstrates that these types of distortions continue to shape modern understanding of the campaign and offers suggestions for how to correct them, developing in the process a new understanding of what General Lee hoped to accomplish in September 1862.Dr. Alexander Rossino is an independent historian. He earned Master’s and Doctoral degrees in History at Syracuse University, where he taught for two years, before working as an historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He is an expert on the 1862 Maryland Campaign and the author of Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia from the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862; The Tale Untwisted: General George B. McClellan, The Maryland Campaign, and the Discovery of Lee's Lost Orders (with Gene Thorp); and Calamity at Frederick: Robert E. Lee, Special Orders No. 191, and Confederate Misfortune on the Road to Antietam.The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.