I consistently produce content, on this blog and in other venues. However, I am not a strong self promoter, even when it comes to things such a the edited collection I did on Frank Yerby a couple of years ago. I did have the chance to speak about Yerby at the 2022 Revival: Lost Southern Voices event. It’s just not in my nature to constantly promote what I do, and I think that is partly my personality but it also comes down to the fact that I don’t want to constantly post things online to try and maximize the impact. Mainly, though, I don’t constantly promote what I do because I have never been in an academic position that stressed, as a major part of my evaluations, scholarship and engagement. This has led me to bury certain things that I do, even if those things would not impact the evaluations. These things appear on my curriculum vita, but I don’t necessarily, apart from a post here or there on social media, promote them. In this post, I just want to highlight some recent projects I’ve completed and have been working on either for work or for pleasure.

Podcasts

Over the past few years, I’ve hosted the Lillian E. Smith Center’s podcast Dope with Lime. I started this podcast back in December 2019, and at this point, we have about forty three episodes live. On the podcast, I interview scholars, artist residents, and more about their work and the impact of Lillian E. Smith’s life, work, and continued legacy today. The podcast includes episodes with a wide range of individuals speaking about topics such as the relationship between Lillian Smith and Martin Luther King, Jr., the journal that Smith published with her partner Paula Snelling, Smith’s time as director of Laurel Falls Camps for Girls, and the impact of Smith’s work on the lives of individuals. As well, I’ve had the chance to speak with people directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement such as Joan Browning who took part in the Freedom Rides and L.J. Harrison who participated in the sit ins in Atlanta in 1960.

Dope with Lime led me to think about a more personal podcast, and recently my daughter and I launched Classics & Coffee, a podcast where we talk about “classic” novels while drinking coffee. She thought about the idea, even though we don’t remember exactly how and when the idea originated. The idea has been in the back of our heads for a while, and earlier this year we decided to start recording it. The premise is simple. Each of us chooses books for the other read and we discuss them.

For the first season, we settled on five books to read and discuss. The first book, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was a mutual choice. We both have strong feelings about Fitzgerald’s novel, both loathing and enjoying the text. In the first episode, we talked about the novel, even asking whether or not it deserves to be called a “classic.” For the other novels in the first season, my daughter picked her two favorite novels — Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah — and I selected William Gardner Smith’s The Stone Face and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

What makes Classics & Coffee enjoyable, for me, is the fact that I get to talk about literature with my daughter. For the audience, it’s the generational and gender differences that hopefully draw listeners into the podcast. My daughter and I, as with any readers, bring different experiences and thoughts to texts, and our reactions to the texts will vary based on those experiences and our knowledge. As well, it’s not like I’m teaching in front a classroom; it’s a conversation with my daughter about texts that we can bond over.

Media Appearances and Publications

Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to speak with various outlets about Lillian Smith and my own work. Back in May, the Oxford American released “Beyond the Canon: Lillian Smith,” a podcast episode on Lillian Smith. Diane Roberts edited the episode, and she interviewed me, along with Lillian Smith’s niece Nancy Smith Fichter, scholar Rose Gladney, and writer Ravi Howard, about Smith’s continued legacy and importance. The episode couldn’t cover everything, but it serves as a good primer on Smith. Along with the Oxford American podcast, I spoke with Carolyn Hutcheson, Alabama Public Radio show In Focus about Smith, Laurel Falls Camp, and the continued importance of the residency program at the Lillian E. Smith Center.

While I write on my blog, I also write in other settings, both academic and public facing. This past year saw the publication of my essay “Christian Nationalism and the Comic, Incognegro” in Walter Greason and Danian Darrell Jerry’s Illmatic Consequences: The Clapback to Opponents of “Critical Race Theory.” The essay uses Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro to examine the history and dangers of Christian nationalism. I also use Lillian Smith to point out that the fight against Christian nationalism is nothing new. This piece led to an interview with Marc Medley on The Reading Circle where we discussed the essay and also broader issues, specifically how I started studying African American literature.

Along with teh above essay, I also published “Comics in te U.S. South” with a spotlight on Nate Powell in Monica Miller, Katie Burnett, and Todd Hagstette’s The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South. This is a broad piece looking at the history of comic artists’ representation of the South in their strips or series. Due to its length it couldn’t go in depth on this topic, but I provide an overview of the topic through the lens of E.W. Kemble’s illustrations in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the late nineteenth century to the present.

When I do a post like this, or when I update my curriculum vitae, it always strikes me how much I “produce,” mainly because when I complete something I just move on to the next thing. This post does not include everything I’ve done recently because I’ve published other pieces and have others in the process of publication. Plus, I’ve hosted events and spoken at various institutions. If you’d like to have me for media, a talk, or a class, please just let me know in the comments or reach out via Twitter where you can follow me @silaslapham.