Negrophilia and the Black Woman: The Exploitation of Essentialism

In June 2019, Dr. Jeremy McMillan conducted research at Emory’s Rose Library as a recipient of our Short-Term Fellowship Program. Dr. McMillan is a pianist who currently serves as a visiting professor of music at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was a pleasure to spend a week in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives Read More …

In Memoriam: Camille Billops, An Avant-garde Artist to be Recognized and Reckoned With

Every creative, cultural and racial experience has to do with my work.  I sift and look and taste. Camille Billops (1977) The passing of Camille Billops (1933-2019) comes as a shock to the system.  She will forever be remembered as a force in the art world, especially as an advocate for the preservation of the Read More …

Reflections on My First Conference: Report from the Queer History South Conference

Brianna McGruder is an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and an intern with the Charlotte Queer Oral Histories Project. Briana was the 2019 recipient of a Rose Library scholarship to attend the Queer History South Conference, organized by the Invisible Histories Project. The conference was held March 28-29, 2019 in Birmingham, AL. The Read More …

Queer O’Connor: Surprises from the Archives

In February 2019, Sean DiLeonardi conducted research at Emory’s Rose Library as a recipient of our Short-Term Fellowship Program. Mr. DiLeonardi is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Thanks to a research fellowship from the Stuart A. Rose Library at Emory University, Read More …

Suspense in the Archive, or: Did the Mid-Century Avant-garde Have a Southern Accent?

In July 2018, Dr. Anna Ioanes conducted research at Emory’s Rose Library as a recipient of our Short Term Fellowship program. Dr. Ioanes is Assistant Professor of English at the University of St. Francis. Archival research can be a suspenseful experience. The researcher turns pages and opens boxes, hoping to find something that is yet Read More …

Protest, Freedom, and Change from the South African Literature at the Rose Library

John Wamwara (SJD Candidate, School of Law) is 2017 –2018 Newton Teaching Scholar at the Rose Library. He is supporting the Rose Library Faculty Fellowship program and is reviewing the Rose Library’s collections on Africa. His doctoral research is on how law, religion, and culture have shaped the monogamy -polygamy debate in Kenya; and how Read More …

“So be it”: Celebrating Lucille Clifton’s Life and Work

In perhaps her best recognized poem, “won’t you celebrate with me” Lucille Clifton invites readers to celebrate her life. Though “born in babylon / both nonwhite and woman,” the poem’s speaker explains that she has managed to forge a kind of life, and at the poem’s conclusion, she again asks us to celebrate: “that everyday Read More …

Honoring Verdelle Bellamy

This week our intern Sophia Queen took a break from her usual research on Yun Ch’i-Ho to focus on the narrative of integration at Emory. In honor of Black History Month, we explore the stories of the men and women who helped integrate the university.  Because of Emory’s status as a private institution, desegregation was Read More …

Flag Burning: A Constitutional Right

Last week, President-elect Trump provoked controversy with a tweet: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences  – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Trump’s tweet came in the aftermath of a controversy at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Students had lowered the flag on Read More …

Guest post: Andreas Till

In April 2016 Andreas Till spent one month in Atlanta to conduct research in the Rose Library for the purpose of completing a graduate thesis in Photographic Studies. His thesis focuses on the influence of the presence of American troops in his hometown Heidelberg on the relationship between Germans and Americans between 1945 and 2013. Read More …

Following the Fellows: Elizabeth Fielder

With a generous fellowship from the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library at Emory University, I researched materials for additional chapters that will contribute to a project on grassroots cultural activism during the Civil Rights Movement. The book extends from my dissertation “The Radical South: Grassroots Activism, Ethnicity, and Literary Form, 1960-1980” Read More …