Jeff Newberry opens Jess Usher Lecture Series at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
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Sep. 11—TIFTON — Five fabulous presentations with storytelling venues ranging from Ireland to Scotland to King Arthur's England will highlight this year's Jess Usher Lecture Series at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
Jeff Newberry, a professor of English and ABAC's poet-in-residence, opens the series at 7 p.m. on Sept. 27 when he speaks on "The Right Kind of Tradition: Seamus Heaney, Irish Identity, and the Southern Problem."
Each event is open to the public at no charge with no ticket required. All events in the series will be held in Howard Auditorium on the ABAC campus. Formerly known as the ABAC Lecture Series, this special collection of presenters has been renamed in memory of Jess Usher, a former ABAC faculty member and lecturer in the series, who passed away in 2021.
Newberry's presentation focuses on Heaney, a Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet, who was raised in Northern Ireland, site of the famous "troubles" of the 1970s and '80s.
"Heaney's move to the Republic of Ireland represents his movement to a sense of Irish heritage that's anchored in both locale and local culture," Newberry said. "Heaney's writing about Ireland demonstrates a kind of tradition that isn't exclusionary.
"This tradition provides an effective model for the contemporary American Southeast, a place of changing demographics that complicate the notion of heritage."
Sponsored by the Tom M. Cordell Lecture Series, Jim McSweeny will speak on "Our National Experience, The National and Federal Archives" on Oct. 11. David Nelson's topic on Nov. 17 is "Microbes and Xenophobes: Scotland's Moral Panic Over Italian Ice Cream, 1880-1920." Nelson is a professor of history at ABAC.
Abdur Rahman Muhammad, also sponsored by the Cordell Lecture Series, addresses "Journey for Justice in the Malcolm X Assassination Case" on Jan. 24.
Thomas Grant, a professor of journalism at ABAC, and Kaci West, a senior lecturer at ABAC, wind up the series on March 13 with "Literature and the Landscape," a tantalizing look at how they followed the trail of The Knights of the Round Table in England and Wales.
