Dr. Jacqueline Jones Royster will present her lecture, “Voices of Nation: Women Claiming the Power to Choose” on Wednesday, March 27 at 2 p.m. in the Chattanooga Room of the UTC University Center. Royster will speak on the subject of Civil War women and nation building.
This program is free and open to the public. Immediately following her talk, Royster will be the guest of honor at a tea in the Chattanooga Room.
Royster’s current research looks at the memoirs, letters, diaries, and autobiographical writings of Civil-War era women such as Charlotte Forten.
“At a moment in America’s history when the country was divided into two nations, women played a pivotal role in representing themselves, their interests, their passions, and their commitment to women’s rights to make their own decisions and choose their own lives as they helped to make two nations into one,” said Dr. Royster. “At this nation-building moment, the lesson that we can take from the way that they represented their experiences is that there is a long history of commitment to female agency in this country, a legacy that we can take at this critically important time as an affirmation of women’s power to choose and a resolve to take their legacy forward.”
Royster earned her BA from Spelman College and her MA and DA in English from the University of Michigan; much of her work focuses on literacy studies, rhetorical studies, and women’s studies. She has authored three books, including Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and coauthored several others, including Feminist Rhetorical Studies: New Horizons in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. In 1995 she chaired the College Conference on Composition and Communication, known to English teachers as 4C’s. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and is Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Royster’s lecture is co-sponsored by the UTC Department of English, the UTC Women’s Center, and the UTC Women’s Studies Program.
For more information, please call Dr. Marcia Noe, Professor of English and Director of Women’s Studies at UTC, (423) 425-4692 / (423) 266-9316.