Gabriele Stauf Residency Award

Eric Solomon

Gabriele Stauf Residency Award

Dr. Eric Solomon is the 2020 Gabriele Stauf Residency Award recipient. Solomon teaches courses at Emory’s Oxford College in American Studies. Last year, he taught “Queer Intersection, American Outlaws.” In the course, Solomon teaches writers such as James Baldwin and Gloria Anzaldúa along with trans cultural figures such as Kate Bornstein. He integrates Smith’s thinking and writing into the course as well. His project explores, as he writes, “the ‘queer’ side of Smith’s worldview through her relationship with long-term partner Paula Snelling as well as her connection with James Baldwin and other queer figures.”

On receiveing the award, Solomon said, “I am honored to be the recipient of the 2020 Gabriele Stauf Residency Award. I cannot wait to spend some muchneeded time on the mountain to explore Lillian E. Smith’s connection to a queer activist tradition. James Baldwin writes, ‘the purpose of education . . . is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.’ I am excited to spend a couple of weeks looking at the world from Screamer Mountain, as Lillian E. Smith and Paula Snelling once did.”

The Gabriele Stauf Residency Award is an ongoing annual opportunity that provides a complimentary two-week retreat at the Center for an educator who has a minimum of six years of experience and who is working on a project that would benefit from a residency. This award also provides the winner with a copy of A Lillian Smith Reader, edited by Margaret Rose Gladney and Lisa Hodgens, published by UGA Press. Gabriele Stauf, Professor Ermerita of English at Georgia Southwestern State University, has enjoyed several residencies at the LES Center through the years. She sponsors this annual award because she understands the value of time and solitude required for creative pursuits.

Lillian E. Smith in the News

During January and February, our director, Dr. Matthew Teutsch, spoke with Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) and Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt about Lillian E. Smith and his upcoming book on Augusta-born author Frank Yerby. In “How Lillian Smith ‘Seared the Conscience of White America,’” Teutsch talked with GPB’s Leah Felming about Smith’s work and correspondence with Martin Luther King, Jr. and about her bestseller Strange Fruit (1944). Talking with Merritt for her show Merrittocracy, Teutsch discussed Smith’s time as the director of Laurel Falls Camp and the impact she had on the young campers. As well, he talked about the connections between Smith and Yerby, especially the ways that they both confronted the myths of whiteness. Teutsch continued this exploration in Frank “Yerby & Lillian Smith: Challenging the Myths of Whiteness,” a piece he wrote for The Bitter Southerner. Of Smith and Yerby, Teutsch wrote, “They travel with me into the classroom, online, and down main street, speaking to me in my daily interactions with those I encounter.”

Along with these appearances, Dr. Ben Railton (Fitchburg State University) published a piece in The Saturday Evening Post entitled “Considering History: How Lillian E. Smith Modeled a Southern Alternative to White Supremacy.” Railton writes about Smith’s career dismantling myths about the Old South, chronicling Smith’s work as director of Laurel Falls Camp; the publications of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream; her work with the Civil Rights Movement; and her continued importance. He concludes by asserting, “It is long past time that Lillian E. Smith, one of our most inspiring and impressive figures, occupied a central place in our collective memories.”

Click the linked text to find each of these works online.