125 Years of Zora Neale Hurston
November 18-19, 2016
2016 marks Zora Neale Hurston’s 125 birthday. Join us to celebrate! Born in Notasulga, Alabama, Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist and folklorist who worked the U.S. South and the Caribbean. She was one of the foremost anthropologists working from the opinion that stories, and how we tell them, matters. Come explore Hurston’s connections to the African Diaspora in the U.S. South, as well as Honduras, Haiti and Jamaica.
Join us Friday, November 18th at 6:00PM for a scholarly panel and film screening of the documentary film Jump at the Sun. This event is open to students, teachers, and the public. This event will be followed by a professional development teacher workshop on Saturday, November 19th from 8:00AM – 1:00PM. Teachers will explore the life and legacy of Zora Neale Hurston in the U.S. South and Global South with Dr. Rhonda Collier (Tuskegee University) and Dr. Tiffany Ruby Patterson (Vanderbilt University). In this workshop, teachers will discuss ways to incorporate Hurston into a variety of classrooms including history, social studies, literature, and Spanish. Lunch will be provided, and we will celebrate with the Alabama State Cake!
Zora Neale Hurston: Health, Spirituality, and Labor in the Caribbean and U.S. South
April 24-25, 2015
Zora While Zora Neale Hurston is best known for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, it is less widely known that Hurston wrote that novel while doing fieldwork on traditional health and healing practices in Haiti. Hurston’s work was truly transnational, following questions about the human experience and the African Diaspora through New York, the U.S. South, as well as to Jamaica, Haiti, and Honduras. This webpage will provide lesson plans and resources related to Hurston’s engagements with gender, spirituality, health, race/racism, and folklore across the Americas. It is a collaboration between scholars from Tuskegee University and Vanderbilt University in the departments of English at both universities, as well as the African American and Diaspora Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University.