Notes on Rival Geographies, 19th Century Womanhood, and Agency

When Edward Said informed the academy that “ideas, cultures, and histories cannot be seriously understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power” he advanced an important point of consideration in understanding the historical context of marginality of any given age. Scholarly study devoted to examining the lives of marginalized people …

Osnaburg Fabric: Garment for the Enslaved

It was the osnaburg nightshirt that failed to keep Moses Grandy’s enslaved brother warm when he died of exposure while trying to find a yoke of steers that had wandered into woods of the Great Dismal Swamp during the winter of 1795. That coarse, yet thin fabric had not been enough to keep the enslaved …

Reconstructing the structure of cultural assertion: Kadesh AME Zion Church in Edenton, NC

In September 2003 when Hurricane Isabel ravaged the eastern NC coast and traveled inland to Edenton, NC it left insurmountable effects of damages in its wake. It was a tremendous loss for the two-hundred and ninety-one year old town as most of the local economy depended on historic tourism.  As the town began to rebound …