“In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. I am, in the deepest sense, colored.” From these fertile soils—of love, land, identity, family, and race—emerges The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature (2016, Milkweed Editions) a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place , readers

(Courtesy of the artist)(Courtesy of the Artist)

Renowned South Carolina artist, Leo Twiggs, now 82, has long been fascinated by the contradictions of the South, and he has defined a unique iconography in his work by seizing on certain symbols, especially the Confederate battle flag, its stars and bars, the shape of an “X” and the image of a target, with its sequential rings and bull’s-eye.

For a new series — nine paintings of Emanuel AME Church, “a testimony to the lives that were lost” — the “X” figure is repeatedly used. But this time it is transformed from a symbol of hate into a symbol of love and redemption. Twiggs joins Dr. Edgar to talk about the series, “Requiem for Mother Emanuel.” 

All Stations: Fri, Apr 21, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Apr 23, 4 pm

Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser (2016, USC Press) is a collection of the works of one of the nation's most respected painters of representational art. A mastery of his medium and the scope of work ensure his place in Southern art history. A true son of the Lowcountry, Fraser has dedicated much of his career to capturing the lush, primordial beauty of the Southeast's coastal regions that have been altered by man and time. The 260 works in this book are representative of the

(DCA&HC McMahan Photo Collection via SC Humanities)

The Way We Worked is a traveling Smithsonian exhibit that explores how work became such a central element in American culture by tracing the many changes that affected the workforce and work environment in the past 150 years. Adapted from an original exhibition designed by the National Archives, The Way We Worked shows how we identify with work – as individuals and as communities.

SC Humanities is bringing The Way We Worked to South Carolina in 2017 for a year-long tour of six communities: St. George, Blythewood, Pickens, Chester, McClellanville, and Hartsville. Each host community will present collateral programming from local exhibits to oral histories to movie screenings. 

To talk about the exhibit, community involvement, the changing nature of work in South Carolina's history, Walter Edgar is joined by T.J. Wallace of SC Humanities; Dr. Melissa Walker of Converse College; and Dan Brennan of the Pickens County Museum of Art & History.

All Stations: Fri, Apr 7 , 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Apr 9, 4 pm

(HeritageDaily [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

Archaeology in South Carolina: Exploring the Hidden Heritage of the Palmetto State (USC Press, 2016), edited by Adam King, contains an overview of the fascinating archaeological research currently ongoing in the Palmetto State and features essays by twenty scholars studying South Carolina's past through archaeological research. The scholarly contributions are enhanced by more than one hundred black-and-white and thirty-eight color images of some of the most important and interesting sites and artifacts found in the state.

South Carolina has an extraordinarily rich history encompassing some of the first human habitations of North America as well as the lives of people at the dawn of the modern era. King talks with Dr. Edgar about the basic how's and why's of archaeology, as well as the current issues influencing the field of research. 

All Stations: Fri, Mar 31, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Apr 2, 4 pm

(Library of Congress; photographer unknown)

South Carolina in the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras (USC Press, 2016) is an anthology of the most enduring and important scholarly articles about the Civil War and Reconstruction era published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association. Past officers of the South Carolina Historical Association (SCHA) Michael Brem Bonner and Fritz Hamer have selected twenty-three essays from the several hundred published since 1931 to create this treasure trove of scholarship on an impressive variety of subjects including race, politics, military events, and social issues. Editors Hamer and  Bonner join Dr. Edgar to talk about the book and the wide-lens view it offers.

All Stations: Fri, Mar 24, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Mar 26, 4 pm

In the Fall of 2016, the Newberry Opera House , in partnership with the Pat Conroy Literary Center , presented a special night in honor of the late author, Pat Conroy. The evening featured Conroy's widow and fellow novelist Cassandra King interviewed by Walter Edgar, and was presented in benefit of the Pat Conroy Literary Center . All Stations: Fri, Mar 17, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Mar 19, 4 pm Our thanks for this recording to Molly Fortune and Mike Sanders at the Newberry Opera House.

(USC Beaufort)

In this final installment of public Conversations on South Carolina: The State and the New Nation, 1783-1828, Dr. Brent Morris, associate professor of history and chair of the humanities at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, talks with Dr. Walter Edgar about the unification of the slave state in South Carolina from 1783 to 1828.

All Stations: Fri, Mar 10, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Mar 12, 4 pm

In this final installment of public Conversations on South Carolina: The State and the New Nation, 1783-1828 , Dr. Brent Morris, associate professor of history and chair of the humanities at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, talks with Dr. Walter Edgar about the unification of the slave state in South Carolina from 1783 to 1828. All Stations: Fri, Mar 10, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Mar 12, 4 pm

(University of South Carolina)

Join us for the third public conversation in a four-part series of Conversations on South Carolina: The State and the New Nation, 1783-1828. Dr. Lacy Ford, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences University of South Carolina and author of Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 and Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South, will discuss the ideology and public policy of slavery in the American republic.

 
This series of public conversations is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Southern Studies Institute
All Stations: Fri, Mar 03, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Mar 05, 4 pm