Events

On Thursday, February 15, Soul Food Scholar Adrian Miller delivered an engaging lecture on his recently-published research endeavors: the African American barbecue story. Miller began his discussion with his writing journey and inspiration for his newest novel, Black Smoke. Then, he gave the audience an interesting history lesson about how African Americans played, and still play, a crucial role in BBQ as we know it today. Adrian Miller concluded his lecture with inspiring notes on the future of African American barbecue, including a South Carolina Black BBQ cook expanding his business nationally and the investment of barbecue alternatives.

Thank you to everyone who attended, especially all of the community members who came to campus for the event. Thank you to USF Food Sovereignty Initiative for helping coordinate bringing a wonderful speaker to campus!

• Keith Berry, PhD
  Professor | Department of Communication

“Bullying, Communication, and Youth Identity … Oh My!”
Dr. Berry’s talk will focus on the prevalent societal issue of school bullying, primarily the relationship between communication and bullying, and the various ways in which the violence of bullying shapes youth identities. How an approach that emphasizes communication and identity can inform the responses we can give to bullying will be of special importance. The talk will be rooted in the research Dr. Berry conducted that led to the publication of his award-winning book Bullied: Tales of Torment, Identity, and Youth (2016, Routledge).

• Benny Goldberg, PhD
  Associate Professor of Instruction | Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies

“The Problem of Piles; or, the Horror of Hemorrhoids”
In this talk, Dr. Goldberg will discuss the variety of ailments, maladies, and medical issues faced by those living in early modern Europe, focusing especially on one of the most common complaints: hemorrhoids, aka, piles. Dr. Goldberg argues that the ubiquity of this problem can help us understand the variety of strange, bizarre, and downright dangerous cures and medicines used to heal this problem, a list which ranges from the tobacco enema to anally applied leeches to (large doses of) opium. 

• Tatsiana Kulakevich, PhD
  Associate Professor of Instruction | School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies

"How Lukashenka of Belarus ended up supporting Russia in the War against Ukraine."
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine currently dominates Europe’s geopolitical agenda, but neighboring Belarus is also a critical battleground in the fight back against Vladimir Putin’s resurgent brand of Russian imperialism. Today’s Belarusian authorities are widely seen as puppets of the Kremlin, with the country playing a significant role as a junior partner in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. European security is impossible without peace in Ukraine. Stability throughout Europe is equally impossible without a free and independent Belarus. 

Leila Chatti is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), winner of the 2021 Levis Reading Prize, the 2021 Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and longlisted for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and the chapbooks Figment (Bull City Press), The Mothers (Slapering Hol Press), Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press.

Leila Chatti received her M.F.A. from North Carolina State University, where she was  awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize, and she is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, and fellowships and scholarships from numerous fine arts centers and institutes.

Deluge chronicles Chatti’s experience with a scary medical mystery. In her early twenties, Leila Chatti started bleeding and did not stop. Physicians referred to this bleeding as flooding. In the Qur’an, as in the Bible, the Flood was sent as punishment. The idea of disease as punishment drives this collection’s themes of shame, illness, grief, and gender, transmuting religious narratives through the lens of a young Arab-American woman suffering a taboo female affliction. Deluge has been praised as “taut, succinct, and gut-punching at moments” by RHINO and “unspeakably gorgeous” by the Cleveland Review of Books.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available along with a book signing after the event concludes. 

Parking for guests without a USF parking permit is available in Lot 21.