Julie Elb presents historical paper and sings in Opera Memphis production

Julie Elb, currently the history department chair at Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis, attended the GEMCS (Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies) conference in Philadelphia this past weekend. She presented a paper, "The Taming of the Stew: Food and Feminine Identity in Early Victorian England." The paper was part of a larger project which involved her new class, Women and Power in Europe 1100-1900, a new elective she designed at Lausanne this year.

She also just finished singing in Opera Memphis' La Traviata, which ran in late October. Her next project will be Faust this coming April. The first photograph below is from her performance in La Traviata; the second is from her performance as one of the witches in last season's production of Macbeth.



Julie received her Ph.D. in history from The University of Memphis in 2003, writing her dissertation on food and feminine identity in England during the period 1750-1850, under the direction of Dr Walter R. Brown.

Cathy Ginn's class has a project on ancestors and family trees

Cathy Ginn, a candidate for the M.A. degree in history, is currently teaching American History 280 (the first-half of the 20th century) at the National College of Business and Technology in Bartlett. Following the class trip to Alex Haley’s house which was reported on 9 October 2008, continuing the theme “My History is American History,” the class had a project in which the members could either write an essay about one significant ancestor or make a poster that displayed his or her family tree, using his or her choice of creative ways to display the information.

The posters were placed on display at the college. Here are some of them:





Ms Ginn, in reporting this project, remarked on how the students displayed creativity, imagination, and, in some cases, significant courage in asking lineage questions that had long been understood to be “off limits” in family conversation. In the photos displayed, the students showed their knowledge of culture, events, and fashions, including such things as military uniforms, hairstyles, automobiles, big bands, night life, and Jim Crow laws. Ms Ginn felt that this project reinforced in a practical and hands-on way what the class had learned from the textbook about the first half of the 20th century, and that the students began to realize more deeply that their ancestors played a significant part in building this country.