Artists & Scholars in Public Life at the University of Florida and Beyond
UF is proud to be a member-institution of Imagining America (IA), a national consortium committed to using the arts, humanities, and design to enact a more just and liberatory world. Faculty, staff, students, and community partners are invited to join the UF Imagining America Working Group and advance public scholarship through IA gatherings, collaborative projects, and resources.
Announcements:
- Welcome to the new IA@UF website. We’re glad you’re here! Join the UF Imagining America Working Group by signing up for the listserv: UFImaginingAmerica-L@lists.ufl.edu
- Share your project
Recent Projects
2019
The Joel Buchanan Archive of African American Oral History contains over 700 oral history interviews with African American elders throughout Florida and the wider Gulf South. These interviews and the overall projects associated with them have resulted in numerous public programs, university seminars on African American history and Ethnic Studies, and community-based oral history workshops. The archive contains interviews from numerous different projects at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, including the African American History Project (AAHP) which began in 2009 through the efforts of Paul Ortiz, Marna Weston, and Joel Buchanan; the Fifth Avenue Blacks collection (FAB) created by Joel Buchanan in 1981; the Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) which derives from SPOHP’s annual trip to the Mississippi Delta to interview Civil Rights Movement veterans; the Oscar Mack Project (OMP), detailing the remarkable story and legacy of Oscar Mack and his family; the Underground Railroad collection (URR) which includes interviews with Black Seminoles and Gullah-Geechee elders and leaders; the Civil Rights in St. Augustine collection begun by David Colburn in the late 1970s; the St. Augustine African American History collection (SAAH), begun by Raja Rahim and Annemarie Nichols in 2016; and many more. Click on the project logos below to learn more.
2019
The Joel Buchanan Archive of African American Oral History contains over 700 oral history interviews with African American elders throughout Florida and the wider Gulf South. These interviews and the overall projects associated with them have resulted in numerous public programs, university seminars on African American history and Ethnic Studies, and community-based oral history workshops. The archive contains interviews from numerous different projects at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, including the African American History Project (AAHP) which began in 2009 through the efforts of Paul Ortiz, Marna Weston, and Joel Buchanan; the Fifth Avenue Blacks collection (FAB) created by Joel Buchanan in 1981; the Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) which derives from SPOHP’s annual trip to the Mississippi Delta to interview Civil Rights Movement veterans; the Oscar Mack Project (OMP), detailing the remarkable story and legacy of Oscar Mack and his family; the Underground Railroad collection (URR) which includes interviews with Black Seminoles and Gullah-Geechee elders and leaders; the Civil Rights in St. Augustine collection begun by David Colburn in the late 1970s; the St. Augustine African American History collection (SAAH), begun by Raja Rahim and Annemarie Nichols in 2016; and many more. Click on the project logos below to learn more.
2019
Celebrating the Opening of the Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History at UF: A 3 Day Symposium.
2019
Celebrating the Opening of the Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History at UF: A 3 Day Symposium.
2019
Beginning in 2019, The Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere — with the support of the Director Barbara Mennel’s Waldo W. Neikirk Professorship — supports Ph.D. students in UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for intensive one-week themed residencies and institutes at the National Humanities Center that focus on practical teaching, research, and professionalization skills.
2019
Beginning in 2019, The Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere — with the support of the Director Barbara Mennel’s Waldo W. Neikirk Professorship — supports Ph.D. students in UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for intensive one-week themed residencies and institutes at the National Humanities Center that focus on practical teaching, research, and professionalization skills.
2019
From Colored to Black explores the intersections between public health education, oral history performance, and community arts activism, and functions as a multi-modal platform to communicate health data, historical research, and the lived experience of the Black community to the public.
Created by emerging African American playwright and UF graduate Ms. Brittney M. Caldwell, and Jeffrey Pufahl, Lecturer in the Center for Arts in Medicine, this groundbreaking play incorporates dramatized Civil Rights era oral histories excavated from the UF archive into an analytical framework designed to educate audiences and provoke critical dialogue.
The play exposes the origins and mechanisms of systemic racism on the Black community and traces these mechanisms through history, revealing their impact on current health and social issues. Themes include:
women’s roles in the Civil Rights Movement
the St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement
epigenetics and intergenerational stress and trauma
the significance of redlining and racist public policies on education and community health
the lasting effects of integration on Black education
Black identity and the portrayal of Blackness in the media
2019
From Colored to Black explores the intersections between public health education, oral history performance, and community arts activism, and functions as a multi-modal platform to communicate health data, historical research, and the lived experience of the Black community to the public.
Created by emerging African American playwright and UF graduate Ms. Brittney M. Caldwell, and Jeffrey Pufahl, Lecturer in the Center for Arts in Medicine, this groundbreaking play incorporates dramatized Civil Rights era oral histories excavated from the UF archive into an analytical framework designed to educate audiences and provoke critical dialogue.
The play exposes the origins and mechanisms of systemic racism on the Black community and traces these mechanisms through history, revealing their impact on current health and social issues. Themes include:
women’s roles in the Civil Rights Movement
the St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement
epigenetics and intergenerational stress and trauma
the significance of redlining and racist public policies on education and community health
the lasting effects of integration on Black education
Black identity and the portrayal of Blackness in the media
2019
The role of El Salvadorans and others in providing sanctuary to Jewish refugees from Germany in the years leading up to World War II.
Produced by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
2019
The role of El Salvadorans and others in providing sanctuary to Jewish refugees from Germany in the years leading up to World War II.
Produced by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
2019
Alachua County’s African American ancestry contributed significantly to the area’s history. Once enslaved pioneers Richard and Juliann Sams settled in Archer as early as 1839. They were former slaves of James M. Parchman, who journeyed through the wilderness from Parchman, Mississippi. They and others shaped the county’s history through inventions, education, and a work ethic based on spirituality. Lizzie Jenkin’s book, Alachua County, Florida (Black America Series), shows people working together from the early 1800s rural farm life, when racial violence was routine, until African Americans broke the chains of injustice and started organizing and controlling civic affairs.
2019
Alachua County’s African American ancestry contributed significantly to the area’s history. Once enslaved pioneers Richard and Juliann Sams settled in Archer as early as 1839. They were former slaves of James M. Parchman, who journeyed through the wilderness from Parchman, Mississippi. They and others shaped the county’s history through inventions, education, and a work ethic based on spirituality. Lizzie Jenkin’s book, Alachua County, Florida (Black America Series), shows people working together from the early 1800s rural farm life, when racial violence was routine, until African Americans broke the chains of injustice and started organizing and controlling civic affairs.