Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People

The Film

• The Series
• Sponsors
• The Filmmakers
• Participants
• Interview Samples

Participants

• Writers & Musicians
• Scholars
• Specialists

The following outstanding writers, musicians and scholars have been already interviewed or will be interviewed in the early 2004:

Writers and Musicians

• Barbara Kingsolver
  A prize-winning author from Southwestern Virginia, Barbara Kingsolver is author of Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible, and Small Wonder. Winner of the National Humanities Award.
• Mary Lee Settle
  Winner of the National Book Award in 1978 and Co-founder of the PEN Awards, Mary Lee Settle is one of America's most renowned novelists. Her four part series entitled The Beulah Quartet is regarded as a classic of historical fiction writing. A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Mary Lee Settle has recently completed Addie, a memoir of her grandmother.
• Loyal Jones
  Nicknamed the "Father of Appalachian Studies." Founder of the Appalachian Study Center at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, His works include In The Heart, a highly regarded study of Appalachian religious belief and practice, as well as numerous other books and articles on Appalachian history and culture and humor.
• Edward O. Wilson
  uthor of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, E. O. Wilson is a chaired professor of Ecology at Harvard University. His works include Consilience, The Future of Life, and Ants.
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  A native of West Virginia and one of the nation's most outstanding scholars in the field of African-American Literature. He was recipient of a MacArthur Prize in 1981 and is Director of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University. His numerous publications include Colored People, a memoir of growing up African-American in Appalachia.
• Denise Giardina
  Award-winning novelist and parttime Episcopal priest in Charleston, West Virginia. Author of Storming Heaven, Bonhoffer, and The Unquiet Earth, for which she won the Lillian Smith Award in 1993.
• Lee Smith
  Novelist and Writer-in-Residence, North Carolina State University. Lee Smith has written eleven novels and short story collections centering on the Appalachian mountain region in which she grew up in southwestern Virginia. Her works include Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and Saving Grace.
• Tom Gish
  Editor-in-chief for more than thirty years of the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Newspaper motto: "It Screams."
• Edwin Bernbaum
  Author of Sacred Mountains of the World, winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Best Non-fiction book of the Year. Dr. Bernbaum is Senior Research Fellow at The Mountain Institute in West Virginia.
• Wilma Dykeman
  Author of more than eighteen books of both history and fiction, most of which deal with Appalachia, including The French Broad, Return the Innocent Earth, Seeds of Southern Change, Neither Black nor White, and The Tall Woman.
• Jefferson Chapman
  Director of the McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee and Professor of Archeology. Jeff Chapman is author of Tellico Archeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History.
• Charles Hudson
  Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia. Author of The Southeastern Indians, as well as Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando DeSoto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms.
• John Mack Faragher
  Professor of American History at Yale University and author of Daniel Boone: the Life and Legend of an American Pioneer.
• Ron Eller
  Director of the Appalachian Center at the University of Kentucky and author of Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, a seminal work on the history of economic development in Appalachia.
• Gurney Norman
  Novelist, short story writer and filmmaker, Gurney Norman is author of Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories and Divine Right's Trip, which originally appeared in serial form in The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Gurney Norman is a native of Eastern Kentucky and professor of creative writing at the University of Kentucky.
• Robert Hatcher
  Chairman of the Geology Department at the University of Tennessee and prolific writer on the geology of the Appalachian Mountain range.
• Robert Zahner
  Professor Emeritus of Biology, Ecology and Forestry at the University of Michigan and Clemson University. Author of The Mountain at the End of the Trail.
• Chris Bolgiano
  Author of The Great Forest, the history of the Appalachian Forest.
• Theda Perdue
  Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, widely known for her work on Cherokee culture and history. She is the author of Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, Native Carolinians, Cherokee Women, and The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History.
• Robert Coles
  Professor of Medical Humanities at Harvard University. Author of the Children of Crisis series, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 and focuses in part on the children of Appalachia. Robert Coles was awarded a MacArthur Prize in 1980.

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Scholars

• Jefferson Chapman, Ph.D., is Director of the McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee and Professor of Archeology. Professor Chapman is author of Tellico Archeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History.
• Robert Coles, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard University. He is author of the Children of Crisis series, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 and focuses in part on the children of Appalachia. In addition, he has written numerous critical works about Appalachian and Southern literature, including book-length work on James Agee. He was awarded a MacArthur Prize in 1980.
• Wilma Dykeman, L.H.D., is a novelist and non-fiction writer who teaches literature at the University of Tennessee. She has written on a wide variety of subjects involving the culture and people of Appalachia. Her works include The Tall Woman, Seeds of Southern Change, Neither Black nor White, The French Broad, and The Far Family.
• Ronald Eller, Ph.D., University of Kentucky. Director of the Appalachian Center at the University of Kentucky and author of Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, a seminal work on the history of economic development in Appalachia.
• Henry Louis Gates, Ph.D. is a chaired Professor of English and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the Afro-American Study Center. He is a native of West Virginia and one of the nation's most outstanding scholars in the field of African-American Literature. He was recipient of a MacArthur Prize in 1981. His numerous publications include Colored People, a memoir of growing up African-American in Appalachia.
• Jean Haskell, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University. Ms. Haskell is the Co-Editor of the soon-to-be published Encyclopedia of Appalachia, as well as the author of many articles and films about Appalachian culture. The Appalachian Study Center at ETSU will be working on this series as a co-producing entity.
• Deryck Holdsworth, Ph.D., Professor of Geography, Pennsylvania State University. Professor Holdsworth's interest are cultural geography and historical land use patterns. he is the author of Pennsylvanians and the Land. He has also worked with the Pennsylvania State Museum to develop programs which tell history through looking at land use patterns.
• Charles Hudson, Ph.D., Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia. Author of The Southeastern Indians, as well as Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando DeSoto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms.
• John Inscoe, Ph.D., is Professor of History at the University of Georgia and Editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly. John Inscoe is a leading expert on the Civil War and the Southern Appalachians. He is author of Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina.
• Loyal Jones, Ph.D., is nicknamed the "Father of Appalachian Studies." Founder of the Appalachian Study Center at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, His works include In The Heart, a highly regarded study of Appalachian religious belief and practice, as well as numerous other books and articles on Appalachian history and culture.
• Ron Lewis, Ph.D., is Professor of History at West Virginia University. Ron Lewis is a section editor for the Encyclopedia of Appalachia as well as one of the foremost historians of Appalachia and West Virginia. His work includes Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change.
• Theda Perdue, Ph.D. is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, widely known for her work on Cherokee culture and history. She is the author of Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, Native Carolinians, Cherokee Women, and The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History.
• Lee Smith, Novelist and Writer-in-Residence, North Carolina State University. Lee Smith has written eleven novels and short story collections centering on the Appalachian mountain region in which she grew up in southwestern Virginia. Her works include Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and Saving Grace.
• Scott Southworth, Ph.D., Staff geologist at the United States Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia, and specialist in the geology of Appalachia. Dr. Southworth's particular specialty is in the study of relationshop between geology and social development.
• Joe Trotter, Ph.D., is Mellon Bank Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University. He is author of numerous books, including Coal, Class and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia and Struggle and Achievement: The African American Experience.

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Specialists

• Rudy Abramson, is Co-Editor of The Encyclopedia of Appalachia. He has had a long career in journalism, having worked as the Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. His work includes Hallowed Ground: Preserving America's Heritage.
• James Adovasio, Ph.D., Director, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute. Prof. Adovasio is a commissioner with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Professor Adovasio is renown for his work on early human habitation in the Appalachians.
• Don Byerly, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the University of Tennessee. Professor Byerly is recognized as one of the nation's leading geologists in the study of the Appalachian Mountains.
• Richard Couto, Ph.D. is Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond and co-founder of the their Jepson School for Leadership Studies. He is author of numerous studies and books related to Appalachia, particularly in the fields of coal-mining, religion, race and social justice.
• Paul Delcourt, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. Co-author of Prehistoric Native Americans and Ecological Change.
• Hazel Delcourt, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. Author of Reading Landscapes of the Past. Co-author of Prehistoric Native Americans and Ecological Change.
• John Ehle, Novelist and Historian, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, his works include a history of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, Trail of Tears and several novels set in Western North Carolina.
• Kai Erikson, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at Yale University. He is best known for his prize-winning book Everything in its Path: the Aftermath of the Buffalo Creek Flood.
• David Hsiung, Ph.D., teaches at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and has written extensively on the political, social and cultural history of the peoples of both the northern and southern Appalachian mountains.
• Robert Zahner, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biology, Ecology and Forestry at the University of Michigan and Clemson University. Author of The Mountain at the End of the Trail.

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