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UMD CLCS & Sandy Spring Museum, Public Humanities Workshop

Third-Party Event

The workshop will feature Annemarie Mott Ewing (PhD candidate), Yolanda Hester (public historian, writer, and curator), Caleb Hurley (undergraduate creative writer), and Maria Vivar-Guzman (Library Associate with Prince George's County Memorial Library System) who will discuss potential public humanities projects that could emerge from working with the Sandy Spring Museum archives.

Workshop Format

We will begin with a brief overview of the Museum and its collections presented by Lydia Fraser, the Sandy Spring Museum Archivist and Collections Manager. We will then turn to our brief presentations by our panelists, followed by a general conversation. 

About the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies (CLCS)

The CLCS is sponsoring a year-long initiative, Public Humanities: Research & Engagement, that supports six projects and will culminate in a symposium on 5 May 2023 

About Sandy Spring Museum

Sandy Spring is the center of a unique Maryland community, a network of rural villages.  Among the first permanent settlers, c. 1720, were members of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers. Sandy Spring Museum has a host of archives from 19th-c Maryland, particularly records that indicate a range of exchanges and experiences among and between Black, white, and Indigenous populations in the area. “At Sandy Spring Museum, it’s all about the community. Everything we do, every milestone we celebrate, every program and exhibit is here for the community and because of the community. The museum is a place where people can develop meaningful connections by exploring community history through the visual, literary, and performing arts. In recent years we have evolved from a traditional history museum into a dynamic, participatory cultural arts community center.”

About the Speakers:

Annemarie Mott Ewing is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Maryland. Her dissertation, "Citizenship and the Counterfactual Imagination: Race, Exclusion, and Redress in the Literature of the Long Reconstruction," explores the way Reconstruction writings use the counterfactual to depict the undecided, malleable nature of citizenship.

Yolanda Hester is an independent public historian, writer, and curator; and co-founder of Frameworks and Narratives.  Oral history figures significantly in her work and research.  She has worked on projects for Arthur Ashe Legacy at UCLA, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Center For Oral History Research, KCET, The Phillips Collection, and The National Urban League.  yolandahester.com.

Caleb Hurley is a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park pursuing an Honors English and Literature B.A. with a Creative Writing minor. For his honors thesis he's currently composing a collection of short stories that explore the social, political, and physical deaths of Black people (specifically African American men) and how those experiences cascade from father to son, casting Black people as the quintessential absurdist figure. He has a great passion for all narrative forms including literature, film, music, and video games. He believes in the preservation of these forms as our shared cultural record. He plans to continue expressing his curiosity for the world through future narrative endeavors as he has a foundational belief in the power of storytelling. A belief that storytelling has the greatest potential for: social, cultural, and artistic innovation, while also building community.

Maria Vivar-Guzman is Library Associate with Prince George's County Memorial Library System. Born in Mexico and raised in the United States, as a library employee I work to provide resources to the community, but especially to our Latinx and refugee communities in the county. As a native Spanish speaker, I have become passionate about helping our teens and adults through art and language programs, but also through outreach and digital literacy.