Dr. Bernard L. Herman Gives the 2009 Irwin C. Schroedl Jr. Lecture

Release date: April 30, 2009 |

Dr. Bernard L. Herman, the George B. Tindall professor of American culture at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will give a lecture titled “Black Duck and Dumplings, Oyster Cakes, and Hayman Sweet Potato Pies: Foodways, Material Culture, and Human Ecologies” on Thursday, April 30, at 7 p.m. in Goucher College’s Kelley Lecture Hall.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact April Oettinger, Ph.D., at april.oettinger@goucher.edu.

The lecture explores food traditions and how they can help preserve a sense of place and sustainable economic development. Drawing on objects, recipes, oral histories, and written accounts, the presentation examines the ways in which material culture scholarship contributes to the preservation of place and spurs public engagement. The presentation is based on research of the distinctive foodstuffs and foodways of Virginia’s eastern shore, which date back to the 19th-century.

Herman’s research and teaching cover topics in visual and material culture, architectural history, contemporary quilts, self-taught and vernacular art, food traditions, and 17th- and 18th- century everyday life.

He is the author of several books, including Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780-1830 and The Stolen House. He has published articles and chapters on a variety of topics, including the art of Thornton Dial Sr.; Southern foodways; and quilts and quiltmaking in Chester County, Pa., and Gee’s Bend, Ala.

Herman’s Goucher appearance is the 2009 Irwin C. Schroedl Jr. Lecture in the Decorative Arts and Material Culture. Former Goucher registrar and alumna Evelyn Schroedl established this lecture series in 1997 to honor the memory of her husband and bring prominent art personalities to the college's campus.