Flannery O'Connor Institute
Director's Note
We greet you at the beginning of the spring semester. With all that is going on in the world, the Flannery O'Connor Institute for the Humanities aspires to be a place where big ideas get discussed from a range of perspectives and through a variety of mediums. There is certainly a lot to discuss. We are the proud recipients of a Georgia Humanities award which will support our Southern Gothic Lecture with Kendra Hamilton this spring. Given that the AMC Theatre in Milledgeville recently closed, we decided to quickly put together a spring film series. We thus unveil our new Southern Gothic Film Series, with a monthly offering on the big screen. Along with our popular Flannery O'Connor Book Club, we are also offering a three-part online lecture series on O'Connor and the Archives. We look forward to seeing you on campus or online. As always, our events are free and open to the public. But we do gratefully receive donations. See the blue donations link at the bottom of this newsletter to contribute. Let's hope 2026 brings peace, and an increase in our ability to adapt and transform in positive ways. Let's work to make that happen.
Dr. Katie Simon
Interim Executive Director of the Flannery O'Connor Institute for the Humanities
Flannery O'Connor Book Club Spring Schedule
Our virtual and in-person Flannery O'Connor Book Club led by Bruce Gentry will return next semester with readings of O'Connor's two completed novels. In-person Book Club meets at the Georgia Writer's Museum in Eatonton Thursdays at 2 p.m. Come early and get treats at Sylvia's Cafe! Virtual Book Club meets Thursdays at 7 p.m. on Zoom. Email oconnorinstitute@gcsu.edu for the Zoom link.
Jan. 29: Wise Blood (chapters 1-7)
Feb. 19: Wise Blood (chapters 8-end)
March 26: "Everything that Rises Must Converge"
April 23: The Violent Bear It Away (the first half)
May 14: The Violent Bear It Away (the second half)
May 21: Alice Walker's "Convergence"
Southern Gothic Lecture Series
"Hoodoo, Voodoo, and The Gullah Geechee People at the Nation's Founding."
Thursday, Feb. 26, Pat Peterson Museum Education Room, Ina Dillard Russel Library, 221 North Clarke Street, GCSU campus, Milledgeville, GA 31061, 5:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Reception and book-signing to follow. Generously supported by Georgia Humanities.
Our second annual Southern Gothic Lecture Series returns. Expanding the term "gothic," this talk will consider the cultural and historical formations of what Teresa Goddu calls "gothic America." Drawn from her book Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess, Hamilton's talk will provide an introduction to the Gullah Geechee people, and will take up, in particular, the practice of voodoo/hoodoo. Come see the film Sinners Wednesday night, then learn more about the context of African American history and religion in the south, the context for this film.
Kendra Hamilton is a poet, essayist, and scholar of the literature and culture of the South. She is an associate professor of English and director of Southern Studies at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. She is the author of Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess (2024) as well as The Goddess of Gumbo: Poems (2006), and her work has also appeared in journals such as Mississippi Quarterly, Callaloo and The Southern Review and anthologies such as Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and Shaping Memories: Reflections of 25 African American Women Writers. The recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and the Rockefeller Foundation among others, Dr. Hamilton is committed to service and scholarship the public interest.
This project is supported by Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly.
Southern Gothic Film Series
To complement our Southern Gothic Lecture Series, the Institute will host a Southern Gothic Film Series this spring! We want to show films on the big screen, especially since Milledgeville's AMC Theatre has closed. All film screenings are free and open to the public.
Wednesday, Jan 28, 7 p.m. The Night of the Hunter (1955). Charles Laughton's Southern gothic horror-thriller starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. Introduction and Discussion afterwards with Jonna Smith, Department of English, GCSU. Arts and Sciences Auditorium, GCSU campus, across from the library.
Wednesday, Feb. 25, 7 p.m. Ryan Coogler's horror film Sinners (2025), set in the Mississippi Delta, starring Michael B. Jordan. Introduction and Q&A with English Department Lecturer Blue Profitt, GCSU campus, location TBD.
Friday, Feb. 27, 11 a.m. to noon. Informal Discussion of Sinners with Dr. Kendra Hamilton - open to GCSU English, Creative Writing and Film students. RSVP to oconnorinstitute@gcsu.edu. Space is limited. Location to be determined.
Wednesday, March 25, 7:30 p.m. John Huston's Wise Blood (1979), Introduction by Bruce Gentry, Professor Emeritus at Georgia College, facilitated by Matt Bryant Cheney, Department of English, GCSU. On the lawn at Andalusia Farm, in front of the Interpretative Center. 2628 North Columbia Street, Highway 441, Milledgeville, GA 31061. Bring chairs, blankets and picnic baskets for this special outdoor screening. Help us celebrate Flannery's 101st birthday with cupcakes before the screening. Co-sponsored with Andalusia Farm.
Wednesday, April 22, 8 p.m. Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (2000), Directed by the Coen brothers, starring George Clooney. Set in Mississippi. Introduction and Discussion afterwards by Matt Bryant Cheney, Department of English, GCSU. On the lawn of the Andalusia Farm Interpretative Center, 2628 North Columbia Street, Highway 441, Milledgeville, GA 31061. Bring chairs, blankets, picnic baskets for this special outdoor screening.
We look forward to seeing you at the movies! All events are free and open to the public, so spread the word.
Feb. 5: O'Connor in the Archives with Dr. Farrell O'Gorman
Dr. Farrell O'Gorman will give an on-line lecture on recently-donated archival resources. Of special interest to scholars will be a collection of O'Connor's books (who knew she read and annotated Virginia Woolf?), along with first editions, letters from prominent people and other emphemera, all currently stored at the Andalusia Farm Interpretative Center. Dr. O'Gorman spent a semester in residency last fall at GCSU cataloguing and processing the donations from the Mary Flannery O'Connor Trust. This talk will be on Thursday, Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. on Zoom. For the Zoom link, please email oconnorinstitute@gcsu.edu.
Dr. Farrell O'Gorman is Professor of English at Belmont Abbey College. His publications include Catholicism and American Borders in the Gothic Literary Imagination (2017), from University of Notre Dame Press, and Peculiar Crossroads: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Catholic Vision in Postwar Southern Fiction (2004), from LSU Press. He has been a scholar in residence at Georgia College, as well as a participant in the 2023 NEH Summer Institute "Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor". He also serves as a trustee of the Flannery O'Connor estate.
On-line Presentation on Cline-Florencourt Mansion with Karen Gravel
Thursday, March 12 at 7 p.m. Karen Gravel will be discussing the assessment she conducted of this newly acquired property. Historically important for many reasons, it is also the home Regina and Flannery O'Connor lived in while Flannery attended high school and college. It was donated as a time capsule of sorts, full of the family's original furniture, paintings, clothes and books. Email oconnorinstitute@gcsu.edu to get the zoom link.
Karen M. Gravel of Lord Aeck Sargent Planning and Design, Inc. is a historic preservation architect practicing in Atlanta. She serves as a principal, the directer of Historian Preservation and chair of the governing board for the company. She is a Kentucky native, having graduated with a degree in history from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in 1993, before earning a Master of Architecture from Georgia Tech in 1999. She has been working on old buildings for the past 25 years, including several projects for Georgia College & State University - the GCSU Campus Preservation Plan (2005), Hill House (2012), Ennis Hall (2014), Terrell Hall (2020) and exterior improvements to the Old Governor's Mansion. She is has researched and written a historic structure report of the Gordon/Cline/O'Connor home for GCSU. She loves the intersection of history, architecture and the stories they tell.
Access public lectures, virtual events and oral history resources!
Recordings of Previous Events Available
Previous public lectures and virtual events are available to watch on our Youtube channel.
Follow this link to our YouTube channel for recordings of our events.
Oral History Resources Available
Interviews and resources from the NEH-funded Flannery O'Connor and Milledgeville: Collecting the Past grant continue to be made available via YouTube and Spotify.
Dr. Stephanie Opperman was the Principle Investigator on the grant. Her Local History course also created a Google Earth resource featuring historic sites around Milledgeville. Some sites include snippets of oral history interviews.
Interviews and transcripts are available through the Knowledge Box, GCSU's online repository.
If you'd like to learn how to conduct and organize oral history projects, a free online class created by Dr. Stephanie Opperman called "Oral History Basics" continues to be available. The course includes tips and insights on how to capture and share meaningful stories and memories that help preserve the past. Take advantage of this opportunity to enrich your skills and sign up today!