Join us for a public film screening and discussion of CALLS FROM HOME, a 2023 short film directed by Sylvia Ryerson, a Yale PhD student in American Studies. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Geography and the UK Appalachian Studies Program

A longstanding radio program sends familial messages of love to people incarcerated in Central Appalachia. Directed by Sylvia Ryerson, a former DJ for the show, CALLS FROM HOME follows the weekly broadcast through prison walls, portraying the many forms of distance that rural prison building creates—and the ceaseless work to end the racist system of mass incarceration and family separation.

Sylvia Ryerson (she/her) is a filmmaker, radio producer, organizer, and PhD student in American Studies at Yale University. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the documentary arts center Appalshop, in Whitesburg, Kentucky. There she served as a reporter and director of public affairs programming for Appalshop’s community radio station WMMT-FM and led the station's citizen journalism project. She also co-directed and hosted WMMT’s longstanding radio show Hip Hop from the Hilltop & Calls from Home broadcasting music and messages to people incarcerated in the region. She has co-produced numerous community-based participatory media projects working with movements for a just transition from fossil fuel extraction, the abolition of the prison industrial complex, and migrant justice. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Docs in Action Film Fund through Working Films to produce and direct her film CALLS FROM HOME, which won the Jack Spadaro Documentary Award for best nonfiction film or television presentation on Appalachia or its people from the Appalachian Studies Association. Her media & written work has appeared in the New York Times, American Quarterly, the Boston Review, NPR’s Here & Now and The Takeaway, the BBC, the Marshall Project, and other outlets. 

This screening also intends to build awareness around plans being pushed forward to build a new 1,408-person federal prison in Letcher County KY on a former mountain top removal site. On March 1 the Bureau of Prisons released their "Draft Environmental Impact Statement" which opens up a required 45-day public comment period. She is a founding member of the Racial Capitalism and the Carceral State (RCCS) Working Group at Yale, and of the Building Community Not Prisons (BCNP), a local and national coalition that is fighting to stop the construction of this prison and instead demanding investment in flood recovery, housing, education, and healthcare.

The film screening will be followed by a general Q & A along with a discussion with Sylvia and Dr. Lydia Pelot-Hobbs (UK Department of Geography) on mass incarceration in Central Appalachia.

Fall semester classes begin on Aug. 23, 2021. View the full academic calendar for the fall semester here.

As a prelude to the Fall Semester, Associate Provost Kathi Kern and Dean Mark Kornbluh will discuss the challenges posed by teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty and students alike worry about the logistics. How will we maintain a safe and healthy learning environment? How much of instruction will need to be moved online or “flipped”? How does technology enable or restrict us? How do we continue to foster strong student-teacher bonds at a distance? How do we build community in our current environment?

And while these questions are urgent for the particular moment, they also point to a lasting shift in how we go about our work as educators. Even after the pandemic subsides, we will likely find ourselves reflecting on the unexamined, yet sacred elements of what makes a college education. As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it has also ignited a climate of innovation. We are led to think anew about the journeys that our students take, how our research and disciplines best serve a diverse community of learners, how the wicked problems of the world defy institutional silos, and how we can best support individuals while also strengthening communities. Our lessons learned and enduring challenges from the past few months afford us a unique opportunity to anticipate these emergent paradigms for teaching and learning.

Pandemic and the Professor from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

For more information, visit: https://www.uky.edu/commencement/springceremonies 

This one-week, one-credit compressed course focuses on mapping variation through the use of geospatial tools like GIS.  The course, offered as A&S 500-003, will take place from November 9-13 from 5-8pm each day in the Oliver Raymond Building, room C226.  As a 500-level course, it is open to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Dr. Montgomery's research investigates ways of integrating techniques used in geography with those traditionally used in dialectology.  His specific focus in the use of GIS technologies is innovative in the field of linguistics, and his presence on UK's campus will expose the community here to some of the most recent endeavors in these kinds of digital humanities research methodologies.  Despite a focus in linguistic variation, this class will present methods that could be applied to many of the social sciences and humanities, wherein the questions deal with societal patterns, variations in those patterns, and the geospatial presentation and analysis of data related to those patterns.  If you have any questions about this course, please contact Dr. Jennifer Cramer (jennifer.cramer@uky.edu).

Rough cut viewing about a half hour in length of a UK-student-created documentary film, followed by a panel discussion.  Viewing and discussion are open to the public, so bring a friend or two!

With support from a Susan Abbott-Jamieson Award, Kevin Talbert spent Summer, 2013, conducting preliminary fieldwork in Tanzania.  This practicum report is designed to be a handbook for any Anthropology graduate students conducting field research abroad, but It will be of interest to graduate students and other researchers conducting field research, especially internationally, for the first time.  The presentation covers such topics as entering the field, locating an appropriate field site, seeking local institutional affiliations, the research permit process, etc.  This roundtable is designed to be useful for anyone seeking to embark on first fieldwork, not just in Africa but elsewhere as well.  It focuses especially on the preliminary fieldwork stage in preparation for a longer, PhD fieldwork length immersion later. 

***THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO DANGEROUS WEATHER CONDITIONS. WE WILL RESCHEDULE AND POST UPDATES WHEN PLANS ARE FINALIZED*** The University of Kentucky Graduate Appalachian Research Community presents the 6th Annual UK Appalachian Research Community Symposium and Arts Showcase on Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the William T. Young Library.  This year's keynote speaker is Lisa Conley, Ph.D. Her research interests focus on foodways, environmental sustainability, and local food politics in motivating the self-provisioning practices of people in rural and urban Kentucky.  Please, find more information about registration or proposal submition here: https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/annual-research-symposium.  The deadline to submit abstracts is February 15, 2015.  Registration for presenters and non-presenters is free.  Undergraduate and Graduate students are welcome to register.