SC Arts Commission renews partnership with Athenaeum Press on initaitives

The SC Arts Commission has renewed its partnership with the Athenaeum Press, expanding the scope of its work to include the Smithsonian-affiliated Communal Pen community writing workshops and start a podcast and professional development video series for the Creative Careers Studio.

“This grant is a game-changer for the press and its students,” said Alli Crandell, director of the Athenaeum Press and digital initiatives. “It’s allowed us to reach out to an entirely new network of individuals and organizations around the state. These initiatives are providing real-life creative experiences for our students.”

The partnership with the SCAC allows the Athenaeum Press to further its core mission: telling the underrepresented stories of South Carolina. Crandell says the press incorporates students into everything they do from interviews to design to video editing. She says students have been able to develop designs and features that the faculty and staff team would have never thought of.

Athenaeum Press partners with SC Arts Commission on Two Initiatives

The Athenaeum Press at Coastal Carolina University is pleased to announce its new partnership with SC Arts Commission and ArtsGrow SC on two new initiatives that aim to make arts education and community stories more accessible to the state.

The first initiative is the Creative Careers Studio, an initiative that will profile working creative professionals in a diversity of sectors (education, technology, and manufacturing) who are putting their arts education and skillset to use.

The second is an expansion of the Communal Pen community writing initiative. Communal Pen showcases stories to explore the dynamic and ever-changing state of South Carolina. It will create space for, amplify, and connect unheard voices through writing workshops, curated publications, and a digital platform.  

In keeping with the Press process, we are developing these initiatives with our graduate and undergraduate interdisciplinary teams of designers, writers, and researchers. Stay tuned for the official launch of the project page.

‘Local Stories Matter’: The Athenaeum Press exhibit highlights works of Coastal Carolina University

Dr. Dan Ennis “Fighting for Brittain, Fighting for America”

Collaboration is a gift that keeps giving. We congratulate one of our original #presspartners and continued #pressadvocate Dr. Dan Ennis on his recently published article “Fighting for Brittain, Fighting for America.” Part of the inspiration for this chapter was seeing parallels between Dr. Ennis’ travels in Ghana to the stories told by soldiers in the War on Two Fronts book and exhibition.

SC Humanities Awards $8,000 to Gullah Geechee Community Day

Save your dates for Saturday, March 7, 2020. The City of Conway, Conway Downtown Alive and Coastal Carolina University will hold a Gullah Geechee Community Day as part of the International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference 2020: Without Borders. The Athenaeum Press is the project lead on this community day, and a partner with the Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies.

From the grant site,

Coastal Carolina University in partnership with the City of Conway will present Gullah Geechee Community Day on March 7, 2020. The cultural heritage event will include free programs across the city such as presentations, vendors, and cultural performances. There will be several programming themes: Healthy and Historic Cooking Demonstrations, Property Rights and Activism Programming, History and Culture Project Presentations, and a History Harvest to gather local community stories and artifacts. The Gullah Geechee Community Day has been scheduled to coincide with the last day of the second annual International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora conference at Coastal. The goal of the project is to foster a dialogue between community members, organizations, and initiatives as to how to preserve and perpetuate Gullah Geechee culture and communities in the region.

For more information on this grant and the other amazing initiatives the SC Humanities Council funded, visit their site: https://schumanities.org/news/sc-humanities-awards-more-than-50000-in-major-grants-3/ 

Gullah Geechee Digital Project Adding Gaylord Donnelly Support

The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation awarded the Gullah Geechee Digital Project a $50,000 grant to collect oral histories into Horry and Georgetown counties. The GDDF has awarded multiple Gullah Geechee initiatives up and down the Lowcountry, and we are so grateful for their support.

Eric Crawford and director Alli Crandell attended the Plantersville Community Center soft opening to begin discussing the grant with community members. We are so excited to make more connections and continue documenting important African American heritage of our region! 

The flyer distributed at the event.