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This Friday, the Race Relations Center of East Tennessee will sponsor a day-long conference called "Undoing Racism". Nationally-known leaders in the dialogue of racial equity will participate in the event. Race Relations Center Director Saadia Williams tells WUOT's Ann Lloyd that people of all colors still have a hard time talking about racial issues, despite improvements from the Jim Crow days...
A conference on Laughter and America's Political Personality was held Friday October 28 at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center for Public Policy. A number of current and former legislators and three political humorists participated. One panel member was Mark Katz, speech writer for President Bill Clinton. Katz tells WUOT's Ann Lloyd that sometimes the best way to reach the public on important issues is through humor...
Comedian Paula Poundstone is best known to public radio listeners for her appearances on the NPR program "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". But she has done stand-up for years. In the meantime, she's won two cable comedy awards and starred in her own brief network television show in 1993. In this interview on the eve of her show at the Tennessee Theatre, Poundstone tells WUOT's Ann Lloyd that comedy has always come easy for her...
Linguists have found similarities between the dialects of people living in the Ozark Mountains and people living in the Southern Applachians. University of Tennessee English Professor Bethany Dumas tells WUOT's Chrissy Keuper that's not surprising, considering a lot of the people who settled in the Ozarks came from the Appalachians. But Dumas says there are also a few dissimilarities in their dialects...
This is the third year for Knoxville's Carpetbag Theater's "Show What You Know Festival". The week long celebration of ethnic arts and cultures winds up Saturday evening with performance artist Jose Torres Tama. The New Orleans- based artist uses story, song, dance and visual arts. Torres Tama tells WUOT's Ann Lloyd that an important part of his message concerns how mass media spreads mis-information, especially about people of color...
Northern Ireland journalist Billy Kennedy is an expert on East Tennessee history. He now has nine books chronicling the contributions of the Scots-Irish people in America and the Southeast. The Belfast native will launch his newest book Wednesday evening at the East Tennessee Historical Society in downtown Knoxville. Kennedy, who is a Senior Correspondent for the Belfast News Letter, tells WUOT's Ann Lloyd that he didn't intend to write any books on American history...
This evening, the Knoxville Writer's Guild and the University of Tennessee Press will present the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel to New Jersey author John Parras for his book "Fire on Mount Maggiore". The annual prize is named after one of Tennessee's most prolific writers, the late Peter Taylor. But Peter Taylor isn't necessarily a household name in Tennessee, despite a worldwide following. WUOT's Chrissy Keuper speaks with Prize Director Brian Griffin about Taylor's legacy.
Knoxville has been described as "The City of Almost" - a city held back only by its own belief that greatness simply isn't in the cards. On this segment of Dialogue, host Matt Shafer Powell speaks with retired University of Tennessee History Professor Bruce Wheeler about the city's history and the "myth of powerlessness" that has plagued it over the years. Wheeler has just released an updated history of Knoxville called "Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South".