Interpreting Slave Cabins and Slave Culture

Contact: MaryAlice Bonomo or Tricia Hardin
Phone: 301.283.2113 ext. 37
Email: programs@accokeek.org

The Accokeek Foundation is honored to have Dr. John Vlach, Professor of Folklore and American Studies at The George Washington University, as the speaker for its last lecture in the 2006 Robert Ware Straus Lecture Series. On Thursday, June 1, Dr. Vlach will discuss the folk life traditions and cultural roots of the enslaved. The lecture will begin at 1:00 p.m. in the Accokeek Foundation's Education Center. There is no charge for this event.

For more than thirty years, Dr. Vlach has concentrated his scholarship on aspects of the African Diaspora by conducting field research in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica), and across the southern regions of the United States. Author of ten books, his titles include such seminal texts as The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts, Common Places: Readings in Vernacular Architecture (with Dell Upton), By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folk Art, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery, and The Planter's Prospect: Privilege and Slavery in Plantation Paintings, and Barns (winner of the 2003 Kniffen Prize for Best Book on North American Material Culture).

Dr. Vlach has developed exhibitions for art museums, historical societies, and libraries including The National Museum of American History, The Library of Congress, The New Orleans Museum of Art, among many others. Dr. Vlach also serves as an advisor to a Capitol Hill community oral history project, and is currently serving as a member of the Historic Preservation Review Board for the District of Columbia.