Liza DiSavino (Berea College, Kentucky)

Liza DiSavino is an Assistant Professor of Music and Music Education in Berea's Music Department. She is assisted in her Fellowship research by husband and fellow musician, A.J. Bodnar. Their study involves an in-depth musical comparison of previously gathered Catskills traditional music with similar titles and tunes from the Appalachian region found in Berea's collections. Research outcomes will include producing transcriptions of pieces for use in choral settings and other materials for use in her teaching elementary music methods for Berea's teacher education students.

Michael Ismerio (Bloomington, Indiana)

Michael Ismerio is a traditional dance caller and musician. His Fellowship research will focus on Berea's audio and video materials that document square dance callers and square dancing traditions in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. He is interested in identifying some of the more subtle aspects of square dance calling that rarely make it into print. His work will also include creating video documentation of current Kentucky callers for addition to the Berea Archives and conducting one or more campus / community square dance opportunities. The primary outcome of his research will be the development of a free online teaching resource for aspiring square dance callers. Michael Ismerio website.

Scott Prouty (Takoma Park, Maryland)

Scott Prouty is a professional archivist and is deeply involved in playing and documenting West Virginia and Kentucky old-time fiddle music. His Fellowship research will involve documenting the work of Kentucky old-time music scholar John Harrod. He will record extensive interviews with Harrod about the fiddlers he has documented in his many hours of audio and video recordings that are available in Berea's Southern Appalachian Archives. Research outcomes will include incorporating the interview text and audio in a Berea online library guide, one or more articles, and informal music exchanges with Bluegrass Ensemble members and other students.

Photo Credit: LFolwick, 2011

Jessica Wilkerson (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

Jessica Wilkerson is a Ph.D. candidate in Women's and Gender History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She will be using Berea's oral history collections that document scholar-activist and grassroots participants in the War on Poverty of the 1960s-1970s in support of her dissertation, "Where Movement's Meet: Women's Activism in the Appalachian South 1965-1980." Research outcomes in addition to the dissertation itself will be paper presentations at meetings of the Southern Association of Women Historians and the Southern Historical Association.

Laura S. McKee (Kingsport, Tennessee)

Laura McKee is a writer and teacher in Kingsport, Tennessee. She received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from Stanford University, and her work has recently appeared in Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, and New South. She is currently at work on a book-length narrative poem set in East Tennessee and Belgium during World War II. Her research will draw upon Berea's 1940s era recordings of folklore, religious music, and local radio programming in support of her interest in as she says, "bringing the textures of religious language and local media directly into the poem." Additional outcomes will include presentations at various literary readings and conferences such as the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writer's conferences.

Rob Clutton (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Rob Clutton is a doctoral candidate in Music at York University in Toronto, Canada. He will be drawing upon Berea's recordings and manuscript collections of such banjo figures as Buell Kazee and Bascom Lamar Lunsford in support of dissertation research on five-string banjo music of the 1920s. Research outcomes in addition to the dissertation, will be at least one paper for the Society of Ethnomusicology and informal music exchanges with campus-community musicians.

Josh Bearman (Richmond, Virginia)

Josh Bearman is a musician and radio DJ in Richmond, Virginia. He is noted for his radio program, The Edge of Americana and string band, The Hot Seats. Both integrate the likes of bluegrass, jug band, vaudeville, and old-time string-band music. His radio play list has included a variety of noncommercial sources including Berea online audio material. He will use Berea's audio and manuscript collections for the development of radio biographies of early Kentucky old-time musicians, Buell Kazee and Asa Martin.

Lukas Murphy (Richmond, Kentucky)

Lukas Murphy's undergraduate study at Eastern Kentucky University focused heavily on vocal and instrumental music and history. He will be entering Eastern's History graduate program in the Fall of 2012. The life experiences he brings to his Berea studies include a family tradition of home-made music and professional Bluegrass performing. An accompanying keen interest in documenting local history and culture has resulted in many years experience in genealogy research. His Fellowship supported research is directed at describing and better understanding the musical interchanges resulting from migration by eastern Kentuckians to urban centers, particularly the Cincinnati, Middletown, and Dayton, Ohio areas. He is using archival audio, manuscript, and print material and extensive interviews he will conduct with past and current musicians to document the musical landscape prior to migration, what it was like for those who stayed at home, the experience of those who made the move, and those they encountered in their Ohio roots music communities where Bluegrass and Appalachian Rock-a-Billy coexisted.

Lukas's Berea work will serve as a starting point from which to launch graduate research. He will share his findings through a paper presentation at the 2012 Appalachian Studies Conference.

Nathan McGee (Bellevue, Kentucky)

Nathan McGee has recently earned a Masters degree in American History from the University of Cincinnati. His work in the Berea Archives will be in furtherance of a doctoral project that will examine the strong connection between radio and migration in the twentieth century. Particular areas of interest include how radio served as a support mechanism for Appalachian residents who migrated to urban areas in the 1940s and 1950s and how musical and cultural aspects that were once mainly "Appalachian" became part of the national consciousness. His Berea research will make extensive use of radio program recordings and scripts, listener mail, and oral histories recorded by radio station performers and programmers. In addition to support of doctoral study and teaching, research outcomes include a paper presentation at an upcoming Appalachian Studies Conference and an article in a regional journal such as Ohio Valley History.