The Fall 2023 Faculty Lecture Series, cosponsored by the Friends of the Library and Honors College, kicks off on Sept. 20.

During times that are uncertain, challenging or in flux, or in instances where our expectations are violated, we need to make meaning and create order by explaining them. In this process, our experiences are informed by numerous voices from the broader culture, family and relationships that shape how we make sense of our lives. In this presentation, Jenna Abetz will overview her research across multiple contexts to explore how the macro (cultural) context and the everyday, micro (relational) context work together to influence how we talk about and navigate periods of transition in our lives.

Abetz, associate professor of communication, joined the department in 2014. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in interpersonal and family communication, narrativevand identity.

Kinghan’s new book, A Brief Moment in the Sun, is the first scholarly biography of Francis Lewis Cardozo, one of the most talented and influential African Americans to hold elected office in the South between Reconstruction and the civil rights era. Born to a formerly enslaved African American mother and white Jewish father in antebellum South Carolina, Cardozo led a life of extraordinary achievement as a pioneering educator, politician, and government official. Today, however, he is largely unknown in South Carolina and among students of nineteenth-century American history.

Kinghan holds a doctorate in history from University College London. He is a former director general for local and regional government in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of England and a former director general of the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Charleston Horse Power

Christina Rae Butler joins the Friends of the Library for a look at the fascinating history and legacy of working equines in the Holy City.

Butler’s latest book, Charleston Horse Power, takes readers back to an equine-dominated city of the past, in which horses and mules pervaded all aspects of urban life. Author, scholar and preservationist Christina Rae Butler describes carriage types and equines roles (both privately owned animals and those in the city’s streets, fire and police department herds), animal power in industrial settings, regulations for animals and their drivers, horse-racing culture and Charleston’s equine lifestyles and architecture. Butler profiles the people who made their living with horses and mules—from drivers, grooms, and carriage makers, to farriers, veterinarians, and trainers.

Butler is the chair of general education and professor of historic preservation at the American College of Building Arts.