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The History Museum of Mobile’s upcoming Learning Lunch Program is on Wednesday, October 8th at 12 PM and will feature Dr. Anna Head Spence, Dean of Instruction at Enterprise State Community College. The title of her presentation is Southern Accents. Dr. Anna Head Spence serves as the Dean of Instruction at Enterprise State Community College and has worked in higher education for more than 20 years. Previously, she held the position of chair of the Division of English, Foreign Languages, and Communication at the College and taught courses in American literature and writing. She has also taught courses for Huntingdon College and Chattahoochee Valley Community College, and she served as an instructor for Auburn University’s ESL Program. She received her PhD from Auburn University in 2012, and her research interests include the language, literature, and history of the American South. Head’s work on Southern English has focused primarily on speech in the Alabama Wiregrass, and she has contributed to both Tributaries: The Alabama Folklife Journal and a volume on the speech varieties of Alabama titled Speaking of Alabama: The History, Diversity, Function, and Change of Language (Thomas Nunnally (Ed.), University of Alabama Press, 2018). In addition, she has co-hosted two episodes exploring North and South Alabama dialects for the Alabama Public Television series Journey Proud (2017) as well as recorded two programs on Southern English for Troy Public Radio’s In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson (2019). In 2024, she was interviewed for an article on Southern speech written as part of a partnership between Auburn University’s Living Democracy Program and the Montgomery Advertiser.
In addition to her work on Southern English, Head also received the 2008 Melvin Kranzberg Award for Outstanding Paper in the History of Technology (Auburn University) and was a 2010 recipient of the Dissertation Writing Semester Fellowship (Auburn University). Further, she served as editor of Elba Then and Now, which was Honored with a Distinguished Service Award by the Alabama Historical Commission (2014 Alabama Preservation Conference, Muscle Shoals). More recently, Head received an honorable mention for the 2019 William J. Calvert Award (Association of College English Teachers of Alabama), reviewed the works of Alabama poet and essayist John Martin Finlay in the Alabama Literary Review (2020), and was awarded a grant through the William G. Pomeroy Foundation on behalf of the Town of Kinston for a Legends and Lore Roadside Marker (2021). She was also selected as the 2022 recipient of the Excellence in Education Award for Academic Faculty at ESCC.
The History Museum of Mobile invites the public to attend the free Learning Lunch lecture series. Guests are encouraged to bring their lunch and enjoy a presentation on an historical or cultural topic. For more information on Learning Lunch, contact Brantley James, Curator of Education, at 251-301-0270 or [email protected].
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
111 S Royal St, Mobile, AL, United States, Alabama 36602
