Arts and Humanities

The View from a Booth: Waffle House Vistas and the Art of Paying Attention
Micah Cash
5:30 p.m. in Pine 147 (Pine Lecture Hall)

What can a view through a Waffle House window tell us about the places we call home? In this illustrated talk, North Carolina artist and photographer Micah Cash shares the story behind Waffle House Vistas, his critically acclaimed photographic project and book. The photographs document the built environment of the American South as seen through the windows of Waffle House restaurants. Rather than photographing the restaurants themselves, Cash directs his camera outward, using the windows as frames through which to study highways, parking lots, residential neighborhoods, and other features of the vernacular landscape that become larger narratives involving mobility, commerce, labor, economic precarity, and regional identity.

Cash will place the project within the broader context of his artistic career and discuss how sustained observation, documentary practice, and an engagement with the built environment inform his work. Art its heart, this talk is about learning to see more carefully. By turning his camera toward places that are familiar enough to disappear from view, Cash invites us to reconsider the environments we encounter every day.

The lecture will also explore attention as both an artistic method and a way of understanding the world. By reconsidering places that are frequently overlooked, Waffle House Vistas invites viewers to recognize how everyday environments carry social meaning, reflect cultural values, and shape our collective experience of place.

Micah Cash is a visual artist, educator, and nonprofit strategist. His projects use the visual languages of landscape and architecture to investigate narratives of culture, utilization, and economics. He has published two photography books, including the second edition of the internationally acclaimed Waffle House Vistas, published by The Bitter Southerner in 2022. His first monograph, Dangerous Waters: A Photo Essay on the Tennessee Valley Authority was published in 2017. Micah exhibits internationally, and his work is represented in private and public collections throughout North America and Europe. Micah received his MFA from the University of Connecticut and his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina.

The End of the World as We Know It? A Medievalist’s Perspective on the Apocalypse
Brett Whalen
5:30 p.m. in Pine 147 (Pine Lecture Hall)
[In partnership with Carolina Public Humanities]

For almost two millennia and counting, Christians have awaited the end-times promised by Jesus Christ in the gospels and prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Historically speaking, prophets, preachers, and theologians in the past have viewed various historical events—the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam, the crusades, the Mongol invasion of Europe, the “discovery” of the New World, and more—as signs that the apocalypse was indeed at hand. So far, they’ve all been wrong. That doesn’t change the fact that such apocalyptic visions have formed an important and enduring part of western history from the Middle Ages down to the present age. Speculating about the end of all things, Christians have expressed their views about politics, society, culture, other religions, and the meaning of history itself. Ideas about the future apocalypse thereby provide a key to understanding the hopes, fears, and anxieties of the present. Indeed, with the year 2033 around the corner, marking two-thousand years since the crucifixion of Christ as traditionally dated, one suspects that apocalyptic worries and yearnings are about to surge yet again.

In this talk, Brett Whalen, a professor of medieval religious history at UNC-Chapel Hill, will discuss some of the ways that Christians have made sense out of the world around them by speculating about the end of days—and how some of them might so again as the apocalyptic year 2033 draws near. Among other works, Whalen is the author of Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (2009) and The Two Powers: Church, Empire, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century (2019). Whalen presently holds the Zachary Smith Distinguished Term Professorship and is serving as the lead editor of Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture.

Debunking the Myths of Midway
Jeff Williams
5:30 p.m. in Pine 147 (Pine Lecture Hall)
[Faculty Spotlight]

“This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
– The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

A nation is built on a heady mixture of fact and legend, and war is often the crucible where these two things are fused together to produce our collective understanding of the meaning and significance of both the individual battles and the overall war itself. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 was an important engagement in the Pacific theater of operations during World War II, and some would even argue that it was the defining moment of the entire conflict with Japan. Over the last 84 years since the battle, stories have arisen about Midway that are more legend than true, and this presentation will cover some of these stories, seeking to separate the facts from mythology.

Jeff Williams has taught English at Wayne Community College since 1998 and has also co-edited WCC’s Renaissance magazine since 2006. His creative work has appeared in Renaissance, The Broad River Review, and The Southern Quill. However, he has long been fascinated by history and The Battle of Midway in particular, having first discovered the conflict through the Midway film from 1976 as well as a book—The Battle Of Midway—found at an elementary school book fair.

Ladies First: The Incredible Life of Dolley Madison
Elliot Engel
5:30 p.m. in Pine 147 (Pine Lecture Hall)

Although there have been 44 First Ladies, Dolley Madison is the only one whose charisma has kept her famous for over 200 years. Through anecdotes, analysis, and large doses of humor, Dr. Engel brings to life this amazing woman whose political savvy made her almost as influential as our early presidents.

Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. Elliot Engel now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has taught at the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at UCLA. While at UCLA he won that university’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

Dr. Engel has written ten books published in England, Japan, Turkey, and the United States. His mini-lecture series on Charles Dickens ran on PBS television stations around the country. His articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and national magazines including Newsweek. He has lectured throughout the United States and on all the continents including Antarctica. Four plays which he has written have been produced during the last ten years. In 2009, he was inducted into the Royal Society of Arts in England for his academic work and service in promoting Charles Dickens.

For his scholarship and teaching, Dr. Engel has received North Carolina’s Adult Education Award, North Carolina State’s Alumni Professorship, and the Victorian Society’s Award of Merit. Most recently, he was named Tar Heel of the Week for his thirty years of delivering public programs in the humanities and sponsoring state and national literary contests for high school students.

Since 1980, Dr. Engel has been President of the Dickens Fellowship of North Carolina, the largest branch of this worldwide network of clubs. The sales of Dr. Engel’s books, CDs, and DVDs have raised funds for The Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital which Dickens helped found in London in 1852.