Historian Charles Joyner celebrated in festschrift
by Prufer
It was a “lovefest” for Charles Joyner, with 70 of his closest friends in attendance at an oceanfront restaurant, celebrating his career and a new book all about him: “Becoming Southern Writers: Essays in Honor of Charles Joyner” (University of South Carolina Press). The book, a festschrift, ( German for “celebratory writings”) is a collection of tributary essays written by 27 academics, journalists, colleagues and scholarly acquaintances.
Five of the contributing writers are current or former members of the Coastal Carolina University faculty. Co-editors of the book were Orville Vernon Burton and Eldred (Wink) E. Prince Jr. Burton held the Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture title for two years after Joyner retired and is now director of the Clemson CyberInstitute. He has written more than 20 books including “The Age of Lincoln.”
Prince is professor of American history and director of CCU’s Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Studies. He authored two books including “Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina,” as well as many scholarly articles.
Other CCU contributors include Maggi Morehouse, a history professor who holds CCU’s Burroughs Chair in Southern History & Culture and calls herself “Chaz Joyner in heels”; Roy Talbert, professor of history and author of “Coastal Carolina University: The First 50 Years”; Rod Gragg, director of CCU’s Military and Veterans Studies and author of more than 20 books; and John Navin, professor of history and a member of CCU’s faculty since 1999.
“Today is a lovefest for Dr. Joyner,” said Sally Hare, professor emeritus who was dean of graduate and continuing education at CCU for 12 years before retiring. “The theme from Dr. Joyner is that all history is local history somewhere. That’s the gift you gave to me.”
Joyner joined the faculty of Coastal Carolina College in 1980 when it was a branch of the University of South Carolina between his boyhood home in Myrtle Beach and his research in Georgetown County. He holds two doctorates, in history and in folklore, which his wife Jeannie jokes “is the only discipline that pays less than history.”
He was the first professor to hold the endowed professorship, the Burroughs Chair in Southern History and Culture at CCU. Shortly thereafter, the Waccamaw Center for Historical and Cultureal Studies was created, which Joyner directed for 17 years.
One of Joyner’s best known accomplishments is the book he wrote on slavery, “Down By the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community,” which won several awards including the National University Press Award as the best book in the humanities published by a university press in 1984.
“At first my editor told me it was wonderful but needed to be translated into English,” says Joyner. “So I started writing for my daughter Hannah, who was 16 at the time and already very brilliant.”
Joyner served on the executive council of the Southern Historical Association in the 1990s and later president of the association in 2005.
In 2007 Joyner retired from Coastal but continued to publish and participate in the Southern Historical Association. In 2011 the South Carolina Academy of Authors inducted Joyner into its literary Hall of Fame. In December 2011, CCU dedicated the Charles Joyner Reading Room in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts. In 2012, he was awarded the first University Medallion at Founders Day ceremonies.
“Chaz has more friends in the community than anybody I know,” said Prince. “This book was a real labor of love. People from all over the world contributed, 27 of them.” Burton said that if everyone who wanted to write an essay on Joyner had written one, the book would have been very large.
“It’s very hard to get a festschrift published these day, but not this one,” said Burton. “Usually doctoral graduate students do the writing, but in this case it all came from scholars who have learned from him.”
