James Seay Brown Jr. is emeritus professor of history at Samford University. He is author of Fairy Tales, Patriotism and the Nation-State: The Rise of the Modern West and the Response of the World and editor of Up before Daylight: Life Histories from the Alabama Writers' Project, 1938-1939. He has served as president of the Alabama Folklife Association and remains active in academic and community life.
"Distracted by Alabama is a delightful sampler of experiences and
research by Dr. James S. Brown Jr., a well-known historian from
Samford University. A consummate scholar and teacher, Jim Brown
reveals the long timeline of his investigations into the rich
diversity of Alabama's history, cultural traditions, and
environment. The discipline of folklore has never been in Jim's
official academic job description, and yet his research has been
foundational in the study of several important Alabama traditions:
most notably, gandy dancer work songs of railroad line crews and a
slew of practices associated with natural resources, including
white oak basketry, herbalism, shoals fishtraps, and redhorse
snaring. In sharing his journey, Jim Brown carries the reader on an
immersive, experiential odyssey as he has done for his many
fortunate students through the years."
--Joey Brackner, former director of Alabama Center for Traditional
Culture, a division of the Alabama State Council on the Arts
"Jim Brown's book, Distracted by Alabama: Tangled Threads of
Natural History, Local History, and Folklore, is like the Irish
ballad that narrates a series of droll accidents that show why
Johnny isn't at work today. Brown, however, lists the wonders of
local and natural history in Alabama that for 45 years as a
professor at Samford University distracted him from turning his
dissertation on Russian history into a textbook. Among the
phenomena that diverted his attention were the migration of spotted
salamanders, singing from The Sacred Harp, natural fishtraps and
river redhorse suckers, railroad work gang callers, herbal healing,
and all things Cahaba River. He immersed himself (sometimes
literally) in each, then collaborated with various experts,
enthusiasts, and organizations to see that they were preserved or
at least remembered. Believing that history should be embedded in a
broad framework encompassing geography, anthropology, arts, etc.,
and that the best education was experiential, he created courses
which drew his students into the diverse marvels of the state. He
writes, 'Almost all my memorable successes were those that actively
engaged students in problem solving and turned me into more of a
guide and fellow learner than a self-proclaimed absolute source of
all relevant knowledge.' Anyone familiar with Samford University
between 1971 and 2016 knows that Jim Brown was a highly respected
and beloved professor. Readers of his memoir now have the
opportunity to see the remarkable things he saw and people he met
on his purposeful rambles through Alabama."
--Joyce Cauthen, director emeritus, Alabama Folklife
Association
"There is a saying, 'Before you can think outside the box, you have
to know what's in it.' Buried in some boxes is the folk culture of
a people. That is where Russian-historian-turned-Alabama-naturalist
James Seay Brown Jr. begins his journey of discovery: herb doctors,
salamanders, African American railroad callers, and Sacred Harp
singers, among others. Distracted by Alabama is both a celebration
of the state's bottomless box of folkways and an intellectual
feast, equally adaptable to PhDs and good ol'boys and girls."
--Wayne Flynt, author of Poor but Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites and
coauthor of Alabama: The History of a Deep South State,
Bicentennial Edition
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