By Ophelia Thornton | Shortly before the Doe River reaches its confluence with the Watauga River, it flows under what is arguably Upper ...

During the early 1980s, Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander was promoting a plan for increasing the quality of public education in the state...

By Ophelia Thornton | As East Tennessee State University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services celebrates its 40th year, one of ...

By Donna Davis | One hundred years ago, a baby was born who was instrumental in putting Shelby, North Carolina, on the map. What Elvis ...

By Mark Rutledge | While students and alumni of Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Studies at East Tennessee State University were ...

By Shara Lange | In 2013, internationally renowned artist Patrick Dougherty came to East Tennessee State University’s campus and worked ...

Lyric Essays draw on poetic literary devices, including imagery, music, word play, compression, and extended metaphors.

By Robert Morgan | The police quit looking for me. They gave up and pretended I was no longer hiding on the island. It was about a year ...

By Donna Davis | Over the river and through the woods is a land of horses, Virginia’s two tallest mountains, and ambivalent cell phone ...

 By Mark Rutledge | When 15-year-old Jamison Smith arrived at East Tennessee State University’s first ever Bluegrass Summer Camp in July ...

By Sandra Laws | Jackie Paxton Rose never knew her grandmother, but when her mother passed away in 2018, she inherited a box that would ...

By P.B. Cooley | Jewish liturgical poetry sung to Appalachian Mountain music may sound like something out of a Christopher Guest film...

By Patrick Sloan | The radio was the hearth around which our family and neighbors gathered on those stark, winter nights in the 1950s...

By Jack Tottle | History. Does it repeat itself? Sometimes. Kind of. Earlier this year, Texas-born Beyoncé’s country single “Texas Hold...

By Thomas E. Wagner and Phillip J. Obermiller  | The Industrial Revolution led corporations to build towns near their factories, sources...

By Jesse Graves | Imagine for a moment, a boy and his father building an ornate wooden bridge over a backyard creek, conceived as a...

By Ted Olson | Among the most influential folk musicians living in the U.K. today, Dick Gaughan was born Richard Peter Gaughan in Glasgow...

By Mark Rutledge | There is a long history of bluegrass legends stopping by East Tennessee State University to teach, make music with...

By Lacy Snapp | “We all drove through gaps to get here,” writer Jim Minick said during the April 4 kickoff reception for the 2024....

By Jack Tottle | The "Father of Bluegrass Music” often spoke frankly and eloquently about the indispensable role of African American