The St. George Tucker Society (SGTS) seeks applicants to participate in its Brooks Forum. Held in conjunction with the Society’s annual meeting, the Brooks Forum features advanced graduate students engaged in the early stages of the dissertation writing process. By design, it affords these emerging scholars with an opportunity to present original work on the American South—focused on any period, sub-region, or methodological approach—in a collegial, academic setting. The 2025 annual meeting of the St. George Tucker Society will convene on the campus of Clemson University.
The Forum is named for Cleanth Brooks, Gray Professor of Rhetoric at Yale University, noted literary critic, and a founding member of the St. George Tucker Society. A Kentucky native, Brooks studied with the Agrarians and Fugitives at Vanderbilt University before receiving a master’s degree from Tulane University and earning a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Exeter College, Oxford. While a professor at Louisiana State University, he co-founded, along with his friend and colleague Robert Penn Warren, The Southern Review. A prolific author, Brooks is best known for his contributions to the New Criticism—a careful, textualist approach to understanding poetry.
All application materials (1-page abstract and vita) are due by 11:59 pm EDT on Friday, April 4, 2025. The selected panelists will submit one dissertation chapter for pre-circulation among Tucker Society members. At the annual meeting, each panelist will provide a brief presentation of five to ten minutes on their research, evidence, and conclusions. This will be followed by a period of open discussion and workshopping with the audience.
Selected panelists will be informed of acceptance no later than Friday, April 18, 2025. Full dissertation chapters to be workshopped must be ready and submitted for pre-circulation no later than Friday, May 30, 2025.
Brooks Forum Chair
Dr. Ashton G. Ellett, Politics & Public Policy Archivist at Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia, ellettag@uga.edu