Dr. Ted Olson of East Tennessee State University will travel to Spain during the spring 2008 semester.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. -- Dr. Ted Olson, an associate professor in East TennesseeState University's Center for Appalachian Studies and Services, has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain during the spring 2008 semester.
In Spain, Olson will teach undergraduate courses in "Multiculturalism, Gender and Film in the United States" and "Contemporary American Literature" and, at the graduate level, "Multiculturalism in the Literature and Film of the United States" and "American Poetry." In addition, he will conduct research on the influence of Spanish culture on the cultures of Appalachia and the South.
At ETSU, Olson teaches courses in Appalachian Studies and English, and in the Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Music, Environmental Studies, and Master of Arts in Liberal Studies programs.
A prolific writer, Olson counts among his published works such books as Breathing In Darkness: Poems (Wind Publications, 2006), Impossible Wind: The Formative Years of Robinson Jeffers (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), and
Blue Ridge Folklife (University Press of Mississippi, 1998).
Olson is the editor of an award-winning poetry collection by acclaimed author James Still, From the Mountain, From the Valley: New and Collected Poems (University Press of Kentucky, 2001), of the book series CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual (Mercer University Press, 2004-2007), and of Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005).
He and the late Dr. Charles K. Wolfe co-edited the award-winning scholarly study entitled The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music (McFarland & Company, 2005), and he and Dr. Anthony Cavender co-edited A Tennessee Folklife Sampler: The Best of the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin (University of Tennessee Press, 2008).
Olson's forthcoming books include two edited collections of scholarly writings about James Still.
For more than 25 years, Olson has performed folk songs and ballads at a wide variety of venues, singing and accompanying himself on guitar, banjo, and dulcimer.
For further information, contact Olson at (423) 439-4379 or email olson@etsu.edu.
