Speaker
June Hobbs
Gardner-Webb University
Professor of English
Speaker Bio
June Hadden Hobbs is Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Research at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. Hobbs, who was editor of Markers: Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies for several years, has published books and articles on popular culture topics such as American hymnody and tombstones as well as on more traditional literary topics. Her latest publication, co-written with journalist Joe DePriest, is Tales and Tombstones of Sunset Cemetery: Tracing Lives and Memorial Customs in a Southern Graveyard (McFarland Press, 2021). She was the 2017 recipient of the Harriette Merrifield Forbes Award. Hobbs regularly teaches an honors seminar called Death in American Culture and has recently concluded a collaborative inquiry project with a pastor, a religion professor, and a psychiatric nurse titled “A Practical Theology of Corpse Care.”
Session
Paper: How the Historical Records Survey Saved American Cemeteries While It Put Writers to Work