Dr. Ted Olson

Producer of NO OPTIONS, East Tennessee State University, Professor, Appalachian Studies

Ted Olson holds the Ph.D. in English (1997) from the University of Mississippi, the M.A. in English (1991) from the University of Kentucky, and the B.A. in English (1982) from the University of Minnesota. Presently Professor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University, he served in 2008 as Fulbright Senior Scholar in American Studies at the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain.  Olson was President of the Tennessee Folklore Society in 2003-2005, and in 2003 he co-chaired the curatorial committee for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s “Appalachia: Heritage and Harmony” exhibition, attended by an estimated one million people in Washington, D.C.  In 2019 Olson was the committee chair of “Tell It To Me: The Johnson City Sessions 90th Anniversary Celebration,” which won Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association’s Pinnacle Award for Event of the Year.  The author or editor of a number of books as well as poems, creative nonfiction pieces, articles, essays, encyclopedia entries, reviews, and oral histories published in a range of books and periodicals, Olson has researched and written many scholarly works exploring the history and culture of Blacks in Appalachia and the South.  He has also produced and curated documentary albums of traditional Appalachian music, including three box sets from Bear Family Records focused on telling the full stories of influential pre-Depression Era music recording sessions in East Tennessee (the 1927-1928 Bristol Sessions, the 1928-1929 Johnson City Sessions, and the 1929-1930 Knoxville Sessions) and also four CDs for Great Smoky Mountains Association featuring music from Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  For his work as a music historian, Olson has received a number of awards, including seven Grammy Award nominations.  He recently began co-producing and co-hosting (with Dr. William Turner) a podcast series for Great Smoky Mountains Association entitled Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music.

GRDN

“Capital City Pop Princess” born and raised in Charleston, WV

GRDN is from Charleston, West Virginia, but it took some time for her to feel at home in Appalachia. “I’m a creative person,” she said, “and I didn’t connect with Appalachia as a child. I thought people didn't understand me and thought, 'Of all the places on the planet, why West Virginia?’ I didn’t build a connection until I got older. I grew and looked more outward, and once I looked out I elevated my perspective on life.” Her new perspective informed her stage name as she transitioned from spoken word poet to rapper. “I originally went by BlackRoses as a reference to my pain, but when I elevated my perspective I became Gardenn. When I first said it, it felt like me. Gardenn is about every aspect of life: birth and death, beauty and ugliness, light and dark.”

Dr. Katelyn Best

West Virginia University, Teaching Assistant Professor of Musicology

A musicologist and vocalist by training, Katelyn Best earned her B.M. in vocal performance from Saint Mary’s College followed by her M.M. and Ph.D. in musicology from Florida State University. She served as a lecturer for the Department of Musicology at Florida State University as well as the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University. She was also Co-Director of the Florida State University’s Andean Ensemble and Director of the World Music Ensemble Summer Music Program. 

As a scholar, her research explores music in Deaf culture, hip hop, sound studies, musical movements, and cultural activism. She received a Carol Krebs Research Fellow Award to conduct fieldwork throughout the U.S. and was awarded the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Crossroads Music and Social Justice Paper Prize and the SEM Applied Ethnomusicology Paper/Project Prize for work based on this research. She has presented this work both nationally and internationally and has published articles within  Lied und Populäre Kultur  and the  Journal  of American Sign Languages and Literatures , a peer-reviewed digital journal with publications in American Sign Language. Recent publications include “Expanding Musical Inclusivity: Representing and Re-presenting Music and Deaf Culture through Deaf Hip Hop Performance” in  Participatory Approaches to Music and Democracy  and “Ethnocentrism 2.0: The Impact of Hearing-Centrism on Musical Expression in Deaf Culture” in  At the Crossroads: Music and Social Justice .

Dr. Angie Luvara

Frostburg State University, Assistant Professor, Sociology

Angie Luvara is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Critical Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Frostburg State University in western (Appalachian) Maryland. She was born and raised in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and, like many Appalachians, spent 20 years outside the region as a young adult before returning back home to Keyser, WV, where she currently resides. She runs a small research lab at FSU, the Carceral Appalachia Action Research Lab, where she works alongside undergraduate students on research on policing and prisons in Appalachia.

Dr. Austin McCoy

West Virginia University, Assistant Professor, History 

Dr. McCoy's research interests focus on African American history, the U.S. left, labor and political economy, and social movements and activism. His current manuscript project, tentatively titled, The Quest for Democracy:  Black Power, New Left, and Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Midwest revises conventional explanations emphasizing the separation and decline of Black Power and the New Left in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s.  Dr. McCoy is also public scholar, utilizing history to comment on contemporary issues related to politics and culture in numerous media outlets including the Washington Post, Nursing Clio, Black Perspectives , CNN, and Truthout.  At WVU, Dr. McCoy teaches a variety of courses in U.S., African American, and labor history, and works with graduate students who focus on studying the experiences of African Americans, organized labor, race, politics, and social movements.