{"id":1875,"date":"2012-01-20T11:23:22","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T11:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.utc.edu\/archivist\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2013-09-13T18:59:53","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T18:59:53","slug":"taking-up-serpents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/library\/2012\/01\/20\/taking-up-serpents\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Up Serpents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As some of you may know, a new series, <a href=\"http:\/\/animal.discovery.com\/tv\/snake-man-of-appalachia\/\">Snake Man of Appalachia<\/a>, aired on <strong>Animal Planet<\/strong> last week.\u00a0 According to Animal Planet&#8217;s website, the series follows &#8220;<em>the lives of an extraordinary Appalachian family with deep roots in the serpent-handling tradition. Verlin Short keeps more than 40 deadly rattlesnakes and copperheads for use in religious services. It&#8217;s a lifestyle not without its sacrifices, for both Verlin and his family<\/em>.&#8221;\u00a0 One of our UTC professors, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.utc.edu\/Academic\/Psychology\/staff\/ralph-hood.php\">Dr. Ralph Hood<\/a>, who is an expert on <strong>snake handling traditions<\/strong> in Appalachia, is a contributor to the show.<\/p>\n<p>You might be wondering about the connection between snake handling and the Special Collections.\u00a0 We hold the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lib.utc.edu\/Serpent-Handlers-of-Appalachia.html\">Hood-Williamson Archives on the Serpent Handlers of Southern Appalachia<\/a> which contains 184 DVDs with 400 plus hours of footage that document the contemporary serpent handlers of Southern Appalachia.\u00a0 Included in this collection is extensive footage of entire services of the major Jesus Name serpent handling churches of Appalachia spanning many years.\u00a0 Some of the footage includes well known names in the contemporary snake handling tradition, such as John and <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/1998\/dec\/13\/news\/mn-53450\">Punkin Brown<\/a>.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/encyclopediaofalabama.org\/face\/Article.jsp?id=h-3187\">Dennis Covington<\/a>, a college professor and author noted for his exploration of the Appalachian snake handling tradition is also present in some of the videos.\u00a0 Covington&#8217;s book on the serpent handling tradition, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Salvation_on_Sand_Mountain\">Salvation on Sand Mountain<\/a>, was a finalist for the <strong>National Book Award<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Our future expectations are that we will present a sizable portion of these materials online.\u00a0 Currently they are only accessible in the Special Collections department, but adequate equipment is available for viewing the materials.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve already seen an uptick in interest after the airing of the Animal Planet series and hope that interest will continue to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As some of you may know, a new series, Snake Man of Appalachia, aired on Animal Planet last week.\u00a0 According to Animal Planet&#8217;s website, the series follows &#8220;the lives of an extraordinary Appalachian family with deep roots in the serpent-handling tradition. Verlin Short keeps more than 40 deadly rattlesnakes and copperheads for use in religious&hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><span><a class=\"more-link button text\" href=\"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/library\/2012\/01\/20\/taking-up-serpents\/\"><span>Continue Reading <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4922],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-special-collections","7":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Taking Up Serpents - UTC Library Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking Up Serpents - UTC Library Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As some of you may know, a new series, Snake Man of Appalachia, aired on Animal Planet last week.\u00a0 According to Animal Planet&#8217;s website, the series follows &#8220;the lives of an extraordinary Appalachian family with deep roots in the serpent-handling tradition. 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