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THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE •SUMMER 2006 THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI “Mississippi Reads” Creates Statewide Reading Community
he stale joke that Mississippians will also be available in the fall, and can write but not read is about the traveling exhibition Faulkner’s Tto become even staler. World: Photographs by Martin J. Dain “Mississippi Reads,” a new project will soon be ready to travel to libraries initiated by sponsors throughout the in the state. In the meantime, state, will invite readers of all ages to interested readers can prepare to read read a specific book by a Mississippi Go Down, Moses and to have author each year. Libraries, schools, discussions about it in classrooms, and reading groups will sponsor libraries, bookstores, and other discussions, lectures, and other gathering places during 2007. activities focusing on the book. Would “Mississippi Reads” has been inspired you like to increase reading among all by the popular “One Book” movement, Mississippians? Would you like to which connects people to literature highlight some of Mississippi’s through readings and discussions. The movement began in 1998 when Nancy Pearl, executive director of the Eudora Welty (1988), oil, 32" x 26", by Washington Center for the Book, Mildred Nungester Wolfe. Collection of initiated “If All Seattle Read the Same National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Book” and invited the community to read Institution, Washington, D.C. The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks. “One Book” projects have subsequently blossomed all over the extraordinary writers, including country, growing from 63 in 30 states in Faulkner, Wright, Welty, and many June 2002 to more than 350 in all 50 others? If so, this is a reading states in December 2005. The Center opportunity you do not want to miss. for the Book in the Library of Congress Sponsors invite individuals, lists “One Book” projects on its Web institutions, and organizations to join site (www.loc.gov/cfbook/) both by as participants and partners in state/city and author/book title. “Mississippi Reads.” The 2007 and first This year the National Endowment book for “Mississippi Reads” is William for the Arts initiated “The Big Read” Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses. project in response to a (big) need Richard Wright (1946), photograph by Details about the project will be identified in its 2004 report Reading at Carl Van Vechten. Courtesy Ellen Wright unveiled at the October meeting of the Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in and the Van Vechten Estate. Image Mississippi Library Association and in courtesy Special Collections, University news releases. Posters and bookmarks of Mississippi Libraries. (continued on page 29) Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:38 PM Page 2
the D IRECTOR’ S C OLUMN
I am thrilled to announce that the first volumes of The New Encyclopedia Published Quarterly by of Southern Culture have appeared, giving all of us who worked on the Religion and The Center for the Study of Southern Culture Geography volumes quiet satisfaction. The University of Mississippi Telephone: 662-915-5993 We began work on the books more than five years ago, and Jimmy Thomas, our Fax: 662-915-5814 superb managing editor, has been editing for four productive years. Ann Abadie, E-mail: [email protected] our consulting editor, has applied her sharp editorial eye to searching for stylistic Internet: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south infelicities and factual errors to be corrected. My assistant, Sally Lyon, has brought her intelligence and good spirits to many tasks related to the production process. IN THIS ISSUE The volume editors are playing a much larger role this time around than they Summer 2006 had in producing the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, engaged constructively in 1 “Mississippi Reads” Creates Statewide many phases of our production process. We were lucky that Samuel Hill and Dick Reading Community Pillsbury were editors of our first two volumes, as they are seasoned writers and 2 Director’s Column editors, not to mention experts on their topics, with a visceral understanding of the 3 New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture changes in the South and scholarship in the region since the original Encyclopedia Volumes Debut on Thacker Mountain in 1989. Their lists of new topics sensitively and thoroughly updated our coverage 3 In Memoriam: Matthew Neil Hodgson 4 Brown Bag Schedule: Fall 2006 in these foundational fields for understanding the contemporary South, as well as 4 Gammill Gallery Exhibition Schedule its history. 5 2006 Future of the South Conference I’m particularly excited to see the next two volumes, History and Myth, to Meet in Little Rock Manners, and Memory, in print as I’m the volume editor of each one. I labored 7 2007 F&Y Call for Papers mightily to update the History overview, choosing to stress the theme of social 7 Living Blues News memory, which has become a key historical concept for understanding how the 7 2007 Blues Symposium South’s many social groups contested the cultural meaning of the region’s public 8 2006 Music of the South Conference life. We have more material on that theme in the other volume appearing this fall, 8 Country Music Call for Proposals 8 2007 Oxford Film Festival which links memory with manners and myth as resonant terms for exploring both 9 Alum Helps Launch Campaign for the representational and behavioral aspects of Southern cultural life. Music of the South Professor Choosing covers for these volumes is a challenge, deciding among literally 10 2006 Faulkner Conference Report thousands of images that capture broad topics. The History volume has a 11 Southern Foodways Alliance News photograph of the original Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter sit-in 14 Young Authors Fair Enhances Oxford students, capturing a key moment in that watershed event in the modern South, Conference for the Book the civil rights movement. The Myth, Manners, and Memory volume has a 15 Reading the South: Reviews & Notes 24 In Memoriam: Bill Boozer photograph of stereotypical Southern belles—lovely women dressed in their hoop- 25 2006 Faulkner on the Fringe skirted glory. 25 Faulkner Conference Posters I want to acknowledge the great folks at the University of North Carolina Press 26 Tennessee Williams in Clarksdale who have been our near-daily partners in the process of producing The New 26 Call for Papers: Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia volumes. Mark Simpson-Voss has served as our overall editor there, 27 Tennessee Williams in Columbus and he and Jimmy have hammered out many precedents now that will serve us well 28 Regional Roundup in editing the remaining volumes over the coming years. 30 Notes on Contributors With four volumes of the eventual 24—and several thousand pages—of The 30 Southern Studies Awards 2005–2006 New Encyclopedia series now in print, we hope readers can see the expanded scale of 31 Mark Your Calendars 31 2007 Oxford Conference for the Book our work. We appreciate the work of those who have contributed articles to our first 32 Southern Culture Catalog Items volume; without them, we would not have the giant collaborative project, which is 36 Address Section/Mailing List The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Form/Friends Information and Form On Thursday, September 7, we move from “quiet satisfaction” at the publication of these volumes to bona fide celebration. Square Books, Oxford’s REGISTER STAFF legendary independent bookstore, is hosting a book signing for all of us involved Editor: Ann J. Abadie with The New Encyclopedia. We will appear on Thacker Mountain Radio, Oxford’s Graphic Designer: Susan Bauer Lee live community radio program broadcast on Mississippi’s Public Broadcasting, and Mailing List Manager: Mary Hartwell Howorth then sign books after the show. Editorial Assistant: Sally Cassady Lyon We invite everyone who has been a part of our Encyclopedias to join us in Lithographer: RR Donnelley Magazine Group Oxford—as well as those who just want to get their copies of these new books that are documenting the newest South. The University complies with all applicable laws regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity in all CHARLES REAGAN WILSON its activities and programs and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law because of age, color,disability, national origin, race, religion, sex, or status as a veteran or disabled veteran.
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Celebrate the publication of the first four volumes of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture Thursday, September 7, 2006 Thacker Mountain Radio Broadcast live from Off Square Books in Oxford at 5:30 p.m. Thacker Mountain is broadcast live on WOXD-Bullseye 95.5 FM and on the Web at www.Bullseye955.com. The show is rebroadcast on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, to be published over the next four years, is a 24-volume updated edition of the popular Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Published by the University of North Carolina Press www.uncpress.unc.edu Volume 1: Religion
Volume 2: Geography Volume 3: History Volume 4: Myth, Manners, and Memory Matthew Neil Hodgson (1926–2006) Matthew Neil Hodgson, the director of of American University Presses and full of smart conversation with someone the University of North Carolina Press served as its president in 1978. While who loved books. I appreciated his who published the Center’s Encyclopedia he was director, UNC Press received encouragement and faith in the of Southern Culture (1989), died June 16 many prestigious awards, including Encyclopedia. He was renowned for his after a long illness. Hodgson directed the three Bancroft Prizes, a Francis love of fishing and hunting as well as Press from 1970 to 1992, and under his Parkman Prize, and the 1983 Pulitzer reading. Upon his death, the Charlotte leadership, it became one of the nation’s Prize in history. The Encyclopedia of Observer suggested the best epitaph for most acclaimed university press Southern Culture won the American Matt Hodgson, noting that his legacy publishers, with special distinction in Library Association’s Dartmouth Prize was partly his achievements in publishing works in Southern Studies. for the best reference book of 1989. publishing, but also his reputation for Hodgson served two terms on the I remember my visits with Matt fondly, having led a productive and happy life. Board of Directors of the Association as always congenial, encouraging, and CHARLES REAGAN WILSON
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Center for the Study of Southern Culture
SEPTEMBER The University of Mississippi 6 “The Celluloid South: Projections of Southern Identity for the First Brown Bag Wednesday” 25 “Landscapes of the Soul: The University of Mississippi Lunch and Elizabeth Spencer and Center for Media Production Lecture Endesha Ida Mae Holland” Marion Barnwell, Professor 13 “The Kentuck Festival of the Series of English Emerita Arts and the Kentuck Delta State University Museum: Nurturing Fall 2006 Southern Folk Art Roots and NOVEMBER Emerging American Craft 1 “The Celluloid South: Artists” The Brown Bag Luncheon Series takes Projections of Southern place each Wednesday at noon in the Sara Anne Gibson, Barnard Observatory Lecture Hall during Identity for the First Executive Director the regular academic year. Wednesday” Kentuck Museum The University of Mississippi Association Center for Media Production Northport, Alabama OCTOBER 8 “From the Delta to Darfur: 20 “The Church Visit 4 “The Celluloid South: Social Change Globally and Campaign: Jackson, Projections of Southern Locally” Mississippi’s White Identity for the First Katie Snodgrass, Graduate Churches’ Response to the Wednesday” Student, Clinton School of Civil Rights Movement, The University of Mississippi Public Service 1963–1964” Center for Media Production Little Rock, Arkansas C. Dalton Lyon, History 11 “Civil War Nurses and 15 “Revitalization in Downtown Graduate Student Yellow Fever Nurses in Greenwood” 27 “Helping an Ailing City One Mississippi” Mary Margaret Miller, Drumstick at a Time: Sister Mary Paulinus Oakes, Southern Studies Graduate Rebuilding Willie Mae’s RSM Student Scotch House and Why It Chaplain, St. Dominic 29 “Up North in Mississippi: Matters” Behavioral Health Services Education and Integration in John Currence, Owner and Jackson, Mississippi Union County” Chef 18 “Carrollton Revisited” Mary Swilling, History City Grocery Wessie Gee and Susan Dunn Graduate Student Oxford, Mississippi Carrollton, Mississippi
Exhibition Schedule July 17–October 13, 2006 October 16, 2006–January 5, 2007 David Wharton Southern Studies Documentary Students Southern Towns, Southern Cities Community Photography: A Comparative Approach
The Gammill Gallery, located in Barnard Observatory, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., except for University holidays. Telephone: 662-915-5993.
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“Communities, Leadership, and the South” Conference and a Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Halfway Home and a Long Way to Go November 1–3, 2006
The Center has been working with the Clinton School of Public Service William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service to hold this year’s Future of the South conference, which will be in Little Rock, November 1–3, 2006. The topic of the conference is “Communities, Leadership, and the South.” The meeting will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of Southern Growth Policies Board’s seminal report Halfway Home and a Long Way to Go. The conference will examine ideas of community rooted in the South, look at central issues of economic development in local places, and consider the role of philanthropy in community develop- ment. The Center’s activities in the larger Future of the South project always consider culture, and this year’s conference will examine the role of such The University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service is located in the historic cultural amenities as museums, cultural Choctaw Railway Station on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Center. The 1899 centers, and cultural heritage tourism in building, renovated and dedicated as Sturgis Hall in 2004, also houses the Clinton defining communities. Foundation. The Clinton School admitted its inaugural class of 16 students in the fall of The conference will be organized 2005 and is the nation’s first university to offer a Master of Public Service (MPS) degree. around panels, many of which will The two-year graduate program combines academic studies and field projects to help students provide best practices case studies of work gain knowledge and skills to further their careers in private-sector, nonprofit, volunteer, or government work. For more information, visit www.clintonschool.uasys.edu. in towns and cities in the South. It will give a forum for individuals, nonprofits, Heifer International, founded in 1944, is a humanitarian assistance organization working and government agencies to share their to end world hunger and protect the earth. Through livestock, training, and “passing on the gift,” Heifer has helped seven million families, or more than 38 million people, in ground-level view of the importance of more than 125 countries improve their quality of life and move toward greater self- leadership in community life. reliance. Heifer helps build strong communities because each project participant agrees to Southern Growth Policies Board is pass on the gift of offspring of their animals working with the Center and the and training to another family in need. Its Clinton School in celebrating its world headquarters, an environmentally legendary report on the South, Halfway friendly “green” building that opened in March 2006, is adjacent to the Clinton Home and a Long Way to Go. Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock. Bill Clinton, then governor of Designed to use sunlight and rainwater for Arkansas, was chair of the Board in energy and gray water, while conserving 1986, when the report was issued, and electricity and avoiding pollutants, the William Winter was chair of the building is entered in the Leeds (Leadership commission that wrote the report. The in Energy Efficiency and Design) certification process with the U.S. Green opening events of the conference will Building Council, the nation’s top authority focus on the anniversary, and panelists on sustainable construction. Participants in at the conference will assess the South’s the Future of the South Conference will position now, relative to the report’s have a special tour of the building on recommendations. Thursday, November 2, 2006, at 5:00 p.m. For more information on Heifer International, visit www.heifer.org. Tim Hursley Tim (continued on page 6)
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continued from page 5 Clinton School of Public Service
The Future of the South initiative, including the “Communities, Leadership, and the South” conference, is made possible through a grant from the Phil Hardin Foundation. This is the third Center conference addressing issues of the South’s future and the first one held outside of Mississippi. The Center seeks to work with other entities considering the social, economic, and cultural development of the South. The Clinton Library and Clinton School provide a model of collaborative planning. James L. “Skip” Rutherford, the newly appointed dean of the Clinton School, has been enthusiastic in providing host facilities for the upcoming conference. We have also enjoyed working with The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is Jim Clinton, executive director of Southern Growth Policies located within the Clinton Presidential Center and Park on the Board, to honor its long and distinguished work. banks of the Arkansas River in the River Market District of The conference program is open to the public without downtown Little Rock. The structure contains 20,000 square charge, but registration is encouraged. There are costs for feet of library and museum space, including replicas of the Oval lunch on Thursday and dinner on the grounds on Friday. For Office and the Cabinet Room, and houses the largest collection of more information, check the Center’s Web site presidential papers and artifacts in U.S. history. Included in the collections are approximately 76.8 million pages of paper (www.olemiss.edu/depts/south). documents, 1.85 millions photographs, and over 75,000 museum CHARLES REAGAN WILSON artifacts. For more information, visit www.clintonlibrary.gov.
“COMMUNITIES, LEADERSHIP, AND THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH” CONFERENCE AND A CELEBRATION OF THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF HALFWAY HOME AND A LONG WAY TO GO November 1–3, 2006 William J. Clinton Foundation Little Rock, Arkansas Wednesday, November 1, 2006 2:00 p.m. Expanding the Role of “Community” Philanthropy 4:00 p.m. Welcome Freddye Webb Petett, Assistant Professor, Clinton School; Former Coordinator, W. K. Kellogg James L. “Skip” Rutherford, Dean, Clinton School Foundations’ Mid South Delta Initiative - moderator of Public Service David Pryor, Professor and Founding Dean, Clinton 3:30 p.m. Impact of National Service Corps Initiatives in the School; Former Governor of Arkansas, U.S. Lower Mississippi Delta Congressman, and U.S. Senator Robert J. Torvestad, Director of Field and Career Charles Reagan Wilson, Director, Center for the Services, Clinton School - moderator Study of Southern Culture 5:00 p.m. Tour Heifer International Keynote Address To Be Announced Friday, November 3, 2006 5:00 p.m. “The History and Impact of Halfway Home and a 9:00 a.m. Sample Solutions in Sample Communities ” Long Way to Go Thomas A. Bruce, Professor and Associate Dean, Jim Clinton, Executive Director, Southern Growth Clinton School; Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Policies Board Professor of Health Policy and Management, 6:30 p.m. Reception University of Arkansas Medical School - moderator 10:30 a.m. Panel: Sample Solutions in Sample Communities Thursday, November 2, 2006 John Churchill, Secretary, Phi Beta Kappa Society - 9:00 a.m. Idea of Community in the South moderator Bob Nash, Vice Chairman, ShoreBank Corporation Noon Dinner on the Grounds - moderator 2:00 p.m. Cultural Amenities in the Lower Mississippi Delta 11:30 a.m. Economic Development in Communities Catherine Remmel Matthews, Director, Arkansas David Pryor - moderator Department of Heritage - moderator Noon Lunch - Café 42 3:30 p.m. Closing Address “Developing Young Leaders” William F. Winter, Former Governor of Mississippi
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CALL FOR PAPERS Living Blues News Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha The Fifth Annual Living Blues Symposium, entitled “Blueswomen July 22–26, 2007 Today,” is scheduled for February 15–17, 2007, on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford. The conference will include “Faulkner’s Sexualities” panel discussions, films, an William Faulkner grew up and began his writing career archival presentation, and during a time of great cultural upheaval, not the least music. A detailed list of guest aspect of which was in the realm of sexuality. Every speakers and musicians will normative notion of sexual identity and sexual relationship appear in upcoming issues of was ripe for reexamination, every form of behavior and Living Blues magazine. utterance probed for its concealed sexual meaning. Not The current issue of Living only does Faulkner explore multiple versions of Blues features interviews with heterosexuality throughout his work, he also studies the blues stalwart Eddie C. sexual dimension of various social, economic, and Campbell, John Lee Hooker aesthetic concerns. Quentin Compson’s concern for Jr., sacred steel master Calvin decaying social standards in The Sound and the Fury is Cooke, and a profile of complicated by the incestuous desires seemingly designed Bentonia, Mississippi’s Jimmy to cleanse sexual violation; same-sex attraction in “Duck” Holmes. We are also Absalom, Absalom! is both the screen for racial hatred and excited to present our new Southern its hidden core; sexuality and trade in The Hamlet Soul Report, featuring interviews with artists and our own antagonize and inspire each other. Above all, the sexual Southern Soul radio chart. Southern Soul, a combination of and psychosexual dimensions of race relations are always a classic R&B, gospel-influenced soul, blues, and contemporary factor, a straight and/or queer dynamic inseparable from an sounds, has been a constant hotbed of blues activity for African intimacy that underlies even the most violent situations. American audiences. The 34th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Finally, the August issue of Living Blues features coverage of the Conference will examine Faulkner’s life and fiction in contemporary zydeco music scene and include interviews with terms of the sexualities that we have come to recognize in musicians Buckwheat Zydeco, C. J. Chenier, Nathan Williams, tandem with the general expansion of approaches to him and Rosie Ledet as well as a historical piece by blues writer Barry and his work. Here are some of the issues and questions Lee Williams on the guitar players of zydeco music. A one-year that might be taken up: Given the frequent violation of subscription to Living Blues is just $23.95. Blues fans can subscribe sexual “norms” in Faulkner’s fiction, what constitutes online at www.livingblues.com. sexual standards, sexual values in his work? What MARK CAMARIGG constitutes perversity? In what ways does Faulkner participate in discourses of masculinity and femininity, desire and (re)production? In what ways are these Blues Symposium discourses bound up with representations of race and ethnicity, modernity and ideology, region and nation? In The fifth annual Blues Today what ways do his texts touch on questions concerning the symposium, sponsored by Living racialization of categories of gender within colonial and Blues magazine and the Center, will dominant metropolitan discourses and power relations? Is take place at the University on there a regional sexuality, a Southern sexuality—and what February 15–17, 2007. The theme is its relation to the rest of the American hemisphere? is “Blueswomen Today.” Attendees We are inviting 40-minute plenary addresses and 20- can expect the usual innovative mix of live music, panels, minute panel papers for this conference. Plenary papers workshops, and tours, with an emphasis on the great tradition consist of approximately 5,000 words and will be published of female blues performance, musical and literary. This year’s by the University Press of Mississippi. Panel papers consist blues symposium will take place in conjunction with the of approximately 2,500 words; a selection of these papers annual meeting of the Southern American Studies for publication in the conference volume will be made by a Association (SASA), whose theme is “Blues Tunes/Blues jury of the conference program committee. Texts: Music, Cultures, and Literature in the Global South,” For plenary papers the 14th edition of the University of meaning that symposium attendees will be able to attend Chicago Manual of Style should be used as a guide in SASA’s events at no extra charge. With both events taking preparing manuscripts. Three copies of manuscripts must place concurrently on the Ole Miss campus and sharing an be submitted by January 31, 2007. Notification of selection entertainment budget, “Blueswomen Today” promises to be will be made by March 1, 2007. Authors whose papers are an unusually rich and exciting offering. Details about the program will soon be posed on (continued on page 27) www.outreach.olemiss.edu/livingblues/bluestoday/.
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2006 Music of the South CALL FOR Conference Report PROPOSALS The Center hosted the second annual Music of the South Conference, June 2–3, which included a keynote address by folklorist Nick Spitzer and a musical International Country performance by the Hot 8 Brass Band from New Orleans. Music Conference New Orleans was a focus of attention, as the conference assessed the traditional importance of music to the city and the role of music as an important unifying The 24th annual International factor for people of the region after last year’s Hurricane Katrina. Spitzer, who is Country Music Conference (ICMC) professor of folklore and cultural conservation at the University of New Orleans, will be held May 24–26, 2007, at talked in his keynote about how music has long been a part of the civic identity of Belmont University in Nashville, New Orleans, growing out of a local vernacular culture that evolved into a basis for Tennessee. ICMC solicits proposals tourism and economic development there. Spitzer also outlined the devastating in all disciplines related to all aspects effects of Katrina on New Orleans’s neighborhoods, many of which were at the of the history and contemporary heart of a dynamic local musical culture. He also explained music’s healing role in status of country music. ICMC the aftermath of the storm, as musicians helped to bring people together. broadly defines country music to Another highlight of the conference was the appearance of the Hot 8 Brass Band. include variants from precommercial This group has been central to New Orleans street music for over a decade. and old time country to bluegrass, Founded by Bennie Pete in 1995, the band has played in traditional Second Line honky tonk, and alternative country. parades, hosted each Sunday by the Social Aid and Pleasure Club, ever since. The Proposals on the educational group played a concert in the Grove at Ole Miss and also was interviewed by Nick applications of country music from Spitzer on a Friday afternoon session at the conference. The band members detailed kindergarten through the collegiate how Katrina affected the group and their work in bringing music to relief centers curriculum are also welcome. after the storm. The Hot 8 Brass Band has been a featured band in Save Our Brass!, All presenters will be expected to a grassroots project that brought music to evacuee shelters, temporary trailer parks, pay the $90.00 (U.S.) registration and communities within New Orleans. fee. Proposals should include title of Other sessions at the conference included topics on Alt-Country, Lucinda paper, a 75–100 word abstract, name Williams, Jimmie Swaggart’s “Holy Ghost Boogie,” the historical and contemporary of presenter(s), institutional role of Sacred Harp singing, and black gospel quartets. affiliation(s), complete address(es), Amanda Sewell, a graduate student at Bowling Green State University, lectured on phone and fax numbers, e-mail Moby’s contemporary versions of Alan Lomax’s recordings of Southern folk music, and address(es). Phillipa Burgress, of Ohio Dominican University, gave a presentation on minstrel music Proposals may be submitted by e- that was accompanied by a special exhibition at the University Archive. mail to [email protected] or sent The conference also provided a forum for discussion of two legendary Southern by conventional mail to James E. musical places. Gene Ford, from the University of Alabama, made a multimedia Akenson at Box 5042, Tennessee presentation on Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which was home to one of the most creative Technological University, Cookeville, recording studios in the 1970s and where artists such as Aretha Franklin and the Rolling TN 38505. U.S.A. Deadline for Stones recorded some of their finest work. He detailed efforts to place the studio on the receipt of proposals is Friday, October list of national historical places, efforts that proved to be successful after the conference 27, 2006. Please note that ICMC ended. Memphis is another historic place for making Southern music, and presenters at coincides with Memorial Day the conference’s final panel discussed the significance on music to Memphis cultural weekend. identity and the under-recognized significance of jazz in the blues-dominated city. CHARLES REAGAN WILSON Yoknapatawpha Arts Council presents the fourth annual Oxford Film Festival • February 8-11, 2007 at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center www.oxfordfilmfest.com • 662.236.6429 • Film Submission Deadline September 15, 2006
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Alum Helps Launch Campaign for Music of the South Professor Endowment Ron Feder hopes students will benefit from study of Southern music.
Music has always been a part of the to working with Ron and others to South, and Ron Feder aims to continue complete funding for this position.” that tradition through his $100,000 Feder originally heard of the Center endowment gift for to help fund a and felt the impact of its work in 1985. “I Music of the South Professor at the first became interested in the Center for University of Mississippi. With Feder’s the Study of Southern Culture in 1985 gift, the University is making strong during my active military service in the progress toward raising the $2.5 million Philippines. The base was in a hot, needed to endow the position. steamy delta environment much like As part of the Center for the Study of Mississippi, and the capital city, Manila, Southern Culture, the professorship looked a lot like New Orleans. The more will include a faculty chair, it looked like home, the more homesick distinguished fellowship and it made me, especially for the music. leadership, and a visiting lecture series. Then the military radio network began Feder, an attorney in Ocean Springs airing Bill Ferris’s groundbreaking who earned his law degree from Ole Highway 61 blues program,” Feder said. Miss in 1981, said he feels that The program made Feder think of Southern music—in particular, hillbilly growing up in Vicksburg and realize the music, gospel, blues, and country—is importance of music to the Mississippi ripe with clues about the daily lives of and the entire South. everyday people. “The stories of the Ron Feder Feder said there is a real urgency to rich and powerful fill the history books, get the program under way “before the but where can the curious learn about remaining live witnesses go on to the lives of the laborer, the mill worker, glory.” He said they are passing on the small farmer, the sundry tradesmen, University’s commitment to rigorous before scholars have had an and the petty criminals who populated scholarship. Students will benefit from opportunity to rigorously examine their the small towns and rural areas of the the direction and control provided by a lives and their relationship to the land South?” he asked. “The answer lies in fully funded professor with the time, and the people who populated that the words and the tunes generated by leadership, and skill necessary to produce land. “Ironically, I’ve been recalled to hundreds of local musicians throughout sound scholarship,” he said. active duty and will soon find myself in the Deep South.” Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the lush but dangerous Tigres- According to Feder, it is the music Center, said the South has been one of Euphrates Valley. I’m hopeful that by that contains clues about the common the world’s most fertile soils for the time I return to Mississippi, the man’s relationship with the land, the creativity, and in no area more so than Southern Music Professor will be in rich and powerful, and religion. “Just music. “The world has embraced place and will begin the important listen to the words in the blues classics of Southern music, and one hears the work that must be done to preserve this Charley Patton and Robert Johnson,” he blues in Germany, country music in vital element in our lives and history,” said. Since many older artists have died, Britain, and jazz in cities everywhere. Feder said. there is an urgent need to learn their Yet no university has a professor To make a donation to help endow the stories before it's too late. Feder said this dedicated to teaching, researching, and Music of the South Professorship, please urgency is the driving force to create a organizing outreach activities that contact Ted Smith, assistant director of Southern music chair for the Center. reflect the range of Southern music,” University Advancement, at 800-340- Feder believes there is no better place to Wilson said. “The University of 9542 or [email protected]. For more examine that music that at the Mississippi can claim leadership in the information about the Center for the University of Mississippi. “The Center is study of Southern music with the Study of Southern Culture, visit a logical place to locate a Southern establishment of a Professor of www.olemiss.edu/depts/south. music professorship, because of the Southern Music, and we look forward REBECCA LAUCK CLEARY
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Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha 2006:
“Global Faulkner” Courtesy Bruce Newman and The intention of “Global Faulkner,” the theme of the 33rd annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, was not to explore again the impact of Faulkner on the world—although surely that impact became more than evident—but to trace the parallels between Faulkner’s portrayal of the South and the Oxford Eagle renderings by other writers of their countries and cultures. Faulkner’s “postage stamp of native soil,” it turned out, contains reverberations of national expressions ranging from Nigeria to Japan, and especially of the cultures of the Americas: that New World to which the United States stands no longer as exception or overseer, but perhaps its most vivid representative. Keith Cartwright opened the conference with a discussion Conference participants enjoying picnic at Faulkner’s home, of the relationship between Faulkner’s short stories “Red Rowan Oak Leaves,” “That Evening Sun,” and “Delta Autumn” and the Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka’s exploration of ritual sacrifice and the violent roots of culture and Maryse Condé have responded to the conditions—the in Death and the King’s Horseman. From there the conference threats and opportunities—of “creolization” within and wended its global way: Manuel Broncano on the “literary between their respective cultures. complicity” between Faulkner and the Quixotic as well as the Perhaps the most “global” event of the conference was a Spanish Civil War; Mario Materassi on the Pygmalion theme presentation by the novelist Tierno Monénembo, who grew in European art from Ovid to Gabriele D’Annunzio and in up in Guinea and now lives in France, who read his lecture, Faulkner’s early novel Mosquitoes; Takako Tanaka’s study of “Faulkner and Me,” in French, with an English translation the Japanese writer Kenji Nakagami and Faulkner in terms of distributed to the registrants. their contrasting treatment of the burden of patriarchy. In addition to the formal presentations, a rarely seen film, Several papers on the “American” South—that is, Impressions of Japan, based on Faulkner’s 1955 visit, was Faulkner’s South and its place in the Western Hemisphere— shown, scripted by Faulkner. Seth Berner, a book dealer from laid particular emphasis on the dynamic of colonizer and Portland, Maine, conducted a session on “Collecting colonized. George Handley, Alfred Lopez, Jo K. Galle, Jeff Faulkner,” Colby Kullman moderated “Faulkner on the Karem, Katie Woolsey, Laura Martin, and Bart Welling all Fringe” at the Southside Gallery, and “Oxford Remembers,” examined the ways in which Faulkner and writers such as coordinated by Elizabeth Shiver, brought together five Gabriel García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier, Édouard Glissant, Oxonians for reminiscences of the Faulkner family and Oxford as it was when Faulkner lived here. A highlight of the conference continued to be the “Teaching Faulkner” sessions conducted this year by
Oxford Eagle James B. Carothers, Charles A. Peek, Terrell L. Tebbetts, and Theresa Towner. Other events included two art exhibitions: Journey of the Spirit, a fiber quilt exhibition by Gwendolyn Magee at the University Museum, and Southern Towns, Southern Cities, recent photographs by David
Courtesy Bruce Newman and Wharton, at Barnard Observatory. There were also guided tours of North Mississippi, an opening buffet at the home of Dr. Beckett Howorth Jr., and a closing party at Off Square Books. Although Faulkner’s fiction is undoubtedly global in its implications, its apparently ever-expanding scope, it began, as he well knew and as the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference continues to Guinea native Tierno Monénembo, a novelist and teacher now confirm, in the intensely local of Oxford and living in France, made the first presentation at the 2006 Faulkner Lafayette County. and Yoknapatawpha Conference. DONALD M. KARTIGANER
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SOUTHERN FO ODWAYS REGISTER The Newsletter of the Southern Foodways Alliance Sooner or later Southerners all come home, not to die, but to eat gumbo. —Eugene Walter, bard of Mobile, Alabama 2006 Southern Foodways Letter from the President It is with excitement and sincere gratitude that I Symposium (with Delta share the good news of the most recent support of the Southern Foodways Alliance by the University of Divertissement, too!) Mississippi. Through the office of Provost Carolyn Ellis Staton, we have received another $30,000 grant The ninth annual Southern Foodways Symposium will be held for this fiscal year—and a commitment to establish a October 19–22, 2006, on the campus of the University of Mississippi in permanent University-funded budget line item Oxford. This year we explore the Gulf South, tracing an arc from Texas thereafter to pay for our oral historian position. through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Since its beginnings, SFA has enjoyed the We dig deep into the subject of regionalism this year. With the hospitality and graciousness of the University. My
coast as our backdrop, we Richard Bickel first symposium, before the word really got out about ponder where the South our organization, we could fit inside Barnard. Today, gives way to the Caribbean. our membership of culinarians, writers, chefs, social We study wetlands loss and historians, journalists, and eaters spans the country project the future of the and enables many individuals and sponsors to learn Cajun Coast. Ethnicity about another well-kept secret—Oxford, Mississippi. comes into play, too. We This commitment from the University is an examine the lives of acknowledgement of the importance of our mission Cubans in Ybor City, of documenting and celebrating the diversity of the Florida, and Vietnamese in Pap Bailey, Mullet Fisherman South through a foodways lens. Our oral history Biloxi, Mississippi. And we program has already captured many individuals, hear from a poet, raised on traditions, regional identities, and food tales that the Gulf Coast, about the African American rituals and traditions of would have otherwise been lost. Amy Evans, who has her youth. We learn the provenance of gazpachi salad, the pressed headed up this effort, has done an amazing job, and poor boy, and West Indies salad. In short, we pledge to cover the our collection of oral histories, perhaps more than waterfront, to render the Gulf a feast of words and foods. anything else, sums up what SFA is about. Of course, we’ll eat well. Green gumbo from Leah Chase of New With the five-year plan the SFA board completed Orleans. Banh Mi, known to some as Vietnamese Po’ Boys, too. (with the invaluable assistance of Chris Cavanaugh), Breakfast casseroles of oysters and eggs. Biscuits slathered with this generous commitment by the University affirms our farm-churned butter. Lunch tributes to Eugene Walter, the man ongoing work as an organization. On behalf of all of us in John Egerton called “the once and future king of Southern cookery the Southern Foodways Alliance, I would like to writers.” Snacks of bacon-peanut brittle. Nibbles of sweet potato- applaud Provost Staton, Vice Chancellor Gloria Kellum, blanketed catfish. Sips of sparkling wine and Lynchburg lemonade. and Chancellor Robert Khayat. And I’d like to invite This event provides opportunities for cooks, chefs, food writers, and them all to join us in the Grove this October for a taste inquisitive eaters alike to come to a better understanding of Southern of the Gulf Coast, our focus for this fall’s symposium. cuisine and Southern culture. Lectures, held in Johnson Commons, at Thanks for pulling up a seat and digging in. the heart of the University of Mississippi campus, are complemented by informal lunches and dinners served in and around Oxford. For Yours around the table, more information, go to www.southernfoodways.com. Elizabeth Sims Barbecue Documentaries Joe York of the Center for Documentary Projects at the University of Mississippi, with support from Union Square Hospitality Group, recently shot and directed two short barbecue documentaries for the Southern Foodways Alliance. They debuted at this summer’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. Now they’re online for you to view. Dial ‘S’ for Sausage mms://130.74.84.77/omo/cmp/sfa/dialsstreaming.asf BBG BBQ mms://130.74.84.77/omo/cmp/sfa/bibbobgibsonstreaming.asf Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:41 PM Page 12
Willie Mae’s Scotch House Renovation Update The James Beard Foundation has donated $30,000 to the Gulf Coast Renaissance Fund, established by the Southern Foodways Alliance to help rebuild small, classic New Orleans restaurants destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. SFA director John T Edge says that the fund was “established to preserve Southern culinary landmarks like Willie Mae Seaton’s Scotch House,” which is to benefit from the Beard donation. The historic restaurant is located in the heavily damaged Treme neighborhood of New Orleans and owned by 90-year-old Willie Mae Seaton. The building, a traditional double shotgun structure, serves as the restaurant on one side and Seaton’s home on the other side. Seaton was the 2005 recipient of the Beard Foundation’s America’s Classic Award. The award is presented to independent, locally owned and operated restaurants Sara Roahen whose food and atmosphere reflect the Willie Mae Seaton’s Scotch House unique culture of their communities. The Gulf Coast Renaissance Fund has reopening will mean so much to this August and John Folse of Chef John Folse raised more than $50,000, but the community. It will serve as a symbol of and Company have fed the volunteers. organization needs at least an additional the city’s rebirth, and Ms. Seaton is New Orleans natives like John Currence $80,000 to complete the Scotch House eager to fire up the stove and start of City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi, rebuild. Seaton still lives in the area in a frying chicken again.” have led work crews. It continues to be a temporary home. Her great-grand- Following the hurricane, SFA reached real grassroots effort.” daughter Carrie Seaton works at out to its members and the food To make a donation to the Gulf Coast Restaurant August in New Orleans and community at-large asking for help to Renaissance Fund, call 662-915-5993, says she looks forward to joining her save New Orleans eateries such as the contact SFA at [email protected], or great-grandmother to reopen the Scotch House. “More than 100 volunteers send a check to Gulf Coast Renaissance establishment, by the end of the summer have come to New Orleans from around Fund, Southern Foodways Alliance, P.O. if the project goes as planned. the country to help clear out the debris, Box 1848, University, MS 38677, “Everyone wants to return to Willie raise funds, and begin reconstruction. Attention: Mary Beth. Mae Seaton’s table,” Edge said. “Her Local chefs like John Besh of Restaurant REBECCA LAUCK CLEARY The New Orleans Table: Return and Recollect The SFA and the McIlhenny Around New Orleans; Leah Chase, the Orleans food and drink. Look for the Company present The New Orleans grande doyenne of Creole cookery; collection to grow (and be posted online Table: Return and Recollect, a series of Gail and Anthony Uglesich of the at www.southernfoodways.com) in the events to be held in New Orleans, beloved restaurant Uglesich’s; filé months to come as field workers capture New York, and San Francisco. We aim maker Lionel Key; and James Beard the stories of cooks and eaters. Speaking to recollect lost foods and food Award-winning chef John Besh of of stories, we want to hear from you. If memories and remind culinary tourists Restaurant August. you have a defining New Orleans food of what the Crescent City has to offer. The intellectual and cultural backbone memory to share, or if you’re counting Among the players are Paul of the events will be New Orleans Eats: the days until you return to table in New McIlhenny of Tabasco fame; Roy An Oral History Project, a collection of Orleans, tell us what you crave and why Blount Jr., NPR commentator and oral histories from and about those by calling 888-841-6153 or e-mailing author of Feet on the Street: Rambles people who create and consume New [email protected]. Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:42 PM Page 13
Eating the South The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the The Blue Grass Cook Book. Mountain South, from Bright Hope to Frog Level. Compiled by Minnie C. Fox. Original introduction by John By Fred Sauceman. Fox Jr. New introduction by Toni Tipton-Martin. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2006. $25.00 cloth. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005. 436 pages, 300+ recipes, 13 photographs. $29.95 cloth. If you were lucky enough to be at the 2003 Southern Foodways In 1904, Kentucky socialite Minnie C. Fox published The Symposium and hear Fred Blue Grass Cook Book. In Fox’s time, the work of black Sauceman’s Saturday afternoon women in the South was often characterized by demoralizing presentation, “Bright Hope to portraits of servants toiling in “big house” kitchens. In Frog Level: A Mountain contrast, The Blue Grass Cook Book, with Alvin Langdon Diner’s Diary,” you will recall Coburn’s photographs of African Americans at work in that his knowledge of kitchens and a passionate Appalachian eats is both introduction by Fox’s brother, encyclopedic and wonderfully novelist John Fox Jr., reveals the quirky. Now comes the book. vital role of black cooks in the One could not want for a better traditions of Southern companion than Sauceman, a hospitality. A new introduction man who loves his neck of the by past SFA president Toni woods and wants you to taste the best it has to offer. Tipton-Martin adds historical HENRY MENCKEN context to this classic Kentucky cookbook and offers a nuanced portrait of a unique culinary culture. HENRY MENCKEN
SFA Contributors ELIZABETH SIMS, current SFA president, REBECCA LAUCK CLEARY is a HENRY MENCKEN, a native of the has been the communications director communications specialist in the Office South, now lives and writes beyond. for the Biltmore Company in Asheville, of Media and Public Relations at the North Carolina, since 1990. University of Mississippi.
Southern Foodways Alliance
name
company
address
city state zip
telephone fax
email MEMBERSHIP ❏ $50 student ❏ $75 individual ❏ $100 family Please make checks payable to the Southern Foodways Alliance ❏ $200 nonprofit institution ❏ $500 corporation and mail them to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture University, MS 38677.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, VISIT US AT OUR WEB SITE: www.southrnfoodways.com or call John T. Edge, SFA Director, at 662.915.5993 or via e-mail at [email protected] Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:42 PM Page 14
Young Authors Fair Enhances Oxford Conference for the Book
The Young Authors Fair has been part books and sent them to Oxford. Most T. A. Barron of the Oxford Conference for the Book of the stories were about the effects of since 1994, when visiting children’s Hurricane Katrina. authors recruited by the Junior “The stories were beautiful. They Auxiliary of Oxford began to speak at were about finding lost family members the conference in addition to visiting after the hurricane or finding a favorite area schools. The students also have stuffed animal in the top of a tree at a the opportunity to write, illustrate, and park,” Morgan said. “There were stories bind books of their own, which are about being evacuated and coming displayed at the Lafayette County- back to nothing. It was just such a great Oxford Public Library during the week addition to what we do and added such of the conference. a dimension.” Although those students In 2004 all fifth graders in Oxford and couldn’t make it to Oxford for Barron’s Lafayette County—more than 500 talk, a video of his presentation was young readers—joined conference mailed to them, along with signed participants at the University’s new Ford copies of his book. Center for the Performing Arts to hear a Gulf Coast students got to be presentation by Mississippi-born author involved in the Book Conference in a Mildred D. Taylor, who won the 1977 new and innovative way, and they were Newbery Medal for Roll of Thunder, Hear all excited to be a part of it. “The My Cry. Previously, the project gave a children were so appreciative and T. A. few books to school libraries; but was just fabulous—really phenomenal. beginning in 2004, thanks to the efforts Doug McLain And it’s always nice as North of the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, the School and Lafayette High School, Mississippians to be able to help the Lafayette County Literacy Council, who heard Sharon Draper, author of Coast,” Morgan said. Square Books Jr., and other collaborators, Tears of a Tiger, which was named the Barron said that he enjoyed his time each fifth grader has received a copy of a America Library Association’s Best in Oxford, and that the entire book by the visiting author. Book for Young Adults; The Battle of experience was “delightful, as rich and Newbery Medalist Richard Peck Jericho, which is a Coretta Scott King subtle as the breeze on William participated in the 2005 Young Authors Honor Book; and, most recently, Faulkner’s porch.” Fair, and two authors—T. A. Barron Copper Sun. All ninth-grade students “As a wandering bard who has and Sharon M. Draper—participated received a copy of one Draper’s books attended more book events than I can in 2006. Barron, a former venture (Battle of Jericho or Copper Sun) and count, I can tell you that the Oxford capitalist who switched careers to read and wrote about it before Conference for the Book has it all: become a conservationist and author, attending her session at the Ford people who feel great passion for stories has published The Lost Years of Merlin Center during the book conference. of all kinds; knowledgeable folks from series, The Great Tree of Avalon trilogy, Young readers from the Gulf Coast lots of different backgrounds; and a and numerous other celebrated works were included in this year’s conference setting that could charm honeybees out for young and not-so-young readers. as well. Leigh Ann Morgan, who is of their flowers,” he said. “People were All fifth graders in Oxford and actively involved in Junior Auxiliary, so kind to me. And so full of earnest, Lafayette County were given copies of thought her sister, Sherry Beavis, would thoughtful, insightful questions. I loved Barron’s book The Ancient One to read be interested in the Young Authors the experience, and I carried home a beforehand. program, since she teaches fifth graders bag of books when I left!” This year the fair was expanded to at East Hancock Elementary in Kiln, REBECCA LAUCK CLEARY include ninth graders at Oxford High Mississippi. So Beavis’s class also wrote
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Reading the South The End of California By Steve Yarbrough deeply religious man can hate. Knopf, 2006. Twenty-five years ago Alan’s mother 303 pages. $23.95 cloth. initiated a quickie affair with Pete. Alan’s father subsequently left town In 2004, Indianola, Mississippi, and his family, and Alan abandoned émigré Steve Yarbrough returned to Loring soon after. Now Pete and the fictional town of Loring, Alan have both returned home, old Mississippi, with his PEN/Faulkner- animosities reemerge, and Alan award finalist Prisoners of War. While cannot control the rage he has lived not necessarily intended to be a with since he and Pete were collective history of a place, teenagers. To complicate matters, Yarbrough’s three latest novels have Toni’s newfound friend and confidant chronicled the unconnected lives of is Alan’s son, Mason—a fact that individuals in Loring since the turn Alan is loathe to stand on the of the 20th century. In Visible Spirits, sidelines and allow, yet he is too good his second novel, Yarbrough takes the a father to interfere. Disaster looms, reader back to the racially divided and Yarbrough’s lilting prose and Loring of 1902. In Prisoners of War, elegant storytelling leave the reader Yarbrough reimagines the Delta town particularly vulnerable to the horror during World War II, when it was man running away from his troubles that Alan’s retribution brings. home to a German POW camp. His in California, wife and daughter in The End of California is a tale latest effort, The End of California, tow. Pete Barrington is running about returning heroes, brings us into the 21st century. We home—to the home that he last relationships between parents and now find Loring a thoroughly modern knew as a star high school tight end. children, the past returning as Mississippi town, complete with cell The town hasn’t changed much, present, and testimony to the fact phones, Starbucks, and Google. But despite all the modernizing effects that one can go home again, but not in The End of California, Loring, the past 20 years have had on it. without a cost. while modern, is still nothing like Barrington effortlessly returns to the JIMMY THOMAS California. Yes, the mocha lattes and playing field, both of football (as frappuccinos taste the same either volunteer assistant coach) and family Editor’s Note: Piggly Wiggly, place, but Yarbrough, as always, is medicine, but his 15-year-old, violin- Greenwood, Mississippi, 2004, the keenly aware of his surroundings, and playing daughter, Toni, and wife, photograph on the jacket of Steve in Loring little old ladies still bring Angela, resent being wrenched from Yarbrough’s book, is by Mississippi cakes to folks’ homes after a death in the home they knew and loved. They Delta native Maude Schuyler Clay. the family and high school find the Mississippi Delta neither quarterbacks are local heroes. quaint nor fascinating, and soon, out A reoccurring theme throughout of resentment and desperation, they Yarbrough’s Loring novels is that his each turn to other men to alleviate characters are either running from their discontent. Junior Ray. something or to something—more Enter Alan DePoyster. Alan By John Pritchard. Montgomery: often than not the town itself. In The manages the local Piggly Wiggly, is NewSouth Books, 2005. 160 pages. End of California, Pete Barrington ran blissfully married, is pious in thought $23.95 cloth. away from Loring to California to and deed, and has never once missed play college football and pursue a an opportunity to attend his son Editor’s Note: This review by Steve degree in medicine. Now, following a Mason’s football games. He also hates Yarbrough originally ran in the Mobile messy malpractice suit, he is a grown Pete Barrington as much as any Register on May 22, 2005.
Book Reviews and Notes by Faculty, Staff, For these and other books call 800-648-4001 or fax 662-234-9630. Students, and Friends of the Center for the 160 Courthouse Square • Oxford, Mississippi 38655 Study of Southern Culture
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Reading the South continued
A few years ago, at a combination and killing him. As J. R. tells us, “I hell.” After Voyd goes a little bit bookstore/gift shop/restaurant in a wanted to kill him. . . . It’s just crazy at a black establishment called small Mississippi Delta town not far something about him I hate, and, the Nite Al Café & Club and from the place where I grew up, I did quite frankly, if you want to know misplaces his clothes, Junior Ray a book signing for one of my novels. the truth, I really kinda enjoy the pronounces him “buck nekkid and The people who ran the shop were feeling. . . . He was just what you drunk as a bicycle.” JR is also very nice, and the event was well might call convenient.” Junior Ray capable of acute political and attended. Though the town in has two reasons for his hatred. One sociological commentary: “‘Now question was about 65 percent black, is that Shaw comes from the planter that Mississippi has become part of the crowd there was entirely white, class, a group that poor whites like the United States, things ain’t the except for one black woman in her Junior Ray have always despised. same. Well, it’s become partially 40s who stayed busy bringing food The other is that Shaw showed signs part of it, anyway. Which is sayin’ out to tables and clearing away dirty of being dangerously liberal on the lot, because when I was a boy, wuddn dishes. When I had finished signing issue of race, referring to black none of it in America.” and was about to put away my pen, people, in a set of notebooks that When I was a boy, which was not so one of the owners, a pleasant lady Junior Ray has captured, as long after Junior Ray was one, wuddn who’d provided my wife and me the “Negroes,” rather than calling them none of it in America, either. It is kind of warm hospitality one can “niggas” as Junior Ray and just about indeed partially part of it now, but the count on in the Delta, leaned over, all the other white people in Mhoon Mississippi Delta is a nation unto handed me one more book, and, in a County do. itself, and in this promising debut whisper, said, “This one’s for There’s not a lot of plot in novel John Pritchard proves that he Nandene.” It says a lot about the Pritchard’s novel. It’s reminiscent in knows the language and customs of its Delta that I knew instantly who structure to some of Barry Hannah’s natives as well as any writer to come Nandene was. And it says even work, whose early, boozy novel Ray along in quite some time. more that under no circumstances particularly comes to mind (and STEVE YARBROUGH could she have approached my table Pritchard’s title may be no to get that book signed. coincidence), and it would be a I mention the incident because I disservice to readers if any reviewer suspect that some people who go out failed to acknowledge that the book and buy John Pritchard’s darkly funny is surely one of the most profane in Dark Familiar. first novel, Junior Ray, are going to recent memory. Quoting from it is By Aleda Shirley. shake their heads at some of the main difficult, because there are few, if Louisville, Ky.: Sarabande Books, character’s racist pronouncements, any, passages free of racist epithets, 2006. 73 pages. $21.95 cloth, assuring themselves that things can’t misogynistic slurs, or foul references $13.95 paper. possibly still be that bad, not even in to certain bodily processes. the area one historian has called “the Nevertheless, as one who’s spent a At Oxford’s Off Square Books this most Southern place on earth.” fair amount of time in football June, Aleda Shirley laughed about Indeed they can be, and in this novel locker rooms in the Mississippi her presumption in titling several of they usually are. Delta and also put in some hours in the Dark Familiar poems after Junior Ray Loveblood, the dives up and down Highway 49, I canvases by Mark Rothko and narrator of Pritchard’s novel, is a can attest that the author’s ear for Jackson Pollock, “two of the greatest racist ex-deputy sheriff living in Delta speech is pitch-perfect. It is painters of the 20th century.” Rothko Mhoon County, Mississippi. Junior precisely this that endows Junior Ray allusions frame the book neatly, from Ray and his sidekick, another inept with much of its considerable the epigraph to the name of the final lawman named, appropriately, Voyd, appeal. poem, “White Center.” But, much have spent years trying to track When Junior Ray’s lady friend more significantly, Shirley adapts a down a decorated World War II begins giving pet names to body modern painter’s techniques hero named Leland Shaw. Shaw, parts, he observes that “it’s enough throughout, manipulating colors and after returning from the war to to gag a . . . maggot.” Musing on the shapes to create meaning and evoke accolades, had dropped out of state penal system, he notes that strong feelings. She sees “hopeless society and gone into hiding, and while certain convicts were granted planes of white” in a winter view; she Junior Ray had become obsessed conjugal privileges, they “had to remarks that city lights turn the night with the possibility of finding him work harder than a water boy in sky “milky,” making the “contours” of
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Reading the South continued 6OJWFSTJUZ1SFTTPG.JTTJTTJQQJ 4HE !RT OF A 'OOD 2EAD
constellations “too abstract” to .%7 ). 0!0%2"!#+ identify; she visualizes a porch “drowned in shadow, the oaks 3HELBY &OOTE & dogwoods/ losing their green ! 7RITERS ,IFE to imagined violet.” "Y # 3TUART #HAPMAN Judge this book by its cover, h! FRANK FULL BODIED a reproduction of Charles PORTRAIT OF THE MAN AND Carraway’s elegant Light from AN AGILE EXAMINATION OF &OOTES DEVELOPMENT AS Above, which hangs in the A WRITERv n4HE .EW 9ORK Mississippi Museum of Art. )NHERIT THE ,AND OVER 4IMES "OOK 2EVIEW Carraway depicts a room *IM #ROW -EETS %DITED BY $AVID 'ALEF AND emptied of everything but -ISS -AGGIES 7ILL "ETH 7EINHOUSE light and shadows; Shirley "Y 'ENE 3TOWE 3TORIES ABOUT THE PERILS )LLUSTRATIONS BY !CROSS THE #REEK describes “tenebrous corners” AND TENSIONS OF MIDDLE &AULKNER &AMILY 3TORIES #ARL ! 3ERGIO AGE WRITTEN BY TWENTY and “the baize light of "Y *IM &AULKNER 4HE FASCINATING HISTORY OF AUTHORS OVER THE AGE OF morning.” Carraway’s black- A LEGAL lGHT IN WHICH AN FORTY INCLUDES PIECES BY &OREWORD BY and-white tiled floor looks ALL WHITE JURY AWARDED &REDERICK "ARTHELME &LOYD # 7ATKINS like a huge chessboard; the !FRICAN !MERICANS A 0ERCIVAL %VERETT 'ISH *EN %ARLY GLIMPSES AND book, too, is darkly familiar .ORTH #AROLINA ESTATE !NTONYA .ELSON LETTERS THAT REVEAL with realms of chance and HARDBACK AND OTHERS 7ILLIAM &AULKNER IN A strategy: roulette and PAPERBACK FAMILY SETTING blackjack, “a lucky piece of hematite,” the Kentucky #OUNT .O #OUNT Derby. The startling image of &LASHBACKS TO &AULKNER casino as cosmos sets the tone "Y "EN 7ASSON in the opening poem, “The )NTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY Star’s Etruscan Argument.” #ARVEL #OLLINS As carefully constructed as ! TOUCHING MEMOIR OF a Rothko painting, this work &AULKNER WRITTEN BY HIS depends on juxtapositions. lRST LITERARY AGENT AND Ancient Etruscan and Indian ONE OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS 3HADOWING )LLUSTRATIONS OF civilizations contrast with 2ALPH %LLISON contemporary croupiers and %PIC AND 6OYAGE "Y *OHN 3 7RIGHT "Y 7ALTER !NDERSON &AULKNER AND “a murder forty years old”; ! CRITICAL STUDY OF THE %DITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION behind dark curtains, the 2ELIGION WRITINGS AND THOUGHT OF BY 2EDDING 3 3UGG *R window in the poet’s dim %DITED BY $OREEN &OWLER THE !MERICAN LITERARY !N INTRIGUING SAMPLE AND !NN * !BADIE hotel room looks out on the GENIUS AND HIS BLUES AND OF 7ALTER !NDERSONS &AULKNER AND 9OKNAPATAW JAZZ DERIVED hVERNACULARv glare of casino light; at the ARTISTIC VISIONS INSPIRED BY PHA #ONFERENCE ESSAYS AESTHETIC slot machines and card tables, LITERATURES GREAT STORIES THAT EXAMINE HOW HARDBACK eyes “gleam with hope & its HARDBACK RELIGION RELATES TO opposite.” The title comes &AULKNERS WORK from Emily Dickinson’s poem 4HE .EW "LUE 'HOST (UNTERS OF 1528 (“The Moon upon her -USIC THE 3OUTH fluent Route”), a reflection on #HANGES IN 2HYTHM "Y !LAN "ROWN &AULKNER "LUES n design, or lack of design, in &ROM ACROSS THE 3OUTH -ASKS AND -ETAPHORS "Y 2ICHARD * 2IPANI the universe. At her darkest, PROlLES OF IRREPRESS "Y ,OTHAR (yNNIGHAUSEN ! STUDY THAT lNDS !FRICAN IBLE INVESTIGATORS OF THE Shirley, too, speculates on ! CRITICAL STUDY OF THE INmUENCES OF MELODY HAR PARANORMAL RUSES AND THE ROLES WITH God’s absence. “The Star’s MONY RHYTHM AND FORM UNJACKETED HARDBACK WHICH 7ILLIAM &AULKNER Etruscan Argument” ends IN THE TOP SONGS FROM PAPERBACK MASKED HIMSELF AND HIS with cigarette smoke EACH DECADE OF 2" CHARACTERS dissipating above gamblers’ UNJACKETED HARDBACK heads: “invisible systems at PAPERBACK work, & God/ not looking out WWWUPRESSSTATEMSUS s
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for any of us from the inverted/ Aleda Shirley nothing by you,/ I must again begin domes in the ceiling that watch & saving or live less dearly.” record everything.” Cued by the Dark familiars include death and title, Mississippians will recognize taxes, but also iconic cats “at their the unnamed casino as the Silver Hadley bowls in the morning,” or Star at Philadelphia, the Neshoba curled in lawn chairs, or sitting on a County town where three civil dark bed with phosphorescent eyes. rights workers were murdered the Sadly, the glow is fleeting. Robert night of June 21, 1964. Frost said, “Nothing gold can stay”; Death is a dark familiar in and Shirley hears “Rhododendron Shirley’s poetry. An earlier leaves rattle their shredded gold.” collection, Long Distance (1996), Still, wisteria and dogwood blossom describes ghostly presences in in these poems; and, even on April “Shades” and John F. Kennedy’s 15, “a grackle, a bluejay & two assassination in “Texas” (“I was in cardinals peck/ at the damp grass” of Texas, a third-grader in Mrs. the poet’s yard in Jackson. Watson’s class”). While “The Star’s The publisher’s Web site, Etruscan Argument” can be read as www.sarabandebooks.org, provides a an elegy for James Chaney, Andrew rich resource for exploring Dark Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, Familiar, including an interview Shirley had just completed third with Aleda Shirley and several grade when the activists were killed. suggested readings, from Faulkner to “Wisdom,” a poem about her Philip Larkin and Joan Didion. Kentucky grandfather, is a more Even more intriguingly, Shirley personal variation on the genre. family history gains mythic poses 10 questions (on her affection Wisdom, Cyclone, and Good Luck resonance in the poem. In fewer for lists and her attitude toward were three Metcalfe County towns than 50 lines, “Wisdom” 21st-century technologies, for that sent young men to World War encompasses seasons and planets, example) and offers detailed I: “Imagine them/ moving down the wars and journeys, generations of creative writing exercises that will road under rustling sweetgums.” Old birthing and dying. make readers envy her poetry comrades bury Waller Franklin “No one warned me about the students at Millsaps College. Shirley in a snowy churchyard in countless/ tributaries of the Styx JOAN WYLIE HALL Wisdom in 1973, though he lived in that skein through a life,” the poet nearby Summer Shade at the time writes in “The Asphodel Fields,” at of his induction. Like the veteran’s the start of the book’s final section. Silver Star, these place names and Most obviously, these tributaries are landscapes contribute wonderfully the several deaths recorded and Great with Child: Letters to to the book’s profound themes of eulogized in Dark Familiar; but the a Young Mother. luck and loss. metaphor also includes the By Beth Ann Fennelly. Memories haunt Dark Familiar, misunderstandings and betrayals of W. W Norton & Company, 2006. yet “Wisdom” is unusually an early love affair described in such 220 pages. $22.95 cloth. evocative. “A thousand thousand poems as “Convergence: Number 10, changes” happened in Mr. Shirley’s 1952” (a Jackson Pollock title) and Beth Ann Fennelly knows the life, including the first spacewalk by “Fin de Siècle.” Contemplating loss ancient truth about pregnancy and an astronaut, “the planet shining (a broken relationship, a sinking childbirth—that one woman needs behind him.” The image is as house), Shirley—like Shakespeare another woman to help her over the unforgettable as the veteran’s in his sonnets—turns the language threshold, through the door of memory of “his father’s father of accountancy into poetry. The foreknowledge that is a birth in itself. talking about the year without a title “April Fifteenth” is a good She has written a new classic summer.” Untimely snow and frost example. And, in “In the destined to be an ideal gift for soon- destroyed the crops in many states Cathedral,” the poet reacts to the to-be mothers, a valuable text for in 1816, a terrible disaster for death of her early lover by childbirth classes, or a smart first families like the Shirleys, whose “audit[ing] the books”: “Bequeathed purchase after a positive pregnancy
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test. However, this little book is far Fennelly’s honesty even allows her to more than another “What-to- admit her brief attraction to “a poet Expect” pregnancy guide. It is an with whom I’d flirted outrageously all epistolary story of loving friends, week” during a well-deserved hopeful families, healthy relation- professional break from her full-time ships, and happy parents. mothering. These letters were first written to a This is a jewel of a book, a warm younger friend who found herself but sophisticated recollection of a pregnant with her first child, living stage of life better experienced in far from her close female friends and female companionship than in family. A new mother herself, isolation. Fennelly’s generous gift of Fennelly promised her friend that she herself to her young friend is now a would be her long-distance partner gift that can and should be shared in the pregnancy and childbirth, with others. sending frequent letters of BRIDGET SMITH PIESCHEL encouragement, information, literary contexts, and empathy. After the birth had occurred, her friend asked permission to share the treasured letters with first one friend, and then the letters are as sober as this one. Lucy Somerville Howorth: another, until Fennelly realized that There are lighthearted, even New Deal Lawyer, the collection could be more hilarious reminders of the Politician, and Feminist universal than particular. Very lightly undignified, smelly, eye-rolling edited, these letters that allowed the business of parenting. Stressing that from the South. author to “shape [her] own reflections squeamishness is soon discarded by By Dorothy S. Shawhan and about pregnancy and child rearing” most mothers, one of Fennelly’s Martha H. Swain. Foreword by provide a wonderful and insightful potty-training descriptions ends in Anne Firor Scott. Baton Rouge: look into the lives of two women the discovery of “a thin, whitish Louisiana State University Press, who are working together to bring piece of thread . . . coming from [her 2006. 234 pages. $42.95 cloth. another loved child into the world. daughter’s] bottom.” She suddenly It is not too surprising, perhaps, that With honesty, humor, and self realizes that it is a strand of dental Lucy Somerville Howorth deprecation, Fennelly shares her floss, and that the day before, as she (1895–1997), being the daughter of experiences, both negative and was flossing her teeth, her “little Robert Somerville and Nellie positive ones, producing a work that monkey watched, rapt, and the Nugent Somerville, the first woman moves this book into the broader phone rang.” Fennelly recalls that ever to serve as a member of philosophical context of modern she “laid the dental floss on the edge Mississippi’s state legislature, herself human relationships. And Fennelly of the sink, but when [she] came played a very active and successful understands and explains the back it was gone.” Perhaps the sweet role in the history of the women’s significance of parenting and its revenge will come when, one day, liberation movement, at both the connection with history, without the teenaged daughter will hear this national and the state level, for being self-conscious or pretentious. story told by her indulgent mother as most of the last two-thirds of the She reminds her friend that as a her peers roar with laughter. 20th century. This book by Dorothy mother, “you [will] understand There are letters that deal with S. Shawhan, a novelist and teacher yourself as lodged in history in a way miscarriage, suicide, sex, post partum of English at Delta State University you didn’t before. Your beliefs will be depression, infant death, physical in Howorth’s longtime hometown of tested, your hypotheses put into pain, the difficulties pregnancy and Cleveland, Mississippi, and Martha action, so you’ll consider them in a childbirth cause in a marriage, the H. Swain, a professor emerita of new way. Whether you’re explaining effect of child-rearing on a woman’s history at Texas Woman’s University where pets go when they die or working life and her sense of herself, and a onetime winner of the teaching your child to recycle, your and the involuntary but inevitable Mississippi University for Women’s philosophies have ramifications. For recollection of the painful memories Eudora Welty Award, tells the story the rest of history, echoes of your of her own childhood traumas, relived of her long life and numerous voice will be heard.” But not all of in the light of the newest generation. achievements in vivid detail. A
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foreword by Anne Firor Scott, Association, taking as her subject professor emerita of history at Duke “Laws about Lawyers.” In 1926 she University, who enjoyed a close began practicing law in her native friendship with Howorth for more city of Greenville and was very than 40 years, tells readers that she active in relief measures after the was “one of the truly impressive great flood there in 1927. Appointed women of the 20th century.” that same year to be the U.S. For researching Howorth’s life commissioner for the southern and career the book’s two authors district of Mississippi, she began to had numerous sources on which to be called “Judge Lucy,” an epithet draw. Collections of her papers are she would be known by for the on deposit both in the library of the remainder of her long life. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Meanwhile, since 1924 she had Study in Cambridge, Massachusetts, been serving as a member of the and in the library at Delta State state Board of Bar Examiners, a University. Numerous references to fellow member of which was her her are also to be found in several of law school friend and contemporary, her friends’ papers deposited in Joseph Howorth. On February 16, other library collections, in a 1928, the two were married and number of published public began practicing as law partners in documents, and in the numerous job with an aircraft production firm both Greenville and Jackson. press interviews that she gave in the in New York City. Taking up residence in Jackson, later years of her life. She was herself While in New York, Howorth Judge Lucy again became active in the author of more than a dozen became active in Democratic Party both the AAUW and the YWCA articles on various subjects that she politics and also in the YWCA and and other women’s organizations as was active with regard to, and many the American Association for well. Dismissed from the Board of authors of both books and articles University Women, both groups in Bar Examiners when Theodore G. have included references to her in which she would remain very active Bilbo began his second term as their works. for most of the rest of her life. governor in 1928 and “reorganized In describing Howorth’s early Returning home to Mississippi, in the board out of existence,” she childhood the authors tell how she 1920, she became one of the first responded by becoming politically and her mother were able, each women to enroll in the University active. In 1931, following in her summer, to escape from life in Law School in Oxford, whose dean, mother’s footsteps, she won election Greenville, Mississippi, where Thomas H. Somerville, was a distant to the lower house of the state Nellie Somerville’s campaigns on cousin. There, in addition to meeting legislature. She did not run for behalf of female suffrage often with William Faulkner and working reelection, however, for, in July caused her to be at odds with the with him in founding a student drama 1934, she was one of three women Percys and other members of the group called “The Marionettes,” she appointed by the Roosevelt town’s high society, by escaping to a graduated top of her class and administration to serve on the “Chatauqua atop the Cumberlands” delivered a highly controversial Veterans Administrations Board of at Monteagle, near Sewanee, commencement speech attacking Appeals in Washington, D.C. Over Tennessee, where Nellie had attempts to halt the teaching of the next 20 years, having the purchased a cottage in 1886. From Darwinian evolution in the schools. advantage of being both a woman 1912 to 1916 Lucy Howorth was Returning then briefly home to lawyer and a very able public even farther away from home, at Cleveland, Mississippi, Howorth speaker, she served as a “Watchdog Randolph-Macon Women’s College both assisted her mother in getting for Women” in the nation’s capital, in Lynchburg, Virginia. And, after elected to the lower house of the serving in various positions in the just a brief return to Greenville, in state legislature, in 1923, and Veteran’s Administration down to the summer of 1918, she was able, accompanied her when she went to 1948 and then as a member of the finally, to break what she always the Democratic National Conven- War Claims Commission until 1954, called “the spell of the South” by tion in New York City in 1924. Also while still continuing very active in enrolling in a graduate program at in 1924, she became the first woman the AAUW and other organizations Columbia University and getting a ever to address the Mississippi Bar campaigning for both more rights
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and more opportunities for women Cole in 1967, while teaching in a in America. Head Start summer program that Her last two years in Washington The Reverend. met in one of Cole’s churches in were spent doing legal research for Photographs by James Perry Walker. Marshall County. At the end of that the newly created Commission on Foreword by Will Campbell. summer, Walker moved on, but he Governmental Security and also for Jackson: University Press of returned to north Mississippi in the her cousin James Somerville’s law Mississippi, 2006. 108 pages. 79 mid-1970s. He had learned to use a office in Washington. But, in the duotone photographs. $35.00 camera in the interim and asked spring of 1957, when her husband, cloth. Reverend Cole for permission to Joe, retired after working for 20 James Perry Walker’s The Reverend is photograph the religious life of the years in the Pentagon, the Howorths the latest in a series of first-rate churches he pastored. Cole took retired back home to Cleveland, photographic books from the Walker’s proposal to the members of Mississippi. There they no longer University Press of Mississippi. his churches, and they agreed. Over practiced law, but Lucy remained Using black-and-white photographs the next six years, until Reverend very active, even after Joe’s death in and verbatim texts selected from Cole’s death in 1981, Walker was a 1980. She continued to spend tape recordings, Walker documents frequent visitor in the clergyman’s some time every summer with other a portion of the Southern past that home, where he interviewed him at family members at the Monteagle at first glance seems far removed length and made a number of cottage, which was still family from the present but actually still photographs. He also spent many property. Declining health did not exists (in only slightly altered form) Sundays in church, photographing prevent her from visiting Alaska in in more than a few rural places in worship services, baptisms, and 1986 and London and Italy in 1987. the South today. The book focuses funerals, as well as making portraits In 1988 she returned to Washington on Reverend Louis Cole of various church members. to attend the AAUW national (1900–1981), the circuit-riding The result, 25 years later, is The convention. When she died nine pastor of several small African Reverend. It’s a handsome book, nicely years later, at the age of 102, the American churches in north designed and with excellent authors conclude, the richest legacy Mississippi and west Tennessee, reproductions. With few exceptions, she left for future generations was during the final six years of his life. Walker’s photographs are strong, both the much richer understanding she The Reverend goes far beyond telling technically and in terms of content. left behind her of the “glory of being about just one man, though, to The portraits—there are several of a feminist.” reveal a religious culture and Reverend Cole and many of individual The one flagrant error in the book worldview that few outside the rural members of his churches—are direct is the report that her law school South will ever come across. and uncontrived. People look into the commencement ceremony, in 1922, Walker first got to know Reverend camera, well aware of who they are was held in the University of (and that they’re being Mississippi’s “old Fulton Chapel,” photographed), but rarely which had “been a hospital during posing in any overly self- the Civil War and remained a conscious way. The images haunting reminder of the past.” In made during worship are fact, it would have been held in the respectful and even-handed, old Chapel building that now houses showing quiet, contemplative the Croft Institute. Fulton Chapel moments as well as more was not built till 1929. There are euphoric ones. The pictures also a few typographical errors. But, of baptisms and funerals altogether, the book provides a always seem appropriate to detailed, insightful, and thorough their occasion, depicting account of Judge Lucy’s long, highly emotional events in a eventful, and wonderful life. clear, straight-forward manner MICHAEL LANDON that neither trivializes nor intrudes. The Reverend also includes a number of landscape and architectural photographs. These are
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generally less interesting, though the Great-grandchildren? Just two boys These two new blues books take landscapes do an effective job of from the congregation? We’re not radically different approaches to the setting the north Mississippi rural allowed to know. One also wonders task at hand, but they agree on a key scene. The pictures of church why several undistinguished, and point: the creole language in which buildings, however, feel perfunctory seemingly peripheral, photographs— blues people tell their stories—a and lack the power of most of the rest three from 2001, 20 years after mixture of African and European, of the pictures in the book. Reverend Coles’s death, and two of subcultural and commercial, and rife Before and after the main body of church buildings a considerable with signifying play—is as important photographs are passages of text in distance from the sites of Coles’s north as the bittersweet tonalities and Reverend Cole’s own words. Those Mississippi congregations—are syncopated rhythms animating the preceding the pictures seem pieced included. There may well be good music itself. “Blues language is packed together from recorded interviews; reasons, but without that information, with . . . fascinating African those that follow—an offertory prayer their inclusion serves only to dilute retentions,” notes Debra DeSalvo in and a sermon entitled “Strange the impact of an otherwise very fine, her informative and entertaining Fire”—come directly from a Sunday powerful, and edifying book. lexicon-cum-social-history The morning church service. The former DAVID WHARTON Language of the Blues, “yet it also are distinctly folkloric. We hear about reflects the freewheeling all-American Cole’s own youthful conversion, his lingo of the underground economy passion for hunting dogs, when during African Americans developed to the lunar cycle to hold a revival (full survive Jim Crow. . . . Blues artists— moon’s best—no surprise there), and The Language of the Blues: looking to steal from the best, like all how knowledge of the Bible can help From Alcorub to Zuzu. songwriters—nicked words and a small farmer make ends meet. It’s a By Debra DeSalvo. Foreword by Dr. phrases from the numbers runners, cosmology that doesn’t seem to John. New York: Billboard Books, hookers, drag queens, thieves, junkies, distinguish between Sunday and the 2006. 174 pages. $16.95 paper. pimps, moonshiners, hoodoo doctors, rest of the week, reflecting Reverend dealers, rounders, and con artists who Cole’s own dual life as cleric and Nobody Knows Where the made up the street set.” The eight farmer. The prayer and sermon at the Blues Come From: Lyrics expanded conference papers collected end of The Reverend are poetic, in Robert Springer’s Nobody Knows colorful, mythic, seemingly and History. Where the Blues Come From are focused Edited by Robert Springer. Jackson: improvised. The theology underlying more narrowly than the 150-odd University Press of Mississippi, them is not always easy to follow, but entries in DeSalvo’s dictionary, but 2006. 308 pages. $45.00 cloth. both provide further insight into a they display an equally broad thematic rural Southern world only recently How can we get at the truth of the spread. Editor Springer and his (and not entirely) passed. blues—a vernacular American art scholarly cohort are less interested in There’s very little not to like about form so familiar and yet so protean African origins and blues subcultures The Reverend. One does, however, that it insists (or they insist) on than in blues lyrics per se and the sometimes wish for more information. being addressed as both singular and historical events—floods, fires, The pictures’ captions, found at the plural? Should we begin the story, presidencies, lynchings, the emergence end of the book, are minimal, listing for example, with “The blues was of a charismatic blues performer, or only location and year for each image. born,” or “The blues were born”? merely the release of an especially Having been energized by Walker’s The correct answer, as any blues compelling recording—that generate pictures and Reverend Cole’s person knows, is “Yo mama.” The particular sets of songs. eloquence, some readers are likely to music’s African American creators, DeSalvo, a musician and former be frustrated by this lack of further refusing to be silenced, simplified, or associate editor of Blues Revue, information. Who, for example, are held in place, dreamed up a music so draws on an eclectic, well-chosen the woman and two small boys devilishly dialectical and fleet- mix of sources. A journalist standing by a car outside a church with footed that we’re still picking up the interested in assembling a lively Reverend Cole in the photograph on pieces and trying to fit the puzzle story rather than a scholar page 44? She is about Cole’s age and together—half-suspecting as we do concerned with adjudicating could (or could not) be his wife, but that the music’s hard laughter is competing accounts, she juxtaposes the boys look too young to be their signifying on our own fumbling Wolof and Bantu etymologies, children. Are they grandchildren? attempts to describe it. hoodoo lore, juke-joint raunch, and
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her own numerous interviews with movement, is derived from a Yoruba blues scholars and others who have blues performers in brash, pointed dance called the “shika,” but it’s also ever made the mistake of assuming ways, giving her prose a kind of named after the French word that Bessie Smith’s “Back Water creole vitality that is ideally suited “chemise,” the shirt thinly veiling Blues” must have been written as to teasing out the blues’s many what the woman was shaking. If this is commentary on the catastrophic quicksilver truths. She’s occasionally the creolization process in action, I’m flooding of the Delta after the levee wrong on the facts—blues all in. broke in Greenville. Not true, Evans researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow is a With the exception of Randall reveals through careful detective “he,” not a “she”; the groove laid Cherry’s essay on jazz-blues singer work: although the song was later down by Sam Lay in Muddy Water’s Ethel Waters, “Long, Lean, Lanky taken that way by listeners and “Mojo Workin’” is a two-beat, not a Mama,” the scholars contributing to advertised as such, Smith actually triplet-feel double shuffle—and I Springer’s Nobody Knows Where the recorded the song two months before might take issue with several of her Blues Come From situate their the levees broke, after her Christmas elisions. Rudy Ray Moore, aka investigations much less overtly than touring schedule took her through a “Dolomite,” surely belongs in her DeSalvo in the sexual freedoms Nashville that had been flooded by blues-inflected entry on rap, and enjoyed by blues people. Cherry the same heavy rains that would later Zora Neale Hurston’s folkloristic himself takes pains to note that culminate in the Mississippi’s writings, referenced in only two out although Waters’s version of “Shake overflow. of 369 footnotes (“Signifying” and that Thing” was a career-making hit Evans’s detailed archiving of high-, “Woofing”), are curiously absent in the 1920s, her “immaculate deep-, and backwater blues songs from the entries “Black Cat Bone,” diction, allied with her sunny soprano emanating from the 1927 flood is “Hoodoo,” and “Juke.” voice, [and] her poise and refined matched by Paul Oliver in “Lookin’ Yet DeSalvo’s book also offers stage presence, afforded her an for the Bully: An Enquiry into a Song startling and illuminating information uncanny ability, on record or on and Its Story,” which strives to follow about the blues on virtually every stage, to purify even the most the progress of a curiously violent bit page. The indispensable words “axe,” provocative blues lyrics.” Yet her of musical braggadocio from its “bag,” and “gig,” for example—your signal achievement, according to prehistory as a black St. Louis instrument, your stylistic approach, Cherry, was her ability to position roustabout ditty through its popular and the job you’re heading off to herself as the Northern-born success as a turn-of-the-century “coon play—entered blues performers’ slang alternative to down-home blues song” for white vaudevillian May by way of the illegal lottery business. singing (“I ain’t Bessie Smith!” she Irwin and beyond, including a An axe is a mobster’s gun; the pocket was fond of shouting as she considerably updated version called he pulls it out of is his bag. A gig, approached the stage) while “Wang Dang Doodle” that Willie borrowed from horse-racing slang, is a simultaneously praising and Dixon wrote in the 1950s for Howlin’ three-number combination—three, as parodying the Empress of the Blues in Wolf, who hated it. “He hated that DeSalvo notes, being “the minimum her recording of “Maybe Not at All”: ‘Tell Automatic Slim and Razor- number of musicians needed to make a black jazz flapper signifying Totin’ Jim,’” Dixon complained. up a band,” with an uncertain payoff complexly on the reigning blues diva. “He’d say, ‘Man, that’s too old-timey, (from bookie or bar owner) implicit in The blues—which is to say, the sound like some old levee camp both subcultural uses of the term. The blues songs that made it onto number.’” So Koko Taylor got the song “C. C. Rider,” suggests DeSalvo records—come from many different lead sheet, and made it a hit. in another entry, combines C. C.—the places, according to Springer’s Where do the blues come from? abbreviation for Calvary Corporal volume. One of them, as David Evans These two books, among other places: during the Civil War—and rider, a makes clear, is the historical moments the linguistic and social histories they familiar blues metaphor for sexual when unprecedented natural disasters unearth, the racial and sexual intercourse: it’s a woman’s lament combine with racially retrograde subtexts they reveal, the primitivist directed at her absent soldier lover. social policies: the Katrina moments, or heroic originary myths they treat Since “hoochie” is slang for whore and if you will. Evans’s “High Water with refreshing skepticism, the blues “coochie” is slang for vagina, a Everywhere: Blues and Gospel performers’ lives they closely attend “hoochie-coochie man” is a pimp. Commentary on the 1927 Mississippi to. The blues deserve such “Shimmy,” a juke-joint dance River Flood” is a brilliantly argued, considerate treatment, after all imported to Harlem that featured lots definitive, and timely piece of they’ve been through. of shoulder-shaking and breast- scholarship, necessary reading for ADAM GUSSOW
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BillFaulkner Chronicler Boozer (1927–2006)
Editor’s Note: Larry Wells of newsletters at the Memphis remembers Bill Boozer, editor of the Chamber of Commerce and the Faulkner Newsletter and Tennessee Department of Economic Yoknapatawpha Review. and Community Development, and an inventive and indefatigable For 20 years, it was my good private collector of Faulkner fortune to know Bill Boozer and materials. He was respected in work closely with him. We met in academia as well as in the publishing 1973 at the Faulkner and world. His editorial skills and Yoknapatawpha Conference at instincts were shaped by a down-to- the University of Mississippi. earth approach to Faulkner. “To From then on, every July Boozer some, he is a god,” Boozer wrote in would travel from Nashville and the first newsletter, in January of appear at our doorstep with a 1981. “To us, while we bow to the bottle of Jack Daniel’s to get the art and the genius, he is just a very stories started. During one fine storyteller, a Mississippi man conference, Bill, Carl Petersen, who had some things to say and and I stayed up until dawn. We who said them extraordinarily well. were still sitting on the front steps A writer’s writer.” talking when the Commercial This combination of common Appeal was delivered. When my sense and sensitivity became the wife, Dean, and I decided to driving force behind the Faulkner publish the Faulkner Newsletter, Bill Boozer Newsletter. “We will leave Boozer was our first, and only, Faulkner scholarship where it choice as editor. belongs, with scholars,” he wrote. His special qualifications were unique Commercial Appeal reporter, book “Our audience is anyone who admires for what was needed. He had been a reviewer for the Nashville Banner, editor Faulkner, or is curious, or who wants
Hunter Cole, former associate director and world importance, it’s good to remember Richard Howorth, mayor of Oxford, marketing director of University Press of those who helped put him in that Mississippi, and owner of Square Books: Mississippi: “I first knew Bill Boozer by position—and continue to be necessary “Bill Boozer came to Oxford to attend reputation, as one of the principal to keep him there. The Newsletter is the annual Faulkner Conference for collectors of William Faulkner materials. missed, and so is Bill.” many years. He subscribed to the Oxford Twenty-five years ago when our Eagle and was vitally interested in what acquaintance became a friendship, Bill Kenneth Holditch, professor emeritus at the went on here and made many friends the friend proved even more stalwart University of New Orleans: “Bill Boozer here. Over time, Bill became a kind of than Bill the collector. He reviewed what was blessed with the keen eye, avid ‘mayor’ of these ‘Yoknapatawpha amounts to a lengthy shelf of books for curiosity, and boundless energy that are citizens.’ The people of Oxford will miss University Press. Many times as I made the mark of the collector par excellence. him, and we extend our sympathies and decisions he was my gauge and my guide. Whenever we met—usually at some best wishes to his family.” It has been a blessing to know him, and it Faulkner conference or festival—Bill is a blessing to remember him.” would amaze me, in his quiet, Robert Hamblin, director of the Center for understated way, with fascinating stories Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri Don Kartiganer, William Howry Professor of his detective work, which involved State University: “Bill’s gentle kindness of Faulkner Studies at the University of tracking down some arcane item— and genuine good will enriched us all, Mississippi: “I knew Bill primarily book, magazine, newspaper—adding a made us not merely better students and through his work on the Faulkner new dimension to Faulkner studies. No scholars but better human beings; and Newsletter, which was always a delight Faulkner gathering will ever be quite his influence will continue to educate and an education. At a time when the same without him.” and inform Faulkner readers for Faulkner seems secure as a writer of generations to come.”
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more information on Faulkner studies and criticism and publishing activity.” Faulkner Fringe Festival The newsletter was published quarterly, and Boozer was responsible for gathering information and photos, Celebrates Its Seventh Birthday assigning reviews, or writing them Diversity marked the 2006 Faulkner Fringe Festival, which was inspired by himself. Usually he had more than Edinburgh’s Fringe Theatre Festival and Alaska’s Last Frontier Theatre Festival’s enough material. Once or twice, fringe program. Dedicated to giving a voice to all who wish to speak about however, he ran short. I’d phone him William Faulkner and his world, this year’s 11 participants spoke for up to 10 in Nashville a week before press time: minutes at Southside Gallery on Monday night, July 24, beginning at 10:00 p.m. “Well, what have you got?” He’d reply Vickie and Wil Cook’s gallery, which like Square Books has become an artistic in that matter of fact way, “Not much, center of the Oxford community, was crowded with approximately 40 guests who what have you got?” You’re kidding! In had come for a late-evening, wine-and-snacks happening. After a full day of such emergencies our staff of three— scholarly papers, they were anticipating something short, light, and entertaining. Bill, Dean, and I—scrambled to come They were not disappointed. up with copy. George Kehoe and Betty Harrington opened the evening with dramatic His collector’s instinct proved reading from “An Odor of Verbena” giving life to the scene depicting Drucilla’s invaluable. He located previously attempt to get Bayard to avenge his father’s death. Briefly discussing the unknown Faulkner anecdotes, photos, relationship between Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, Rebecca Jernigan and correspondence and encouraged performed a short scene from Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.” After giving her readers to use the newsletter as a forum take on the comic narrator of Faulkner’s The Reivers, Carolyn Ross gave life to for exchanging information, which in Faulkner’s novel by reading a short section of the work’s fast-paced comedy. turn led to more discoveries. To Bill, Reading from “Bailey Woods and Mr. J.,” a chapter of his novel Yacona Puff turning and sifting literary soil was not Adder, Gerald Inmon portrayed his narrator as he relates a humorous encounter a chore but a delight. Bob Hamblin, between himself, another boy, a hideous snake, and “Mr. Jefferson” (who may or director of the Center for Faulkner may not be Mr. Faulkner). Laughter is always an important part of this late- Studies at Southeast Missouri State night, informal program at Southside. University, recalls being with Boozer at By reading Faulkner’s 1951 address to his daughter’s high school graduating the dedication of the Faulkner plaque class in which he echoes the idea of his Noble Prize speech urging us to not be on the Lafayette County Courthouse, afraid to take risks in order to survive and endure, Janna Montgomery added a in Oxford. Dr. Chester McLarty, more somber note to the evening. How relevant Faulkner’s words are today: Faulkner’s personal physician and “Our danger is the forces in the world today which are trying to use man’s fear to friend, delivered some remarks for the rob him of his individuality, his soul, trying to reduce him to an unthinkable mass occasion. When Chester finished his of fears by bribery—giving him free food which he has not earned, easy and speech, someone in the audience valueless money which he has not worked for.” Why are we so afraid of remarked, “I wonder which of the “believing in man’s capacity for courage and endurance and sacrifice”? collectors here will get Chester’s Nancy Ashley then gave a sympathetic glance at Faulkner’s adulteries, and manuscript.” Bill, standing nearby, Seth Berner used Faulkner’s wisdom to urge people to support the responsible gave the speaker a friendly, knowing rebuilding of New Orleans. smile, reached inside his coat pocket, Charles Peek’s poem on what the blues are not as well as what they are proved and pulled out the typescript of to be “the showstopper” of the night’s revels. John and Christine Smith brought Chester’s speech, signed by the author. the program to a lively conclusion by singing all five stanzas of their original song Bill had already obtained it before the “William Faulkner Rides the Rock Island Line.” In 2006 the Faulkner Fringe ceremony. Chester had been reading Festival is alive and well and living in Oxford, Mississippi. from a photocopy. COLBY H. KULLMAN Although Bill Boozer never became acquainted with “the other Bill,” Dean and I always felt they would have gotten along famously. It’s not hard to Faulkner Conference Posters imagine him asking William Faulkner Flat copies of Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference posters with illustrations by to write a column for the Newsletter- Glennray Tutor (1989–1993) and John McCrady (1994, 2003, 2005) and with of-All-Newsletters. photographs by Martin Dain (1996), Jack Cofield (1997, 2000), Bern Keating Yoknapatawpha Press is planning in (1998), Odione (1990), Budd Studios (2002), and from the Cofield Collection due course to digitize the Faulkner (2001), the Williams Library (2004), and the Commercial Appeal (2006) are Newsletter (1981–2001, 80 issues) and available for $10.00 each plus $2.50 postage and handling. Mississippi residents add make it available online, on an 7 percent sales tax. Please use the order form on page 35. Credit cards orders also educational Web site, to students and may be made by calling 800-390-3527. scholars around the world.
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2006 Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival
The 14th annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival is scheduled to take place in Clarksdale on October 13–14, 2006. Williams’s 1959 play Sweet Bird of Youth will be a focus of the festival. As in the past, the program will include presentations by Williams authorities and friends, several performances, a session with papers by scholars, and tours of the house and neighborhood where the playwright lived as a child. Also scheduled in conjunction with the festival are workshops for teachers and for student actors and a drama competition, with prizes totaling $2,500 for the winners. “Although we love the hometown Delta plays of Tennessee Williams,” organizers of the 2006 festival explain, “we are focusing this fall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast play Sweet Bird of Youth, which is set in Biloxi. It seems appropriate to showcase a work where our fellow Mississippians are rebuilding their lives following Hurricane Katrina.” Williams authorities participating in the festival are W. Kenneth Holditch, who will present “Tennessee’s Other Mississippi: The Gulf Coast Plays”; Colby Kullman, who will moderate a Sweet Bird of Youth panel including Travis Montgomery, Peter Wirth, Vera Griffin, and William Spencer; theater scholar Milly S. Barranger reviewing the original Cheryl Crawford production of Sweet Bird of Youth; dramaturg and teacher Michael Paller discussing Gentlemen Caller, his book about the playwright; and editor Margaret Bradham Thornton presenting an overview of Notebooks, the newly published record Williams kept of his life and work from 1936 to 1981, the year of his death. The performing arts segment of the festival will be Collection of Richard Freeman Leavitt highlighted by performances of Sweet Bird. Porch plays will feature performances by Wanda Reed, of Coahoma Call for Papers on Community College, who won a 2006 Mississippi Humanities Council Outstanding Teacher Award; Oxford actors Johnny McPhail, Janna Montgomery, and Alice Walker; and Tennessee Williams Clarksdale High School’s drama class directed by teacher Philip C. Kolin, professor of English at the University of Wanda Lee. Theater director and diction coach Jay Jensen Southern Mississippi, was the guest editor for the Fall 2005 will direct the festival’s annual drama competition and acting special issue of the South Atlantic Review devoted to Tennessee workshops. Williams in/and the Canons of American Drama, exploring The Tennessee Williams Festival Acting Competition, how American playwrights shared, shaped, redeemed, or hosted by Coahoma Community College, is open to high subverted Williams’s textual landscape. The six essays in this school students in Mississippi. The competition includes two special collection focused on playwrights Edward Albee, acting categories: monologues and scenes. All material must Lanford Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, David be drawn from the plays of Tennessee Williams. Each Henry Hwang, and Tony Kushner. monologue is to be two minutes or less, and each scene is to Seeking to expand this issue into a larger collection of essays be between five and ten minutes and involve any number of on the topic, Kolin is requesting original manuscripts of 20–25 characters. pages, following MLA documentation, that interpret in new Cash prizes are given for winning monologues and scenes, and theoretically significant ways the works of major which will be performed for the festival audience. Prize contemporary American playwrights in light of Williams’s money will go to schools of the winners for use with drama plays. No previously published work will be considered. Send activities or library books related to theater and literature. hard (not electronic) copy by December 1, 2006, to Philip Students, with their teacher-sponsors, will be given the C. Kolin, Department of English, University of Southern opportunity to decide how the prize money will be spent. Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037. E-mail queries to For information on the 2006 festival and drama [email protected]. competition, write Tennessee Williams Festival, P.O. Box 1565, Clarksdale, MS 38614-1565; telephone 662-627-7337.
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Tennessee Williams Tribute in Columbus Columbus, Mississippi, the birthplace of Tennessee Williams, will honor the playwright with performances, lectures, and other activities, including tours of the town’s Victorian homes, September 1–10, 2006. The Tennessee Williams Tribute and Tour of Victorian Homes Committee will produce Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on September 1–7, at the historic Princess Theatre. Actress Erma Duricko and scholar Kenneth Holditch will present Entering the Broken World: Love and Other Distractions in the Plays of Tennessee Williams on September 8; and, at a “Moon Lake” dinner party on Saturday, September 9, actors Anthony Herrera and Tandy Cronyn will present excerpts from Night of the Iguana and readings of Williams’s poems and letters. A free matinee movie on September 9 showcases Baby Doll, starring Eli Wallach and Carol Baker, with commentary by Ole Miss English professor Colby Kullman. Other scholars who will make presentations are Milly S. Barranger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Battle Bell III, of Tulane University; Ruth Moon Kempher, of St. Augustine, Florida; and Kenneth Holditch, emeritus professor, Tennessee Williams University of New Orleans. All scholars’ presentations, to be on the Mississippi University for Women campus, are free, Tribute & Tour of thanks to a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council. Other activities include a reception and lunches at the 1848 home Shadowlawn, at Main Street Café, and at St. Columbus, Mississippi Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Tennessee Williams’s grandfather was rector. A sermon based on a theme from Cat September 1–10, 2006 on a Hot Tin Roof will precede the luncheon. Ticket packages purchased before August 31 are $100 per person for all events; after that date, ticket prices are $125 Birthplace of poet, author, per person. For more information, call 800-327-2686 or e- mail [email protected]. and playwright Tennessee Williams continued from page 7 Call for papers
selected will receive (1) a waiver of the conference Play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at registration fee and (2) lodging at the Inn at Ole Miss Historic Princess Theatre, Moon from Saturday, July 21, through Thursday, July 26. Lake Party with performances by For short papers, three copies of two-page abstracts must be submitted by January 31, 2007. Notification of selection Anthony Herrera and Tandy Cronyn, will be made by March 1, 2007. Authors whose papers are scholars presentations and movie selected will receive a reduction of the registration fee to $100. In addition to commercial lodging, inexpensive at Mississippi University for dormitory rooms are available. Women, sermon and lunch at St. All manuscripts and inquiries should be addressed to Paul’s Episcopal Church, tour of Donald Kartiganer, Department of English, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677-1848. Telephone: Victorian Homes, and much more. 662-915-5793, e-mail: [email protected]. Panel abstracts may be sent by e-mail attachment; plenary For information and to request a brochure manuscripts should only be sent by regular mail. Decisions Call 800-327-2686 for all papers will be made by March 1, 2007.
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The Historic New Orleans Collection is Following the great success of The Quilts of sponsoring the exhibition City of Hope: New Gee’s Bend, an exhibition of original works Orleans after Hurricane Katrina through by the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, Saturday, November 4, 2006, at the at the that was organized and premiered at the Williams Gallery. Historic photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2002, the prints, maps, and books on display in the MFAH is presenting Gee’s Bend: The exhibition trace New Orleans’ perseverance Architecture of the Quilt, which introduces through 300 years of periodic flooding and new artists and new motifs in works ranging natural disasters, while contemporary from the 1930s through 2005. The photographs, oral histories, video footage, exhibition will be on view in Houston and ephemera explore Hurricane Katrina’s through September 4, 2006, and will then impact and the city’s will to survive and begin a seven-city tour of American rebuild against all odds. student in the master of arts in liberal museums. City of Hope showcases a range of artifacts, studies program. It documents the history The first exhibition, which will complete objects, and interactive presentations. Audio of candy companies in Bristol dating to its four-year tour of 11 museums in stations playing excerpts of oral histories from 1909 and is part of Bristol’s sesquicentennial November 2006, introduced audiences to firemen, policemen, and Coast Guard celebration. An opening reception will be the creations of four generations of women personnel relate the experiences of first held Thursday, October 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. whose work more closely resembles responders who helped save lives and property at the museum. For information, call the modernist abstract paintings than in the storm’s aftermath. Local broadcast news museum at 423-439-4392. traditional quilts, inspiring New York Times coverage from cities to which storm victims critic Michael Kimmelman to call them fled traces the scattering of the people and “some of the most miraculous works of culture of New Orleans. Photographs modern art America has produced.” portraying the terrible destruction of property The fifth biennial Gordon Conference for “The women of Gee’s Bend are at long- provide a comprehensive survey of the post- the presentation of current research and last getting the recognition they deserve as Katrina landscape. scholarship in the field of Southern artists, and that is especially gratifying to There will be daily screenings of two decorative arts and material culture will be the museum,” said Peter C. Marzio, director documentary film projects by New Orleans held at the Museum of Southern Decorative of the MFAH. “Their command of materials native Walter Williams. New Orleans: The Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and design is genius; their body of work, Natural History (2002) describes the on October 13–14, 2006. The conference further distinguished by its historical and geography of New Orleans and looks at the provides a forum for presentation and cultural significance, is clearly a facet of diminishing wetlands and the city’s interaction with specific focus on the contemporary American art. With Gee’s vulnerability to hurricanes. Rebuilding New decorative arts and material culture of the Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, the Orleans, a film in the making, features early South from 1600 to 1850. museum hopes to bring this story to those interviews with residents returning to the Graduate students and scholars in who have not yet seen it and to deepen the city to undertake the rebuilding of their American Studies, decorative arts, African appreciation of those who have.” lives, careers, and property. Other special American Studies, Native American The 65 quilts in the exhibition, none programming in conjunction with City of Studies, art history, history, historic previously presented to the public, Hope will include a series of presentations preservation, archaeology, anthropology, demonstrate how the quilters play upon the by area artists who have created works in Southern Studies, folklife, and other fields structure or “architecture” of the quilt to response to Hurricane Katrina. as they relate to Southern decorative arts create a work of art that is based upon a City of Hope, on display at the at the and material culture are invited to submit traditional quilt pattern while Williams Gallery, 533 Royal Street, is free proposals. Subjects with an interdisciplinary simultaneously creating a visual vocabulary and open to the public, Tuesday–Saturday, approach to the study of material culture that is stylistically identifiable as Gee’s 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. For details, visit are also encouraged. Bend. New works by granddaughters and www.hnoc.org or call 504-523-4662. The conference is named in honor of Dr. great-granddaughters of some of the master Jean Gordon, associate professor of history quilt makers will be shown, along with at the University of North Carolina at quilts not previously exhibited from the Greensboro and cofounder to the early and mid-20th century. Sweetness on the State Line: A Chronicle of MESDA/UNCG Summer Institute. After Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Candy-Making in Bristol, Virginia will be a For details, please contact Gordon Quilt closes at the Museum of Fine Arts, featured exhibition at East Tennessee State Conference; Sally Gant, Director of Houston, it will tour museums in University’s B. Carroll Reece Museum in Education; MESDA, P.O. Box 10310; Indianapolis, Orlando, Baltimore, Tacoma, Johnson City, October 9, 2006, through Winston-Salem, NC 27108-0310l; fax 336- Louisville, Denver, and Philadelphia. For January 31, 2007.The exhibition is an 721-7367; e-mail [email protected]. information, call 713-639-7300 or visit outgrowth of a class project in the www.mfah.org. For information in Spanish, university’s “Foodways of Appalachia” call 713-639-7379. course, by Lisa Elliott of Kingsport, a
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continued from page 1 Mississippi Reads books will be added in 2007 and thereafter. America. The report shows “that not only is literary reading in No Mississippi com- America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate munities have participated of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The in “The Big Read” yet, but concerned citizen in search of good news about American three Mississippi projects literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain.” are on the Library of Ten communities participated in “The Big Read” in 2006 and Congress’s “One Book” were asked to read and discuss one of four books: F. Scott list. The Mississippi Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Library Commission Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, or Harper promoted the reading of Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. More communities and additional Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland in 2004. The Jackson-Hinds William Faulkner (1962), Related Web Sites Library System sponsored photograph by Jack Cofield. community-wide readings Cofield Collection, Southern Mississippi Arts Commission Media Archive, John Davis of A Lesson before Dying by www.arts.state.ms.us Williams Library, The University Ernest Gaines in 2003 and of Mississippi Mississippi Solo by Eddy L. Mississippi Humanities Council Harris in 2004. And www.mshumanities.org/pages/ “Starkville Reads,” an extension of the Starkville Public Library, read The Return of Gabriel by John Armistead in the Mississippi Library Commission spring of 2006 and is reading The Black Flower by Howard www.mlc.lib.ms.us Bahr this fall. “Mississippi Reads” will be the first statewide project Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education focusing on reading a single book by a Mississippi writer. Integrating Music and Literacy Beginning with Faulkner, Richard Wright (2008), and www.msartsalliance.com/events/megaConf2005.htm Eudora Welty (2009), “Mississippi Reads” will thereafter offer opportunities for reading and studying other writers Mississippi Department of Education from the state. Richard Wright’s Uncle Tom’s Children is the http://www.mde.k12.ms.us/ book for 2008, when the Wright centennial will be celebrated. (He was born on a plantation near Natchez on Mississippi Library Association September 4, 1908.) Eudora Welty’s Collected Stories is the www.misslib.org/ book for 2009, which is the year for celebrating her centennial. (Welty was born in Jackson on April 13, 1909.) Mississippi Literacy Resource Center Readers will not want to miss this opportunity to increase www.ihl.state.ms.us/gol/index.html reading among all Mississippians and highlight some of Mississippi’s extraordinary writers, including Faulkner, Center for Faulkner Studies Wright, and Welty. Sponsors who have developed Teaching Faulkner Newsletter “Mississippi Reads” invite individuals, institutions, and Teaching Go Down, Moses and Other Books organizations to join as participants and partners in the www6.semo.edu/cfs/teaching_faulkner.htm project. Please consult the addresses below to find out more and to be listed on the roster of “Mississippi Reads” American Library Association participants and supporters. “One Book, One Community Guide” www.ala.org/ala/ppo/onebookguide.pdf
Center for the Book in the Library of Congress List of “One Book” Projects “Mississippi Reads” Contacts www.loc.gov/cfbook/ Web Page www.mississippireads.org National Endowment for the Arts “The Big Read” E-mail www.neabigread.org/about.php [email protected]
National Endowment for the Humanities “Becoming Americans” Bookshelf http://www.neh.gov/
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
MARK CAMARIGG is the former assistant editor and of the Mississippi Bar in the 20th century and a history current publications manager for Living Blues magazine. of the University of Mississippi’s Law School. He is researching Soul Blues music in the South. BRIDGET PIESCHEL is professor of English and director REBECCA LAUCK CLEARY is a communications of the Southern Women’s Institute at the Mississippi specialist in the Office of Media and Public Relations at University for Women. the University of Mississippi. JIMMY THOMAS is managing editor of the New ADAM GUSSOW, a professor of English and Southern Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. An alumnus of the Studies at the University of Mississippi, is the author of University of Mississippi, he has worked for publications Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir and Seems in Oxford and New York. Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues DAVID WHARTON is assistant professor and director of Tradition. documentary projects at the Center, where he teaches JOAN WYLIE HALL teaches in English at the University courses in Southern Studies, fieldwork, and of Mississippi. She is the author of Shirley Jackson: A photography. Study of the Short Fiction and articles on Tennessee CHARLES REAGAN WILSON is director of the Center Williams, William Faulkner, and other authors. and professor of history and Southern Studies. DONALD M. KARTIGANER holds the William Howry STEVE YARBROUGH, a native of the Mississippi Delta Chair in Faulkner Studies at the University of town of Indianola, is the author of three story Mississippi and is director of the Faulkner Conference. collections and three novels. He has taught at MICHAEL LANDON is professor of history emeritus at the California State University, Fresno since 1988. University of Mississippi. Among his books are a history Southern Studies Awards Kate Medley The Center announced the winners of 1989 by Center supporters Mrs. Homer the Southern Studies paper prizes on Earl Gray Jr. and the late Colonel Gray, graduation day, May 15, 2006. These of Oxford. The Coterie Award is funded awards, funded by Center donors, by the Coterie Club of Oxford, also a honor students for outstanding research longtime supporter of the Center. and writing on Southern topics. The Lucille and Motee Daniels Award The Gray and Coterie Awards honor honors the best papers by Southern the best undergraduate papers on Studies graduate students. Again, faculty Southern Studies. Faculty judge judge nominated papers, and the two nominated papers, and the winners best papers receive scholarships. Mary From left: Daniels Award winners Mary receive a scholarship. Susie Penman is Battle and Kate Medley are this year’s Battle and Kate Medley celebrate their this year’s winner of the Gray Award for recipients. Battle’s paper is a study of a awards with fellow Southern Studies her documentary research paper on the boycott in Horry County, South student Georgeanna Milam. town of Bruce, Mississippi. Penman, who Carolina, that occurred over the is from Jackson, is a junior journalism replacement of a black high school major in the Honors College and has quarterback with a white player. Battle, blues helped make the University a taken fieldwork and photography classes who is from Horry County, completed place to come to study music. The from David Wharton, director of the her thesis on the episode this summer. award is given for the best student Center’s Documentary Studies program. Medley, who is from Jackson, Mississippi, writing on Southern music. Stephanie Jacques de March, a 2006 graduate and is an experienced photojournalist who Ash Rodgers, of Holly Springs, Southern Studies major from Rising has completed her first year in the Mississippi, is this year’s recipient for Fawn, Georgia, is the winner of the master’s program. her thesis on African American women Coterie Award for his paper on kudzu in The Aschoff Award honors Peter blues singers. Rodgers received her MA Southern culture. Aschoff, the deceased anthropology in English last year and now teaches at The Gray Award was established in professor whose popular courses on the New Albany High School.
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Mark Your Calendars September 7, 2006 February 15–17, 2007 Thacker Mountain Radio Blues Today: A Living Blues Symposium Celebration of New Encyclopedia “Blueswomen Today” of Southern Culture Volumes www.outreach.olemiss.edu/livingblues/bluestoday/ www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/ www.thackermountain.com/ March 19–22, 2007 Mississippi Delta Literary Tour October 19–22, 2006 Greenwood, Indianola, Greenville, Clarksdale Southern Foodways Symposium www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/ “The Gulf South: Tracing the Arc of Eats from Texas to Florida” March 22–24, 2007 www.southernfoodways.com Oxford Conference for the Book Dedicated to Larry Brown November 1–3, 2006 www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/ “Communities, Leadership, and the South” Conference and July 22–26, 2007 20th Anniversary Celebration Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference of Halfway Home and a Long Way to Go “Faulkner’s Sexualities” Clinton Presidential Center and Park www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner/ Little Rock, Arkansas www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/
The Fourteenth Oxford Conference for the Book The University of Mississippi • Oxford, Mississippi March 22–24, 2007 Photo by Jack Cofield. Courtesy Algonquin Books. The 2007 program will be dedicated to Mississippi author Larry Brown (1951–2004). The conference will be the first major event on Brown’s life and literary legacy. Sessions will include remembrances by friends, including his editor and several writers and musicians; discussions by critics and scholars who have written about Brown’s work; screenings of The Rough South of Larry Brown and Big Bad Love; “Larry Brown and Film” with clips from films in which he appears; and exhibitions of his books and portraits of him by Tom Rankin and other photographers. The 2007 Delta Literary Tour, scheduled for March 19–22, will be based in Greenwood and visit Indianola, Greenville, and Clarksdale. Larry Brown. Details about the conference and tour will soon be posted on www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com/.
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Southern Culture Catalog
Birth of the Movement: World War Covering the South: II through the 1950s – Opening remarks: Gerald Turner, Morris L. A National Symposium on the Media and Marx, Jack Nelson; moderator: John Chancellor; panelists: Harry S. the Civil Rights Movement Ashmore, Robert E. L. Baker, Faith These DVDs document a national symposium held at the University of Christmas, Chester A. Higgens Sr., Mississippi in April 1987. Jointly sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethel L. Payne, John N. Popham, Southern Culture and the departments of Journalism and Afro-American Robert Schakne. Studies, the symposium examined the civil rights movement and the role the Color, 87 minutes. media played in both reporting and shaping the movement. Participants, DVD1049-1 . . . . $20.00 including 53 print and broadcast journalists whose faces and bylines were Friends ...... $18.00 frequently before the pubic during the 1950s and ’60s, discussed various aspects of the civil rights movement in six panels over two days. The Mass Movement, Part 1 – Moderator: Claude Sitton; panelists: John Doar, Charles M. Dunagin, Karl The Political Movement – Moderator: Aftermath: 1968 to the Present – Fleming, Dorothy Gilliam, John Lewis, Gene Patterson; panelists: Jack Bass, Moderator: Nick Kotz; panelists: S. Chuck Quinn, Gene Roberts, Doris E. Reese Cleghorn, John Doar, John Gale Denley, Paul Duke, John O. Saunders, Rex Thomas. Herbers, Ray Jenkins, Haynes Johnson, Emmerich Jr., Pat Fergurson, Bill Color, 87 minutes. Marianne Means, Roy Reed, Arlie W. Kovach, John Lewis, William C. DVD1049-2 . . . . $20.00 Schardt, Richard Valeriani. Matney, Austin D. Scott, Wallace Friends ...... $18.00 Color, 89 minutes. Terry. Closing Remarks: Jack Nelson. DVD1049-4 . . . . $20.00 Color, 212 minutes. The Mass Movement, Part 2 – Friends ...... $18.00 DVD1049-6 . . . . $20.00 Moderator: David Halberstam; Friends ...... $18.00 panelists: Edwin O. Guthman, Herbert The Bottom Line: The Decision Kaplow, John Lewis, Bill Minor, Makers – Moderator: Hodding Carter Charles Morgan Jr., Fred Powledge, III; panelists: Brandt Ayers, Callie Bill Shipp, W. C. Shoemaker, Crossley, Willie Morris, Hugh B.
Lawrence Still, John Seigenthaler. Patterson, Dick Sanders, Richard B. Robert Jordan Color, 89 minutes. Stolley, Juan Williams. DVD1049-3 . . . . $20.00 Color, 98 minutes. Friends ...... $18.00 DVD1049-5 . . . . $20.00 Friends ...... $18.00 Speakers for the panel “Birth of the Movement: World War II through the 1950s” were (from left) Robert E. L. Baker; John Chancellor, who moderated Robert Jordan the session; Chester A. Higgins Sr.; Ethel L. Payne; and John N. Popham. Robert Jordan
U.S. Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) speaks with journalist Doris Saunders, of Pictured with the poster for “Covering the South: A National Symp;osium on the Media Jackson, Mississippi, during the and the Civil Rights Movement” are (from left) moderators David Halberstam and sympoisum. Claude Sitton, panelists Harry S. Ashmore, symposium chairman Jack Nelson, and moderator Nick Kotz.
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Southern Culture Catalog 13th Oxford Conference for the Book: March 31–April 1, 2006
Shelby Foote: His Work and Legacy – Film clip of a tribute by Ken Burns, talks by Ellen Douglas and Gary W. Gallagher, with Charles Reagan Wilson as moderator. Remembering Shelby Foote - Panelists Michael McDonnell, William Pearson, William Reed—members of the author’s book club—with Richard Howorth as moderator. Color, 60 minutes. DVD1149 ...... $20.00 Friends ...... $18.00
Literature for Young Readers 1 – The Endangered Species: Readers Readings and remarks by T. A. Barron Today and Tomorrow - Elaine H. and Rosemary Oliphant-Ingham as Scott, moderator, with panelists moderator. Claiborne Barksdale, Sarah Combs, Color, 45 minutes. Cindy Dach, and Pamela Pridgen. Writing about Art and Artists - DVD1150 ...... $20.00 Color, 45 minutes. William Dunlap, artist and arts Friends ...... $18.00 DVD1152 ...... $20.00 commentator, talks with authors Patti Friends ...... $18.00 Carr Black, Mary Lynn Kotz, and Literature for Young Readers 2 – Annalyn Swan. Readings and remarks by Sharon M. Finding a Voice/Reaching an Color, 45 minutes. Draper and Barbara Lowe as moderator. Audience - Barry Hannah moderates a DVD1159 ...... $20.00 Color, 45 minutes. discussion with agent Alex Glass and Friends ...... $18.00 DVD1151 ...... $20.00 authors T. A. Barron, Nickole Brown, Friends ...... $18.00 Sarah Gorham, and Starling Lawrence. Readings and Remarks - Authors Color, 45 minutes. Michael Knight, Lewis Nordan, and Readings and Remarks - Authors Tad DVD1158 ...... $20.00 Natasha Trethewey, with Tom Floridis, Starling Lawrence, and James Friends ...... $18.00 Franklin as moderator. Meek, with Jamie Kornegay as Color, 45 minutes. moderator. Writing Literary Lives - Ted Ownby DVD1160 ...... $20.00 Color, 45 minutes. moderates a session with biographers Larry Friends ...... $18.00 DVD1153 ...... $20.00 L. King (Willie Morris), Suzanne Marrs Friends ...... $18.00 (Eudora Welty), and Darlene Harbour Celebration of National Poetry Unrue (Katherine Anne Porter). Month - Readings and remarks by Readings and Remarks - Authors Jack Color, 45 minutes. poets Beth Ann Fennelly, Aimee Pendarvis and George Saunders, with DVD1161 ...... $20.00 Nezhukumatathil, and Aleda Shirley. David Galef as moderator. Friends ...... $18.00 Color, 45 minutes. Color, 45 minutes. DVD1156 ...... $20.00 DVD1155 ...... $20.00 Friends ...... $18.00 Friends ...... $18.00 Writing about Politics - Curtis Wilkie moderates a discussion with Senator Readings and Remarks - Authors Trent Lott and journalists Brian Keith Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, James Gill and Thomas and Olympia Vernon, with Ethel Oliphant. Young-Minor as moderator. Color, 45 minutes. Color, 45 minutes. DVD1157 ...... $20.00 DVD1154 ...... $20.00 Friends ...... $18.00 Friends ...... $18.00
The Southern Register Summer 2006 Page 33 Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:47 PM Page 34
Southern Culture Catalog
Faulkner’s Mississippi: Land into Civil Rights in the Delta Legend Journalist Curtis Wilkie in conversation Transforms the fiction of William with Patti Carr Black, Emmett Till’s Faulkner’s mythical Jefferson and cousin Wheeler Parker, Sumner Yoknapatawpha into the reality of residents Frank Mitchener and Betty Oxford and Lafayette County, and Bill Pearson, Henry Outlaw of the Mississippi, with quotations from Delta Center for Culture and Learning Faulkner’s writings correlated with at Delta State University, and former appropriate scenes. The first motion Mississippi governor William F. Winter. pictures inside Faulkner’s home are Photo Courtesy March 29, 2006. presented along with rare still Color, 60 minutes. photographs of the writer. Narrated by DVD1148 ...... $20.00 Joseph Cotton. Script by Evans
Friends ...... $18.00 Memphis Commercial Appeal Harrington. Producer, Robert D. Oesterling, University of Mississippi Center for Public Service and Continuing Studies. 1965. Scene at courthouse in Sumner in 1955 Color, 32 minutes. during the Emmett Till murder trial DVD1069 ...... $25.00 Friends ...... $22.50
“Are You Walkin' with Me?” Sister Thea Bowman, William Faulkner, and African American Culture William Faulkner Stamp Ceremony Overview of A 22-cent Literary Arts programs Sister Commemorative stamp honoring Thea presented William Faulkner was issued by the at the annual United States Postal Service during a Faulkner ceremony at the University of Conference Mississippi on August 3, 1987. The from 1980 DVD of this program includes remarks through 1989. by author Eudora Welty, Faulkner’s Produced by daughter, Jill Faulkner Summers, and Lisa N. others. Howorth, Color, 34 minutes. Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 1990. DVD1231 ...... $25.00 Color, 30 minutes. Friends ...... $22.50 DVD 1016 ...... $25.00 Friends ...... $22.50
The Eleventh Oxford Conference for the Book Poster (2001) William Faulkner and Eudora Welty Poster features Richard Wright photograph by Carl Van Vetchen. This film features Eudora Welty at the M9903 ...... $10.00 Friends ...... $ 9.00 opening session of the 1987 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. The Dain & Cofield Welty reads from her story “Why I Collection Posters Live at the P.O.” and answers High quality 18" x 24" duotone questions about her work and posters featuring timeless Faulkner’s. photographs of William Faulkner Color, 34 minutes. DVD1104 ...... $25.00 Dain Poster M1034 . . . $18.95 Friends ...... $22.50 Cofield Poster M1033 . $18.95 Faulkner’s World Exhibit Poster M1789 ...... $10.00
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J. B. Murry: Writing in an Unknown Tongue; Reading through the Water Southern Culture Catalog J. B. Murry, a self- The University of Mississippi International Orders educated African Barnard Observatory • University, MS 38677 Other video formats American visionary may be available. from Georgia, Phone 800-390-3527 • Fax 662-915-5814 Please call for celebrates ritual information. “writing in the Spirit” Sold To: and water divination. These traditional expressions, derived from African influences, occur throughout the Name Caribbean, South America, and the American South. This DVD shows Murray performing the Address rituals and includes shots of some of the paintings for which he has gained national recognition. City State Zip This short documentary raises issues about the relationship between the spiritual and the Country aesthetic in the art of religious visionaries. By Judith McWillie/University of Georgia. 1986. Daytime Phone Color, 15 minutes. ❏ Payment enclosed (check, money order, international money order in U.S. currency DVD1145 ...... $15.00 Friends ...... $13.50 or international check drawn on a US bank; made payable to The Southern Culture Catalog) ❏ Charge my: ❏ Visa ❏ MasterCard Account # James “Son” Thomas A renowned Delta blues singer, “Son” Exp. Date Signature Thomas was also a How To Order Delivery gifted clay sculptor. By mail: Southern Culture Catalog Orders for delivery in the continental United Filmed at his home in Barnard Observatory • The University of States are shipped by US Postal Service unless Leland, Mississippi, this Mississippi • University, MS 38677 other means of delivery are requested. Orders treatment juxtaposes for delivery outside the continental United By e-mail: Credit Card orders only: Thomas’s artwork with several musical States are shipped by Parcel Post. performances. It also includes a sequence showing [email protected] Shipping and Handling Costs how he worked clay to create his famous By telephone: Credit Card orders only: United States: $3.50 for first video or other item, sculptures of the human skull. By Judith 800-390-3527 (Monday-Friday, $1.00 each additional item sent to the same McWillie/University of Georgia. 1986. 8:15 a.m.–4:45 p.m. CST) in the US. Color, 17 minutes. address. Foreign: $5.00 for each item. Outside the US call 662-915-5993 DVD1146 ...... $15.00 Posters. United States: $3.50 for any number of Friends ...... $13.50 By fax: Credit Card orders only: posters sent to the same address. Foreign: 662-915-5814 (Daily, 24 hours a day) $10.00 for any number of posters sent to the Voices of Perthshire same address. Voices from Perthshire depicts life on a Return Policy All sales are final. No refunds will be made. If an order Mississippi Delta contains faulty or damaged goods, replacements will be made when such items cotton plantation are returned with problem(s) noted. from 1938 to 1942, as seen through the home movie camera of Emma Knowlton Lytle. Mrs. Lytle donated the Item # Title/Description Qty. Price Total original silent 8mm film to the Southern Media Archive. Producers Karen Glynn and Peter Slade added recorded commentary from both he filmmaker and retired Perthshire farm workers to the film. Voices of Perthshire depicts the full cycle of a cotton crop from breaking the ground, to making a bale, to weaving cloth in the textile mills of North Carolina. (Voices of Perthshire replaces the earlier Raisin’ Cotton production.) Color, 63 minutes. DVD 3001 ...... $25.00 Order Total Friends ...... $22.50 This form may be Mississippi residents add 7% sales tax photocopied. Faxed orders Shipping and Handling accepted. TOTAL
Southern Register Summer 2k6 8/13/06 12:48 PM Page 36
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