WINTER 2019 DIRECTOR’S COLUMN If you’ll pardon a personal memory, I remember people who studied households, hearing a short news piece on the radio in, it had to have work and leisure, popular reli- been 1972, when I was twelve. It started, “And here’s a story gion, and what some French you may be hearing more about.” Of course it was about the scholars were calling mental- break-in at Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. ités. Avoiding kings, queens, For the next year and a half, I heard and read a lot and presidents, this was scholarship about things that more about that story. As a kid who wanted to be a mattered to me, especially in wake of how Watergate serious person, I was a fan of politics and political encouraged me to doubt not just the self-righteousness history as much as baseball, and I knew the names and but the very importance of the powerful. I could have parties of all of the presidents and their vice presidents, taken an alternative approach, writing for example, about who ran against them, and some of the major issues of Watergate and southern history (and now that sounds like their presidencies. As a twelve year old, that’s what I an intriguing conference), but in the 1980s my first US assumed history was. So I followed the Watergate news history survey classes rarely said much about presidents as I followed baseball, every day and with great detail. If and people like them. there had been box scores or trading cards for politicians, Pretty quickly there were scholars challenging parts I would have read and collected them. of that approach. Some critics said that too much of that Because the president said he was not a crook, I assumed— scholarship went looking for the exotic and extraor- at age twelve—he was telling the truth. But as a young teen- dinary, and even more critics feared that in trying to ager, I was horrified by the Nixon tapes, with their reports get beyond the study of people in power, some of that of profanity, racist insults, and the lying crookedness of it scholarship simply ignored issues of power. I’m pleased all. In response, I started rethinking both what it meant to that much of today’s scholarship takes power seriously to be a serious person and what I thought of as history. Surely study a kind of everyday politics. there was far more to history than the respectable-looking It’s reasonable to wonder how scholarship may change men who had government jobs and lied a lot. Like so many in response to current crises. I keep hearing people say people, I had the feeling that the people and everyday things the current presidency is unprecedented. Will scholars in my little town mattered as much as the topics discussed take on the concept of precedent with the kind of vigor by the news-defining people on the nightly news. Loving the past generation addressed the concept of social baseball as much as politics, I knew that sports mattered construction? Will scholars assume they can make sense not as time away from important things but as something of things, or will they take new approaches to things that that captivated people’s interests and passions. And every seem chaotic or ridiculous? I tend to think that most Sunday morning I was part of a group that sang, prayed, scholars who write about the late 2010s will concentrate and listened to sermons about things that seemed far more far less on the president and the people around him than important than anything Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, on issues of climate, violence and peace, sexuality and and those guys could ever do. gender, race, work, and globalization. At least on this Just a few years later, two of those topics—recreation topic, I’m pretty confident about today’s twelve-year-olds, and religion—became the focus of my history dissertation. most of whom seem likely to deal with political scandals In the early 1980s I arrived in the history profession at a without facing the kind of disillusionment I did. time when the most exciting innovations came from the To return to the personal: I am thinking even more than usual about the relationships among my own stories, contemporary issues, and academic communities. 2019 THE SOUTHERN REGISTER will be my last year as director of the Center for the Study A Publication of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture • The University of Mississippi of Southern Culture. The university, with a committee of faculty and staff colleagues, is running an internal search STT S ATERLY OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI, U.S.A T Published by for a new director, and I look forward to having a part The Center for the Study of Southern Culture The University of Mississippi in new directions the Center will be taking. As a faculty Telephone: 662-915-5993 • Fax: 662-915-5814 member—a professor of Southern Studies and history—and E-mail: [email protected] • southernstudies.olemiss.edu not a director, I imagine I’ll have more time for scholarly Winter 2019 work and academic experimenting to figure out what I want to study, why, and how. Not all that different from REGISTER STAFF when I was twelve and thirteen, I’ll keep trying to figure out how to live as a serious person. Editor: James G. Thomas, Jr. Editorial assistants: Rebecca Lauck Cleary and Margaret Gaffney Graphic Designer: Susan Bauer Lee Ted Ownby Page 2 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Alumni News—A Year in Review The Center Looks Back on Alumni Accomplishments in 2018 One way to see the variety Charleston, as one of the “31 of interests and accomplish- People Changing the South.” ments of Southern Studies In September, Becca alumni is to consider their Walton headed to London newsworthy moments over for a ten-month residency the last twelve months. With with the Community of St. apologies to the many alumni Anselm. whose equally noteworthy In October, the University moments are not included, Press of Mississippi released here’s a year in the life of the fourth edition of Steve some SST alums in the news. Cheseborough’s Blues In January, Time named Travelin’: The Holy Sites of the the Silence Breakers of the Delta Blues. #MeToo movement as its Throughout the fall, Kevin persons of the year. Lindsey Mitchell was in the news Reynolds of New Orleans was multiple times discussing one of the featured persons. his scholarship on African Early in 2018, Jon Peede, American chefs in nine- who had been serving as teenth-century Charleston. acting chair, was nomi- During the fall election nated and then confirmed as season, Ford O’Connell chair of the National Endowment Border: Theft and Violence on the Creek- appeared several times on Fox News for the Humanities. His position Georgia Frontier, 1770–1796, and as a political commentator. brought him back to Mississippi for Sarah Condon was one of several In November, as part of her work multiple events. priests serving at Barbara Bush’s as president of the Southeastern In January, the Nashville funeral in Houston. In December American Studies Association, Molly Reads program started reading she was part of the funeral of George McGehee of Emory University’s and discussing John T. Edge’s H. W. Bush. Oxford College, welcomed members The Potlikker Papers. In June, the In May, Mary Margaret Miller to the American Studies Association Mississippi Institute for Arts and White began a new position as meeting in Atlanta, and Susan Letters gave the book its award for executive director of Mississippi Glisson gave the keynote address at the year’s best work of nonfiction. Today, and Schuyler Dickson began the Equity Summit, an event at the In February, Jennifer “Bingo” a new podcast called The Daring with University of South Carolina. Gunter started a new job as the a discussion with author Michael In December, Caroline Herring director of the South Carolina Farris Smith. released a new CD, Verse by Verse, Collaborative on Race and In June, in a large ceremony in and Tyler Keith and his colleagues Reconciliation at the University of Memphis, Miranda Cully Griffin was in Teardrop City released an album, South Carolina. ordained as an Episcopal deacon. It’s Later Than You Think. That In March, just in time for In July, Susie Penman defended same month, Preston Lauterbach their appearances at the Oxford her thesis film and thesis to become published Bluff City: The Secret Life Conference for the Book, Delta the first graduate of the Center’s of Photographer Ernest Withers, and Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in new MFA degree in documen- Jimmy Thomas published an edited Mississippi by Ellen Meacham and tary expression. She entered the collection honoring Charles Reagan Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan American Studies PhD program at Wilson, Southern Religion, Southern Miles were published. the University of North Carolina in Culture, with Ted Ownby and In April, Joshua Haynes, histo- the fall. Darren Grem. rian at University of Southern In August, Time named Stanfield Mississippi, published Patrolling the Gray, CEO of Dig South in The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 3 Brown Bag Lecture Series and Visiting Documentarians Series Spring 2019 The Brown Bag Lecture Series takes place on Wednesdays at noon in the Tupelo Room in Barnard Observatory unless otherwise noted. The Visiting Documentarians Series also takes place in the Tupelo Room in Barnard Observatory unless otherwise noted. Visit the Center’s website for up-to-date-information on all Center events.