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 T 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 AT 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.

JANUARY 23 FEBRUARY 13 BROWN BAG LECTURE BROWN BAG LECTURE Adam Ganucheau and Ryan Nave Joshua S. Haynes “Mississippi Today: Covering the Fall 2018 Senate Patrolling the Border: Theft and Violence on the Creek- Race: A Discussion” Georgia Frontier, 1770–1796 Mississippi Today is a news and media company with Joshua S. Haynes is an ethnohistorian at the University a forward-facing mission of civic engagement and of Southern Mississippi who researches, publishes, and public dialog through service journalism, live events, teaches early American and Native American history and digital outreach. This talk will explain why elimi- focusing on themes such as colonialism, violence, and nating “fake news” will take more than just journalists. state formation. His book, Patrolling the Border: Theft Misinformation is abundant and spreads rapidly in our and Violence on the Creek-Georgia Border, 1770–1796, was society, but the problem needs to be solved in class- published by the University of Georgia Press in 2018. rooms and boardrooms—not newsrooms. Adam Ganucheau covers politics and state govern- ment for Mississippi Today. Ryan “R. L.” Nave is the FEBRUARY 19 editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today. VISITING DOCUMENTARIANS SERIES FEBRUARY 6 Lynne Sachs BROWN BAG LECTURE The Washing Society and Tip of My Tongue Jaime Harker Time and location TBA The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Lynne Sachs will screen her filmThe Washing Society Queer Literary Canon and a portion of her filmTip of My Tongue. Following the screenings, Sachs will talk about experimental docu- Jaime Harker is a professor of English mentary, investigations of history and historiography, and the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and how we examine and refract the past, with a special and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi, emphasis on the connections to the South, including the where she teaches American literature, LGBTQ litera- Washerwomen’s Strike of 1881 in Atlanta, as explored in ture, and gender studies. She has published essays on The Washing Society, and responses to Martin Luther King’s Japanese translation, popular women writers of the life and death from the perspective of a child living in interwar period, Oprah’s book club, William Faulkner, Memphis (Tip of My Tongue). Cold War gay literature, and women’s liberation and gay Sachs’s recent work embraces a hybrid form combining liberation literature. Her talk will be on her new book, the nonfiction, experimental, and fiction modes. She lives The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches part-time in the Art Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. Department at Princeton University.

Page 4 Winter 2019 The Southern Register neighborhood. Consisting of both documentary portrai- ture and landscape, Eich narrates the long, twisted, and complicated history of Baptist Town into a contem- porary context. Sin & Salvation is the second volume of Eich’s four-part photo series Invisible Yoke. Ralph Eubanks is a visiting professor of Southern Studies and English at the University of Mississippi. He also teaches courses in the UM Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.

FEBRUARY 27 BROWN BAG LECTURE Ansley L. Quiros God with Us: Lived Theology and the The Washing Society Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942–1976 Ansley L. Quiros is an assistant FEBRUARY 20 professor of history at the University of North Alabama, BROWN BAG LECTURE specializing in US history, African American history, the history of immigration, and the history of race and Charles McKinney and religion. She is a native of Atlanta and a graduate of Aram Goudsouzian Furman University and Vanderbilt University. Quiros An Unseen Light: Black will discuss her new book, God with Us: Lived Theology Struggles for Freedom in and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942–1976. Memphis, Tennessee Charles McKinney is Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of MARCH 7 Africana Studies and an associate professor of history at (THURSDAY) Rhodes College. In addition to An Unseen Light, he is the author of Greater Freedom: The Evolution of the Civil Rights VISITING DOCUMENTARIANS Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina. Aram Goudsouzian is SERIES chair of the Department of History at the University of John Biewen Memphis. He is the author of Down to the Crossroads: Civil “Turning the Lens” Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March against Fear, King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution, Barnard Observatory, 4:00 p.m. The Hurricane of 1938, and Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon. In his lecture John Biewen, host and producer of the McKinney and Goudsouzian will discuss their edited book, Scene on Radio podcast, will play clips from the past two An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, series of the show, Seeing White and Men, and describe Tennessee. how he and his collaborators arrived at a fresh docu- mentary approach to looking at racism and sexism. In FEBRUARY 25 these episodes Biewen puts himself, and people like him, in the frame. He takes deep historical dives and interro- (MONDAY) gates white people (along with the notion of “whiteness” BROWN BAG LECTURE itself) as the inventors of race and racism, and men as Matt Eich and Ralph Eubanks the creators and protectors of sexism and patriarchy. John Biewen is audio program director at the Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University With Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town Matt Eich has (CDS). He teaches audio to undergraduate, graduate, documented life in Baptist Town, one of Greenwood, and continuing education students at CDS. He is Mississippi’s oldest African American neighborhoods, co-editor of the book, Reality Radio: Telling True Stories where the legacies of racism continue to impact the in Sound. people economically and culturally. Sin and Salvation is the culmination of seven years of photographic work and engagement with the residents of the Baptist Town continued on page 6

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 5 MARCH 18 During the Twenty-Sixth (MONDAY, 4:00–5:30) Oxford Conference for the Book, photographer-filmmaker- BROWN BAG LECTURE geographer David Zurick will Anne Balay present an illustrated talk based Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, on his new book A Fantastic State Trans, and Black Truck Drivers of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan. A Q&A will follow his talk. Cosponsored by the Center, the Zurick earned his PhD in geography from the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, University of Hawaii and the East-West Center, and the UM History Department as part of Women’s Honolulu. His books and photography have won History Month numerous awards, including the National Outdoor Book Award and Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Visual Long-haul trucking is linked to almost every industry in Artist Fellowship Award (twice). In 2014 he began A America, yet somehow the working-class drivers behind Fantastic State of Ruin, a series of color photographs in big rigs remain largely hidden from public view. Gritty, India, which was published in 2018. His documentary inspiring, and often devastating oral histories of gay, filmCrossing Sacred Ground was completed in 2017 and transsexual, and minority truck drivers allow award- was screened in multiple film festivals. winning author Anne Balay to shed new light on the harsh realities of truckers’ lives behind the wheel. Anne Balay teaches in gender and sexuality studies at APRIL 3 Haverford College and is the author of Steel Closets. BROWN BAG LECTURE Joye Hardiman MARCH 20 “A Soul Comes Home to Her BROWN BAG LECTURE Mississippi Roots” Muhammad Fraser-Rahim Joye Hardiman is an educational archi- tect, cultural custodian, world trav- “Spiritual Wayfarers, Enslaved and eler, and ancestral storyteller. She served as the execu- Indigenous Muslims: Past, Present, tive director of the Evergreen State College’s Tacoma and Future of American Muslims” Campus from 1990 to 2008 and is the interim director American Muslims have been in the of the Washington Center for Improvement in Higher US since its inception, and the enslaved African Muslim Education. She has done extensive research on Africana population is part of the first wave of American Muslims history, cultural continuity and spirituality in Egypt, in our republic. This lecture will navigate through the Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Mali, the Gambia, Ghana, past, present, and future state of American Muslims and Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, South Africa, India, the place special emphasis on the rich legacy of American Yucatan, Trinidad, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, and Cuba. Muslims in the American South who were part of the Her current research focus is on Cameroonian Nile Valley original Muslim community in America. linguistic, cultural, symbolic, and spiritual retentions. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim is an assistant professor in Hardiman will present “A Soul Comes Home to Her the Department of Intelligence and Security Studies at Mississippi Roots,” documenting her first return trip to the Citadel and executive director, North America for Mississippi. Her family left shortly after Emmett Till’s Quilliam International, the world’s oldest counter-extremist murder. She will place this trip within the broader organization. He served for more than a decade in the US context of displaced African Americans reconnecting government writing strategic analytical products for the with their roots in the US South. White House and National Security Council. He holds a PhD from Howard University. APRIL 10 MARCH 27 BROWN BAG LECTURE Jerusa Leão OXFORD CONFERENCE FOR THE BOOK VISITING DOCUMENTARIAN “Saravah! A Trip to the World of Samba de Roda from Bahia” David Zurick A Fantastic State of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan Samba de Roda, which involves music, dance, and poetry, is a popular festive Overby Center Auditorium, 3:00 p.m. event that took place in the State of Bahia, in the region

Page 6 Winter 2019 The Southern Register of the Recôncavo and Sertão in the seventeenth century. APRIL 17 The dance is performed on several occasions, such as BROWN BAG LECTURE popular festivities or Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies, but also performed in more spontaneous contexts. Angie Maxwell Jerusa Leão is a Brazilian artist, singer, songwriter, and “The Long Southern Strategy: How multi-instrumentalist. Originally from Bahia, Jerusa grew Chasing Voters in the White South up in the cities of this arid province, beginning her artistic Changed American Politics” career in 1995. Leão resides in Brazil, performing as a trav- elling solo singer and researcher of Brazilian culture. Beginning with Barry Goldwater’s Operation Dixie in 1964, the Republican Party targeted disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold APRIL 11 of the American South. To realign these voters with the (THURSDAY) GOP, the party capitalized on the white racial angst that threatened southern white control. However—and this is VISITING DOCUMENTARIANS critical—that decision was but one in a series of decisions SERIES the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and Rachel Boillot religion as well, in what is called here the “long southern Moon Shine: Photographs of the strategy.” In the wake of second-wave feminism, the Cumberland Plateau GOP dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from its platform and promoted traditional gender roles in an Barnard Observatory, 4:00 p.m. effort to appeal to antifeminist white southerners, and it Moon Shine is a collection of photographs by Rachel politicized evangelical fundamentalist Christianity repre- Boillot that focuses on the unique musical traditions of sented by the Southern Baptist Convention. Over time, the Cumberland Plateau. This region is home to a rich that made the party southern, not in terms of place, but storytelling heritage, showcased in historic fiddle tunes, in its vision, in its demands, in its rhetoric, and in its balladry, religious gospel pieces, and other songs passed spirit. In doing so, it nationalized southern white iden- down as part of a formidable oral tradition. This project tity, and that has changed American politics. celebrates the creative impulses within the Cumberland Angie Maxwell is the director of the Diane Blair Plateau and seeks to document its disappearing tradi- Center of Southern Politics and Society and is the tions. Boillot’s photographs will exhibit in Gammill Diane D. Blair Associate Professor of Southern Studies Gallery in Barnard Observatory from March 4 to April in the political science department at the University of 12. Her lecture will take place on April 11 in the Tupelo Arkansas, Fayetteville. Room in Barnard Observatory. Rachel Boillot is a photographer, filmmaker, and educator based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her work explores APRIL 24 American culture and narrative traditions. She holds a BA Brown Bag Lecture in sociology from Tufts University, a BFA from the School Mark Yacovone of the Museum of Fine Arts, and an MFA in experimental and documentary arts from Duke University. “Jazz at Noon” She recently joined the team at the Kentucky Mark Yacovone, origi- Documentary Photography Project and teaches at nally from Providence, Belmont University. Rhode Island, now makes his home in Oxford, Mississippi, where he holds a key position in the Yalobushwhackers, the house band for Mississippi Public Radio’s weekly, live, and unre- hearsed Thacker Mountain Radio show. Yacovone studied jazz under three-time Latin Grammy nominee Gustavo Casenave and has shared the stage and/or the studio with musical greats Mojo Nixon, Jody Williams, Buddy Cage, Maria Muldaur, Jeff Daniels, Charlie Musselwhite, and Jack Sonni, just to name a few. Yacovone will end the semester’s Brown Bag series by playing jazz stan- dards and jazz interpretations of several songs you might not expect to hear on piano. RACHEL BOILLOT RACHEL A Prayer for Evelyn, Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, 2016

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 7 The Twenty-Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE & SQUARE BOOKS The Center’s longest-running event UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI • OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI website (www.oxfordconference- is gearing up for another three forthebook.com) or by calling days of readings, panel discussions, 662-915-3369. and lectures by notable writers, As in years past, Thacker Mountain first-time novelists, and celebrated Radio will host a special Oxford scholars. The Oxford Conference Conference for the Book show at the for the Book is one of the University Lyric Theatre on the Oxford Square. of Mississippi’s and Oxford’s most The show will include conference popular events and will take place authors and visiting musicians, and March 27–29, when poets, novelists, begins at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday,

TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL journalists, scholars, and readers Oxford March 28. Following Thacker Mountain will flock to Oxford and the univer- Conference Radio, SouthDocs filmmaker Rex sity campus from far and wide to for Jones will screen his filmLa Frontera celebrate the Twenty-Sixth Oxford THE with Mark Hainds, author of Border Conference for the Book. Walk. Both the film and the book The event is always free and WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY, MARCH 27-29, 2019 document Hainds’s one thousand- open to the public. Events will take mile walk along the entire stretch of place on the UM campus and at Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Square Books, Lafayette County Literacy Council, Friends of the J. D. Williams Library, Overby Center for Southern Journalism US-Mexican boarder. BOOKand Politics, John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writers Fund, Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, and the Lafayette County & Oxford Public Library. The conference is partially funded by the University of Mississippi, a contribution from the R&B Feder Foundation for the Beaux Arts, grants from the Mississippi Humanities Council, and promotional support from Visit Oxford. various sites across town. Beginning www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com At noon on Friday, the Lafayette the conference at 11:00 a.m. on County and Oxford Public Library Wednesday, Travis McDade, author will host a poetry talk and lunch with of the recently published Torn Although authors and sessions are poet Dave Lucas (Weather). Both the from Their Bindings: A Story of Art, still being added to the schedule, the lunch and talk are free, but reserva- Science, and the Pillaging of American OCB has begun releasing the list tions are required. University Libraries, will give the of participants, including Edmund The 2019 Children’s Book Festival, keynote lecture on his book at a free White; Ralph Eubanks and Dennis held in conjunction with the Oxford luncheon sponsored by the Friends Covington; Jessica Wilkerson, with Conference for the Book, will be of the Library in the Faulkner Room Karida Brown, Elizabeth Catte, and held again at the Ford Center for the in Archives and Special Collections Meredith McCarroll; Jason Berry; Performing Arts on Friday, March in the J. D. Williams Library on the David Blight; Annie Duke; Mark 29, with more than 1,200 first and UM campus. The lunch is free, but Hainds and Rex Jones; William Boyle fifth graders from the schools of reservations are appreciated. with Willy Vlautin, Elle Nash, Gabino Lafayette County and Oxford in In addition to book historians, Iglesias; David Zurick; and Kiese attendance. Dan Santat will talk to the this year’s participants include Laymon. Each afternoon Square first graders about his bookAfter the novelists, poets, literary critics and Books will host book signings for that Fall at 9:00 a.m., and Sharon Draper cultural studies scholars, soci- day’s authors at Off Square Books. will talk to the fifth graders about her ologists, essayists and memoir- On Wednesday evening the Book book Out of My Mind at 10:30. The ists, literature scholars, editors Conference Authors Party will be Lafayette County Literacy Council and publishers, and even a deci- held at the Memory House on the sponsors the first-grade program and sion strategist/former professional university campus and cohosted the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford spon- poker player. Conference panels, again this year by the Friends of the sors the fifth-grade program. All 1,200 sessions, and readings will explore J. D. Williams Library. This much- children will receive their own copy a wide range of topics, such as loved opening dinner reception is of their grade’s book. crime noir, foodways poetry, a lively fundraiser with wonderful Campus visitors may purchase the US-Mexican border contro- food, drinks, music, and conversa- parking passes for $3/day at the versy, decision making, the life of tion between fellow conference welcome center on University Frederick Douglass, three hundred attendees and guest writers. A Avenue, adjacent to the Grove, upon years of New Orleans history, the portion of the $50 ticket proceeds is arrival at the conference each day. Appalachian South, and the spiri- tax deductible. All reservations can The Oxford Conference for the tual South. be made online on the conference Book is sponsored by the Center

Page 8 Winter 2019 The Southern Register for the Study of Southern Culture and Square Books, and supported by the Lafayette County Literacy Council, the J. D. Williams Library, the Friends of the J. D. Williams Library, the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, the John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writers Fund, the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Southern Documentary Project, the University of Mississippi Department of Philosophy and Religion, and the Lafayette County & Oxford Public Library. The conference is partially funded

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 9 by the University of Mississippi, a contribution from the R&B Feder Foundation for the Beaux Arts, a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council, and promo- tional support from Visit Oxford. To learn more about the guest authors, please visit the confer- ence’s new website (www.oxford- conferenceforthebook.com) and the conference’s Facebook page. You can register for special events on the conference website or by contacting Rebecca Cleary at 662-915-3369 or by email at [email protected]. For other inquiries, contact James G. Thomas, Jr., conference director, at [email protected].

Page 10 Winter 2019 The Southern Register The Twenty-Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book Please note that the schedule is subject to change due to the addi- tion of unconfirmed programming at time of press. Check the 2:30 p.m. David Blight: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of conference website, www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com, for Freedom up-to-date information. Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27 4:00 p.m. Annie Duke: Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter 11:00 a.m. Welcome Lunch at Archives and Special Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts Collections Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Hosted by the Friends of the Library Politics Archives and Special Collections J. D. Williams Library 6:00 p.m. Thacker Mountain Radio Guest author: Leanne Shapton 11:30 a.m. Travis McDade: Torn from the Their Bindings Lyric Theatre on the Oxford Square Archives and Special Collections J. D. Williams Library 8:00 p.m. A Book and a Movie Border Walk and La Frontera 1:00 p.m. Edmund White: The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Mark Hainds and Rex Jones Reading Location to be announced Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics FRIDAY, MARCH 29 3:00 p.m. David Zurick: A Fantastic State of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan 9:00 a.m. To Be Announced Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Politics Square

5:00 p.m. Leanne Shapton: Guest Book 10:30 a.m. Southern Foodways Alliance Presents: Off Square Books on the Oxford Square Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance 6:30 p.m. Book Conference Authors Party Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Co-hosted by the Friends of the Library Square The Memory House 406 University Ave. 12:00 p.m. Poetry Talk and Lunch (Advance Ticket Required) Dave Lucas, Weather Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library Sponsored by the Lafayette County and THURSDAY, MARCH 28 Oxford Public Library (Advance Registration Appreciated) 9:30 a.m. “The Spiritual South” Ralph Eubanks in conversation with Dennis 1:15 p.m. “On the Fringes of Noir” Covington: Salvation on Sand Mountain William Boyle, Willy Vlautin, Elle Nash, Overby Center for Southern Journalism and and Gabino Iglesias Politics Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square 11:00 a.m. “The Appalachian South” Jessica Wilkerson, Karida Brown, Elizabeth 2:30 p.m. Kiese Laymon, Heavy Catte, and Meredith McCarroll Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Square Politics

3:45 p.m. Salvatore Scibona: The Volunteer Lunch on Your Own Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square 1:00 p.m. Jason Berry: City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 5:00 p.m. Reception and Book Signing Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Off Square Books on the Oxford Square Politics

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 11 Deep South: Particular Places Gammill Gallery to Exhibit Photographs of the Vernacular South Don Norris has a fine eye for elegance, simplicity, light, and in his artist’s statement for Deep South. “My photography composition, and for the givenness of things as they are. This is formalist, and its images are clean and specific.” work invites meditation, contemplation, repose for the eye. Norris describes his work from the South as main- —John Wall, The Southern Photographer, Raleigh, NC stream southern photography: images as vessels for narrative; about the old and the ordinary; faithful to its This fall, the Gammill Gallery hosts works of photog- subjects; and sobered by the gravitas of southern history. raphy from Don Norris, documentary photographer and “I am drawn especially to southern rural vernacular emeritus professor of biological sciences at the University architecture,” Norris writes, “particularly of the mid-nine- of Southern Mississippi. The exhibition, Deep South: teenth century. These forthright, simple, and dignified Particular Places, will draw images from ten rural counties buildings continue to reflect their days and places.” in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that Norris has Don Norris is a graduate of Indiana State University visited and photographed over the last decade. The show, (BS) and Tulane University (MS, PhD). His images, which runs from January 21 to February 28, will display mostly in black and white, are quiet and precise. His twenty-three framed prints of landscapes, historic vernac- work has been shown in more than fifty juried, gallery, ular buildings, and architectural details. and museum exhibitions and have won nine regional Norris is a native of northwestern Indiana and an and national awards. His prints are part of the perma- emeritus professor of biological sciences at the University nent collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art of Southern Mississippi. As a landscape photographer, (New Orleans), the Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson), he likes the commonplace, what he might see every day. Alabama’s Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and Jule “My portfolios center on our vernacular architecture, our Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art (Auburn), and other broad landscapes, our local and familiar detail,” he writes public collections and archives.

Sunset Field, Hinds County, Mississippi

Page 12 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Plantation Quarters, Springfield, Jefferson County, Mississippi

Newbern Presbyterian Church, Newbern, Alabama

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 13 Final Cuts MFA Showcase Gives Students Experience Presenting Their Work

As a finale to the fall semester, the students in the MFA for Documentary Expression program showcased recently completed film and photography projects. John Rash, producer-director for the Southern Documentary Project, said the event was an impressive exhibition of the multiple talents of all of the MFA students and what they were able to accomplish in a single semester. “Many of them were first-time filmmakers, and they impressively succeeded in the difficult task of completing short documentaries on their own in a very short period of landscape molder away,” he said, “and its people and their machines pass through it and are gone, as quickly as if they had never existed. The film twins the immutable land- scape of the Mississippi Delta with movable artifacts of impermanence in a lush visual soundscape.” “I’m from the Mississippi Delta, and when I’m there these days I’m usually traveling to or from some- place, rarely stopping to explore the landscape,” Thomas continued. “Making this film gave me an opportunity to do expressly that: to take my time looking, seeing, and listening—paying good attention—to time,” Rash said. “We look forward to Je’monda Roy, Zaire Love, Ellie that familiar yet mysterious place.” hosting similar events every semester Campbell, and Chi Kalu. His work in Rash’s SST 605 in an effort to share the impressive Jimmy Thomas chose the class helped him build upon skills works of our MFA students with the Mississippi Delta as his subject in he previously worked on in David Oxford community.” Along the Blues Highway. His non- Wharton’s classes; in particular, This event provided an oppor- narrative documentary film serves thinking about the message of the tunity for students to gain experi- as a meditation on permanence, work and how to creatively convey ence presenting their films and particularly within the Mississippi that message. “Like David’s class, photographs in a public exhibition Delta along Highway 61, a road John’s class pushed me out into the and to engage in dialogue with an often called Mississippi’s “blues world to hone both those theoretical audience. Filmmakers and photog- highway.” “The Mississippi Delta skills and the practical skills of audio raphers included Jimmy Thomas, landscape is as ancient as time, yet recording, photographing, and film- Jonathan Smith, Mary Knight, the structures that stand upon that making,” Thomas said.

Page 14 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Jonathan Smith’s Sweet Sorghum follows two sorghum syrup makers through cooking a batch of syrup. Along the way they discuss the syrup, how it’s made, and why they became sorghum makers. Smith selected this topic because it’s something he grew up eating, but in talking with other people, he real- ized it was not well known outside of the rural South, so he wanted to document not just the process, but why people go to the trouble to grow and make sorghum syrup, largely using antique and labor- intensive equipment. importance of contingency plans and alternate ways to tell a story.” Mary Knight’s filmSinging Out focuses on the experience of two lesbian singer/songwriters as they work on their music careers while living in Mississippi. Knight knew Morgan Pennington from being a fan of her band, And the Echo, and was interested in her reasons for staying in Mississippi. She met Mattie Thrasher through her performance along with And the Echo for Sarafest at Proud Larry’s in Oxford. “Since both are from Mississippi, I thought it would be great to get their different perspectives on what it is like to be openly gay in this state, but also an openly gay musician,” Knight said. “I was very interested Untitled photo by Je’Monda Roy in how their coming out stories mirrored their decisions to pursue

Smith is in his third semester of the MFA program, and feels he learned about both the technical and storytelling aspects of creating a documentary work, enabling him to produce a film with a clear story focus. “You must have multiple backup plans,” he said. “The weather this fall kept the sorghum makers out of the field, so I was rushed at the end, where I’d originally planned to have the filming done by the middle of October at the latest, it was early November before one of the makers in the film was able to get in the fields to harvest and have a Filmmakers discuss their works cook. That really helped me see the following screenings

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 15 Still from Ellie Campbell’s Tupelo Pride

music as a career in some ways. Both all-around favorite, and hesitated to tell their families about she decided to create a their sexual identities until they were film about his presence in their twenties, and both played on campus. “Most impor- music or wrote songs long before tantly, like my documen- telling others about their passion.” tary photography final In the MFA program so far, project, I wanted to give Knight learned about focusing on representation of black the details when creating a film. people on this campus “I’ve also learned to give a film the and their importance in space it needs to breathe and come this white space,” Roy alive—that may be holding a sound said. “Many staff workers shot for a few seconds longer than I are overlooked by our faculty, me create, and I’m truly grateful.” normally would, or letting a sound- students, and sports atmosphere on Ellie Campbell showed Tupelo bite go for a few seconds longer than this campus that we forget they play Pride, which is about the first-ever my first instinct to cut it. I’m from a huge part in our college experi- LGBTQ pride event in Tupelo, a background that demands a lot of ences. Cory is a major part of our Mississippi. Campbell wanted to information in a short period of time, college experience, and I wanted to make the film because she saw so the MFA classes have taught me share that message.” many pride events pop up around to slow down and let the film form Zaire Love had two short films, Mississippi in the past few years— itself more.” Trees and Scars. In Scars, after her Oxford started having a regular Je’monda Roy focuses on mother lost her lung to a common pride parade three years ago, Cory Blackmon, a University of disease in the South, Love created Starkville had their first last year, Mississippi P.O.D. worker. (P.O.D. a film that captures her mother’s and there have been short films stands for Provisions on Demand, journey of discovering her condition about each one, so she thought an on-campus convenience store.) and her fight to defy her scars. Tupelo deserved one too. This film project stemmed from “I chose Scars to honor my moth- “After taking Dr. Wilkerson’s class David. Wharton’s documentary er’s story of being diagnosed with on LGBTQ oral histories last spring, photography class, and she knew she a common disease that took her I’m interested in doing more work wanted to focus on minority people right lung and rib cage, and I chose documenting LGBTQ organizing in in these primarily white spaces. Trees to celebrate the brilliance of Mississippi, so this was a great way “For my final project, I chose to southern black women,” Love said. to get started,” Campbell said. document the staff and contract “Southern trees are the griots of The MFA class helped her shape the workers around the university,” the South. They hold wisdom and film, in particular learning about the Roy said. “Those included custo- knowledge of the godly and the editing software. “It was also helpful dial workers, cafe workers, security terror in the region. Listen as the to watch a lot of other documentary guards, and landscape workers, trees talk, chile.” films and think through the choices including Cory.” Besides working Love learned that she can make they made in terms of topic, narrative, as cashier at the P.O.D., Blackmon films that people enjoy. “I’m a sound editing, etc.,” Campbell said. also curates the music in the space, storyteller who is passionate about “Plus, I got to see and be inspired by sharing tracks he appreciates and telling the stories of southern black my classmates’ terrific work!” even introducing new tunes to women at all costs,” she said. “I have some listeners. the dopest community of peers and Rebecca Lauck Cleary Roy’s photo of him was an professors who are so willing to help

Page 16 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Living Blues News I want to start by saying thank you blues players that are as real to all of the readers who commented deal as you can get, and yet on the LB #256 “Blues and Protest” all three, for one reason or issue. It was a powerful issue to another, never achieved produce and put out there, and the a fan base beyond their responses were equally powerful. local communities. Macon, Besides the few naysayer trolls Georgia, native Robert Lee (calling us “aging hippies”) the Coleman toured with Percy comments were very positive. One Sledge and James Brown subscriber shared: “I have been in the 1960s and ’70s but reading Living Blues since the 1970 wound up coming home Ann Arbor Blues Festival. The and working a day job over last two issues have had some of much of the last forty years. the most interesting writing yet. Dallas’s Cookie McGee, That protest issue could have been who grew up with Freddie expanded to a book.” Thanks to King as a neighbor and everyone who helped with the issue. formed bands with his I was hesitant at first to include children, grew disgruntled two lengthy tributes in this issue with the music business (#258) of a magazine that, by defi- and put her career on nition, was designed to focus on hold to care for her aging living artists. On the other hand, I parents. Duck Hill, Mississippian try to show them wanted to celebrate the lives of two Little Willie Farmer has played what working at a music magazine is of the greatest blues guitarists of the locally for decades, but a job as an like and offer them the opportunity postwar blues era: Matt “Guitar” auto mechanic and providing for his to write for a national publication. Murphy and Otis Rush. We had family kept his aspirations on the Students’ knowledge and interest in been working on a cover story on back burner until recently. Finally, all the blues varies, as does their ambi- Murphy over the last year. Though three of these artists have reached a tion to write about it. Over my fifteen we knew his health was failing, we point in life where they are able and years as editor, there have been a few hoped to have him on the cover want to pursue their music careers students who have really immersed before he passed; unfortunately, and follow those paths wherever themselves in the blues, and in LB, things did not work out that way. they lead. Coleman has teamed with and have continued to work with us We decided to turn his feature into the Music Maker Relief Foundation after their graduations. For example, a tribute and include some of the and is traveling the world with their my former graduate assistant Melanie details that Jim O’Neal had begun touring groups. McGee’s profile has Young wrote the recent Rhiannon to uncover. Otis Rush had been in risen, and she is securing spots on Giddens cover story and is also the poor health since his stroke in 2003. festivals around the country. And circulation manager for LB. I am also His celebrated appearance at the Farmer has just finished recording a proud to say that two of my former 2016 Chicago Blues Festival was his new CD for Big Legal Mess that is Southern Studies graduate assis- last appearance in public. Rush’s sure to raise his profile far beyond the tants wrote features in this issue—the impact on modern blues cannot be confines of Duck Hill. Robert Lee Coleman feature by Mark overstated. His raw emotional inten- As many of you may know, the Coltrain and the Little Willie Farmer sity permeates every note he ever Center for the Study of Southern feature by Keerthi Chandrashekar. I played. I hope readers will appre- Culture owns and publishes Living see it as one of my roles as the editor ciate our special tributes to Murphy Blues. Many Southern Studies grad- of LB to bring excited new writers and Rush. uate students come to the program to into the fold of LB, and this issue is a Our three other features in this study the music of the Deep South. great example of that. issue represent what I love best about Most semesters I have a graduate creating LB—presenting unheralded student as an editorial assistant. I Brett J. Bonner

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 17 FROM STUDY THE SOUTH South Beach, 1977–1986 An essay and photographs by Gary Monroe

On November 7, 2018, Study the South published a new essay by photographer Gary Monroe. The essay includes text and eighteen of Monroe’s photographs, with descrip- tive captions, taken between 1977 and 1986 on South Beach, Miami. Gary Monroe was born and raised in South Beach, a neighborhood located on the tip of the island of Miami Beach, Florida. Between 1977 and 1986 Monroe made it his mission to photograph the aging— and disappearing—Jewish community there. “The lifestyle vanished like it had never happened,” he writes in the short essay that precedes this collection of photographs. “In fact, every year of that decade I photographed the New Year’s Eve parties that hoteliers had thrown twenty-first century, but one that is (above) for their guests along Ocean Drive all but imperceptible today. Morning Prayer, 1982 and Collins Avenue, and by the Monroe, a native of Miami There was considerable ortho- eighth year I noticed the celebrations Beach, received a master’s degree doxy in South Beach. Many of becoming fewer and less celebra- in fine arts from the University of the hotels along Ocean Drive, tory.” Monroe’s photographs that Colorado at Boulder in 1977. Upon Collins Avenue, and Washington follow his essay reveal a community returning home, he photographed Avenue converted card rooms that existed, at least in hints, until the old-world Jewish community and social halls into makeshift as recently as the early years of the that characterized South Beach. shuls (synagogues) to accommo- date their clientele’s needs of twice-daily prayer. The shuls are gone, replaced by bars and res- taurants and clubs.

(left) Sunrise Swimmers, 1978 People congregated regularly at Tenth Street Beach to begin the morning in a therapeutic ocean. This practice ceased in 1981, soon after the Mariel boat- lift. At that time South Beach of- fered the cheapest real estate in Greater Miami. So refugees lo- cated there, and crime soared. Then the elderly were easy pick- ings. They no longer made their ways to the beach for sunrise.

Page 18 Winter 2019 The Southern Register New Year’s Eve, 1983 With the proverbial foot in the grave, it is noteworthy, if not moving, that these elderly peo- ple who had seen and often en- dured too much, would greet both the days and the new year joyously, with optimism and a zest for life. Most hoteliers threw New Year’s Eve parties for their guests, making South Beach especially lively that night of the year.

Man in His Room at the An-Nell Hotel, 1984 The interior of South Beach was lined with street after street of modest apartment buildings, from Washington Avenue all the way west to Biscayne Bay.

Since 1984 he has photographed of corporate-driven planning. His of works by institutionally affiliated throughout Haiti, and later looked website is www.garymonroe.net. and independent scholars. Like the at tourism across Florida, especially Study the South exists to encourage Center for the Study of Southern the “rite of passage” of vacationers interdisciplinary academic thought Culture, Study the South embraces a at Disney World. He also wanders and discourse on the culture of the diversity of media, including written aimlessly to photograph in other American South, particularly in essays with accompanying audio, countries—Brazil, Israel, Cuba, the fields of history, anthropology, video, and photography compo- India, Trinidad, Poland, France, sociology, music, literature, docu- nents; documentary photography; Russia, and Egypt, to name a few. mentary studies, gender studies, and video projects. Recently he has been looking religion, geography, media studies, Read Monroe’s essay and at the landscape, especially the race studies, ethnicity, folklife, and view his photographs at transformation of place as a result art. The journal publishes a variety www.StudytheSouth.com.

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 19 SST GRADUATE PROFILE Making a Space for Conversation Jennifer Gunter Directs Collaborative on Race and Reconciliation In the wake of the massacre at instructor for the Institute Emanuel African Methodist for Southern Studies at the Episcopal Church in Charleston, University of South Carolina, South Carolina, in 2015, the directed by former University University of South Carolina of Mississippi professor developed a relationship with Bob Brinkmeyer, where she William Winter Institute for Racial teaches an Introduction to Reconciliation founding director Southern Studies course. “I Susan Glisson and Winter Institute try to incorporate as much associate director Charles Tucker. interdisciplinary study as I They trained faculty members can and have been using book at USC in how to facilitate the chapters and articles, primary Welcome Table process started documents, movies like by the Institute, which promotes 13th, The Patriot, and The Free dialogue and community building State of Jones, and field trips to around improved race relations. local sites like the Woodrow Jennifer Gunter was one of the Wilson Family Home, which many people who knew they had was built in 1871 and has to participate in that conversation. been turned into a museum She was working on her doctorate in of Reconstruction,” she said. American history at USC at the time Jennifer Gunter “I let the kids lead the discus- and came on board in December sions during class time and urge 2017. By May of 2018 she was in a them to delve deeper into the docu- full-time position as the director of and how it intersects with all other ments and artifacts. I feel it’s my the South Carolina Collaborative on identities. Earning the degree rein- duty to make sure that they leave my Race and Reconciliation (SCCRR). forced her understanding that history class with a clear understanding of “SCCRR works in communi- is more than the sum of its parts. how our histories continue to impact ties and classrooms across the state “It impressed on me an empa- the present.” to support those seeking greater thetic understanding of the past,” One way to do that includes civic engagement, civil discourse, Gunter said. For Gunter, a deep taking her class to visit the South and active understanding to lessen understanding of southern history Carolina State House on a field trip. the divides created by our differ- was necessary in order to do her job. “The grounds are populated by ences,” Gunter said. “For now, I’m “I have to see what lies behind the monuments to men who enacted a collaborative of one, though I’ve words ‘Heritage Not Hate’ as well as monstrous acts against South recently hired a project coordi- ‘Black Lives Matter,’” she said. Carolinians,” Gunter said. “I hope to nator who will start in 2019. So far, Gunter believes open dialogue see the power of conversations and my role as director has given me is vitally important, particularly listening transform our understand- the freedom to plan initiatives and because the violence of the past ings of each other,” she said. programming, facilitate Welcome continues to visit the present. Between teaching and her duties at Table South Carolina discussions, “People are literally dying over SCCRR, she said she hopes that one work in advancing public history misconceptions of history and race,” day she will work herself out a job and initiatives, and expand the reach of Gunter said. “I hope to see a reck- end racism. “It’s my job to figure out the university into the communities oning with the past, something that the best path toward that goal, which surrounding our campuses.” goes beyond apologies. I hope to I don’t think is unobtainable,” Gunter Gunter, who earned her MA in see the power of conversations and said. “It was a system that was created Southern Studies at the University of listening transform our understand- by humanity. Therefore, it is a system Mississippi in 2012, realized that her ings of each other.” that can be destroyed by humanity.” Southern Studies coursework had In addition to her work with made her comfortable discussing race SCCRR, she also is an adjunct Rebecca Lauck Cleary

Page 20 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Landscape in Art and Literature UM Museum Honors Center Advisory Committee Member with Symposium

Poet Natasha Trethewey will present THAMM ELMO “A Lyrical Landscape” on the William Dunlap afternoon of March 25, preceding the next day’s symposium that will examine the landscape in art and literature. These presentations open the exhibition Meditations on the Landscape in Art and Literature, which will run March 25 through July 27 at the University of Mississippi Museum in Oxford. The occasion is the unveiling of William Dunlap’s Meditations on the Origins of Agriculture in America, an acquisition made with support from the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Dille Fund, Friends of the Museum, and the artist. Dunlap’s painting/construction, the centerpiece of the exhibition, presents a complicated and unsani- tized landscape/history of agricul- literature. Art historian and curator Barksdale Honors College. Wilkie ture in America, referencing the J. Richard Gruber will present the was a national and foreign corre- displacement and genocide of Native keynote address at ten o’clock that spondent for the Boston Globe from Americans and the enslavement of morning, and in the afternoon, he will 1975 until 2000 and has taught Africans. Dunlap, a member of the moderate a panel with artists John journalism at the University of Center’s advisory committee, is also Alexander, a native Texan who lives Mississippi since 2002. a curator of the exhibition. in New York, and Mississippi painters Jane Livingston and others will Trethewey will read from her Jason Bouldin and Carlyle Wolfe. discuss landscape photography. Since work and comment on her percep- A veteran curator and director of leaving the Corcoran Gallery of Art, tions of history during “The Lyrical several art museums including, from where she was associate director Landscape” program at Nutt 1991 to 2001, the Ogden Museum of and chief curator from 1975 to 1989, Auditorium on Monday, March 25, Southern Art in New Orleans, Gruber Livingston has been an independent at 5:00 p.m. A native of Gulfport, has authored many books and cata- curator and has also authored or Mississippi, she is the author of five logs, among them Dunlap: William coauthored nearly two dozen books collections of poetry, including Native Dunlap, and has been executive and catalogs, among them Black Folk Guard, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer director of four award-winning docu- Art in America, The New York School: Prize in poetry, and Monument: mentary films on American artists, Photographs, 1936–1963, and John Poems New and Selected, published including William Dunlap: Objects Alexander: A Retrospective. in December 2018. Trethewey has Found and Fashioned. Museum directors Betsy Bradley, served as poet laureate of Mississippi Dunlap will present his views on of the Mississippi Museum of Art in and for two terms as poet laureate landscapes in painting and literature Jackson, and Julian Rankin, of the of the United States. The Academy in conversation with Ralph Eubanks Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean of American Poets recently named and Curtis Wilkie. Eubanks is a Springs will be joined by two prolific her to its Board of Chancellors, one former director of publishing at the writers whose work captures cultural of only 115 poets thus honored in its Library of Congress and currently landscapes: Julia Reed and Jessica 73-year history. visiting professor of English and Harris. Julia Reed is a contributing The symposium on March 26 Southern Studies at the University editor at Elle Décor and Garden & will be a full day of talks and panels of Mississippi. He also teaches focusing on landscape in art and classes for the UM Sally McDonnell continued on page 47

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 21 SST GRADUATE PROFILE Bringing Stories to Life Caity Maddox Now Leads Tours at National Civil Rights Museum On Saturday, December 9, 2018, understanding and interpretations of be like, and when I got my job here Caity Maddox led a group from civil rights.” at the museum, this is exactly what Rust College, four students—Baylee “I have been to the National I want to do. I want to be educating Champion, Hailey Douglas, Adam Civil Rights Museum several times in these informal spaces. Meeting Nabors, and Keith Pearson—and traversing being a secondary student, guests where they are and by sharing their professor, Derrick Lanois, college student, and a graduate a specific story with them, hoping that on a two-and-a-half-hour tour of student, but this was my first time will impact their lives going forward.” the National Civil Rights Museum going through the museum as a As Maddox thinks about her in Memphis, Tennessee. Maddox professor and with a tour guide,” future, first she wants to remain later admitted she was somewhat Lanois reveals. “Caity knew her stuff within the museum profession, nervous to give the tour to college and was able to connect the whole moving her way up to being a students from a one of Mississippi’s of African American history to the museum educator. She has a strong Historically Black Colleges and Modern Civil Rights movement desire to stay at the National Civil Universities (HBCU) and their within three hours. We covered the Rights Museum, and as a museum professor. She was able to overcome two semesters on African American educator she wants to “work with her fears because of her training at history, and she relayed the story in our visitors to see how they can the museum, but also because of an entertaining and engaging way have a more educational and more her MA in Southern Studies from using the museum’s technology. As impactful experience each and every the University of Mississippi. “The a historian, I usually have problems time they come to the museum.” thing about the Southern Studies with the way museums tell history, The Southern Studies education program is so much of it is conver- but with Caity guiding us and filling she obtained will serve her for her sation based, and we are having in the gap, it was truly a worthwhile long career. “I came to the Southern discussions about these difficult and informative visit. I will bring Studies program because of how topics. And that is what works for more students to the museum to interdisciplinary it is. I came because me here at the museum” Maddox have a tour specifically with her.” I didn’t want to be pigeonholed said. The nervousness came from Maddox earned her Southern into thinking that I have to go into her recognizing her positionality. Studies MA in May 2017. She recalls academia or any one particular Maddox explains, “So part of it is, I that the courses that were particu- profession. I came to Southern have to recognize the privilege that I larly helpful in preparing for work Studies with the hope that it would have [because] I have white privilege in this museum were Katie McKee’s open up options for me, and that when I am talking about civil rights. Women in the South and, surpris- is what it has done. You can take I have to be cognizant of not only ingly, an English class on the Haitian a Southern Studies degree and do how that affects African American Revolution. “When I was going anything with it.” audiences that I am talking to, but through Southern Studies, I did an I asked Maddox if she would also how it affects white audiences internship at Rowan Oak, and that recommend the Southern Studies that I am talking to.” started me towards the museum path” program, and her response was Baylee Champion, a junior at Maddox said. The opportunity to “Absolutely! I would recom- Rust College, had to admit she have the internship allowed her to mend Southern Studies because held “preconceived ideas about combine her background in formal the program itself is rigorous and her [Maddox] by assuming that she education and use it in an informal thought-provoking.” She adds that could not connect to the history.” setting giving her a new career path. the people who come to the program Champion continued, [Maddox] As a native Memphian, she grew are genuine people who you connect helped me pay attention to details by up in the shadows of the National with, and she is in touch with many using the museum as a visual history Civil Rights Museum and was hired of her cohort after graduating and book. She knew what was important in February 2018, only two months leaving Oxford. yet can often get overlooked. She prior to the MLK 50 commemora- was aware of her audience and was tions. “Southern Studies gave me the Derrick Lanois able to involve us by exploring our opportunity to see what that would

Page 22 Winter 2019 The Southern Register University Press of Mississippi Publishes Southern Religion, Southern Culture: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson On February 27–28, 2015, the Porter L. Fortune History The volume first Symposium honored past Center director Charles Reagan concentrates on churches Wilson with a series of talks and panel discussions on the and ministers, and then topic of southern religion and southern culture. Some of considers religious and Wilson’s former students were involved in the sympo- cultural constructions sium as moderators, and others helped discuss his work outside formal religious bodies and institu- as scholar and mentor. tions. It examines the faiths expressed via the region’s fields, This past December, the University Press of Mississippi streets, homes, public squares, recreational venues, road- published a new book from papers delivered at that confer- sides, and stages. In doing so, this book shows that Wilson’s ence, Southern Religion, Southern Culture: Essays Honoring groundbreaking work on religion is an essential part of Charles Reagan Wilson. Using certain episodes and moments Southern Studies and crucial for fostering deeper under- in southern religious history, the essays examine the place standing of the South’s complicated history and culture. and power of religion in southern communities and society. Wilson’s friends, erstwhile students, and colleagues all It emulates Wilson’s model, featuring both majority and contributed to the volume, including Ryan L. Fletcher, minority voices from archives and applying a variety of Darren E. Grem, Paul Harvey, Alicia Jackson, Ted methods to explain the South’s religious diversity and how Ownby, Otis W. Pickett, Arthur Remillard, Chad Seales, religion mattered in many arenas of private and public life, and Randall J. Stephens. Ted Ownby, Darren Grem, and often with life-or-death stakes. James G. Thomas, Jr. edited the volume.

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 23 FACULTY/STAFF PROFILE A View from the Table Filmmaker Ava Lowrey Uses Her Camera to Tell Stories

Curiosity has never been a problem “Working with Marcie Cohen film, and the hardest cuts I’ve had to for Ava Lowrey, who uses her appe- Ferris was an incredibly rewarding make as a filmmaker so far were the tite for questions to spread the word and inspiring experience,” Lowrey cuts I made to shorten her two-and- about southern food. said. “Her work and knowledge in half-hour interview down to an eight As the Pihakis Foodways the field of foodways and southern minute film,” Lowrey said. Documentary Filmmaker for the Jewish studies is amazing, but her That film, along withCollection Southern Foodways Alliance, mentorship of young scholars, and Collage: In the Studio with Ghost Lowrey tells stories onscreen about particularly women and people of a Dream, a short film about artists a diversity of people and places, of color, is particularly inspiring Adam Eckstrom, Lauren Was, such as James Beard award-winner to me as both a filmmaker and and their stunning art installation Dolester Miles, Craig Claiborne educator. Her work also reminds Traveling through the Dawn of Day, was award-winner Hugo Ortega, and the us of the importance of southern shown at the 2018 SFA Symposium, history of Carolina fish camps, just voices in movements for change held in Oxford in October. The to name a few. Most recently, she and progress. artists work in collaboration under completed Marcie Cohen Ferris Does Lowrey’s biggest challenge in the name Ghosts of a Dream. the Work, a film about the professor, making the film about Ferris was Since Ghost of a Dream’s work cookbook author, and historian who creating a short film about the is often large-scale, Lowrey’s role earned the Lifetime Achievement accomplished scholar. “She could as the filmmaker meant she had to award at the 2018 SFA Symposium. easily be the subject of a feature show not only the size and scale

Page 24 Winter 2019 The Southern Register of the completed work, but also For the spring, Lowrey is working to balance those images with the on a film about Birmingham’s West details that make their work so intri- End neighborhood, including the cate and beautiful. history of that neighborhood and the During the past few years, Lowrey current efforts of locals in the food has created new programs and and urban farming community. “I will classes that explore how food can be teaching Advanced Documentary be used as a lens to tell stories. at the Center and cannot wait to see “Through the SFA, I created a what ideas students bring to the class- summer internship program that has room,” Lowrey said. “Additionally, produced some amazing films and I am fortunate to work with some helped grow the skills of emerging amazing thesis students in the filmmakers,” Lowrey said. “We Center’s MFA program.” also have a summer workshop that To check out her work, visit south- collaborates with our oral history ernfoodways.org. workshop to create multifaceted projects through weeklong field- Lowrey, a native of Alexander City, work assignments. One of the Alabama, is a graduate of New York most rewarding parts of my job, in University’s Tisch School of the Arts and addition to telling such important earned her MFA in Experimental and stories, is watching the growth of our Documentary Arts at Duke University. students and interns as storytellers and media makers.” Rebecca Lauck Cleary

The Center Welcomes New Associate Director for Programs JAMES G. THOMAS, JR. G. THOMAS, JAMES The Center for the Study of Southern Culture welcomes Afton Thomas to the position of associate director for programs. For the past four and a half years, Thomas held the posi- tion of project coordinator with the Southern Foodways Alliance. She brings a wealth of experience to the position, and we are excited about her new role at the Center. Thomas earned an MA in theatre from Sacramento State University and holds a BA in theatre from the University of Missouri. She and her family moved to Oxford in 2012 and have fallen in love with the commu- nity’s charm and family-centered feel. Before joining the SFA, Afton worked in human resources and for a nonprofit local theater in Missouri. Afton Thomas

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 25 Amplifying Voices, Telling Stories Southern Foodways Alliance Oral Historian Talks about Her Work

The first day I met him, Mike Mike Prince at home in Sherwood, Tennessee Prince and I did not talk about sorghum. Instead, I listened to him. He recounted stories from his upbringing in Sherwood, Tennessee. He told me about the heirloom plants his family grew and the seeds he had stored in his freezer. Prince shared with me stories of the many times he led researchers from the University of Tennessee across his family’s land in search of a snail that only lived in the hills surrounding Sherwood. Prince’s home was filled with family heirlooms and portraits. A photograph of his Aunt Lucy hung in the entrance to the house. He was close to her, and he bought her house after she died. An antique walnut cabinet stood in a corner of the living room. The cabinet had once been used to salt hams. He found it cast off in a trash pile and restored it to its former glory. He on the shelves, ready to be used of making sorghum, new pests opened the cabinet door for me, again at a moment’s notice. Prince attacking his crop, and innovations and a painted iron hog, crockery, reached into the cabinet and he’s implemented along the way. and other items were neatly stacked retrieved a small bowl. He tipped Sorghum is deeply tied to Prince’s it into his cupped hand. Out rolled family history. “It’s a tradition. The three stones, smoothed into marbles. Princes have always done sorghum,” “My father made these when he was related Mike Prince. “It’s not a a boy,” he said, showing me. He burden that, ‘Well, we’ve always found rounded stones and put them done it, so I’ve got to do it.’ No. You in a divet he made in a creekbed. do it for the love of your ances- In a year’s time, the rocks would be tors and your family that’s passed.” spherical like a marble. When he crushes cane and boils A few weeks after our first juice, it is as if his father and grand- meeting, I returned to Sherwood father are living again. When he to conduct an oral history with Mr. makes sorghum, Prince connects to Prince. Mike points out of his living family members who have passed room window. “I plant sorghum in away. He sustains the practice of that patch and on the other side of sorghum making, but he makes it his the creek,” he noted. The creek sepa- own through innovations and tech- rates a small tract of land. I can see nological changes. to the other side sitting on his couch. In the year I have been the He didn’t get to make any sorghum Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral this year because winds blew down historian, I have conducted oral Annemarie Anderson his crop. We talk about the process histories from Austin, Texas, to

Page 26 Winter 2019 The Southern Register Mike Prince’s harvested sorghum field

Charlotte, North Carolina. One Often when I am in the field, Amplifying narrators’ voices and of the most important lessons I contemplate how others profit their stories is the most rewarding I’ve learned along the way is the from my work. A photograph and part of my job. Oral histories add power of listening. No matter what recording can only capture so value to the historical narrative. I know about a subject, the ques- much. I have the benefit of meeting Narrators who engage in growing, tions I ask are only as good as my people face to face. I interact with cooking, and eating southern food ability to listen. Listening enables them as they tell their story. I visit not only define themselves, they also me to build rapport with narra- the places they talk about in the define our region. Sometimes the tors. Ultimately, it allows me to ask oral history. But my job doesn’t stop stories they present harmonize with better questions and produce better at the end of the interview. I process the historical record. More often, oral histories. the interviews so they are easy they complicate the narratives all Often, oral history opportunities to read, and I contextualize each southerners are compelled to grapple look like serendipity. In reality, they project with an introduction and with. A nuanced portrait of the South are the product of skill, dogged persis- narrator biographies so the public and its foodways emerge. tence, and connections made with can easily read and understand each As I wrap up my interview with people along the way. I met Mr. Prince interview. Once the oral histories Mike Prince, I ask if he has anything because another narrator believed in are archived, professors, students, else he would like to say. “It’s nice the work I was doing. By listening to journalists, and other interested to know there’s gonna be a record of Prince, I developed a rapport with him people can access and use oral it,” he tells me. and elucidated themes and ideas to histories to learn more about the tease out in his interview. South’s past, present, and future. Annemarie Anderson

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 27 Made in Mississippi New Boxed Set of Bill Ferris’s Films and Field Recordings Released

William Ferris—“Bill” as head from a Blues Archive he is known to his friends, display case. Oof! That which are just about all of head was heavier than us—has been richly honored it looked, because it was for his work, including made of concrete. I had France’s Chevalier and to hug it to keep from Officer in the Order of dropping it, and somehow Arts and Letters. Now I heaved it safely to a the CD label Dust-to- nearby table. Digital has released a set, Thankfully the set Voices of Mississippi: Artists itself isn’t as heavy. But and Musicians Documented it contains three CDs of by William Ferris, that is blues, black sacred music devoted to his field record- of many kinds (not just ings and films. Bill joins gospel), and storytelling; distinguished company a DVD of seven short with Art Rosenbaum, Hugh films; and a hardcover Tracey, Alan Lomax, and book that includes essays Bruce Jackson in being featured in Dust-to-Digital set from the many by blues scholars Scott Barretta and Dust-to-Digital retrospectives. archival reels. David Evans, and documentarian For eight years (1993–2001), I The box’s cover photo of James Tom Rankin. Some of the music supervised the Blues Archive and “Son” Thomas holding one of his was released previously on LPs Music Library branch library in head sculptures reminds me of the (including on three of the four LPs Farley Hall, across Sorority Row time I tried moving Thomas’s sculp- that the Center released on Southern from the Center for the Study of ture of bluesman Sam Chatmon’s Culture Records in the 1980s) and Southern Culture. I should explain that through the 2000s, Bill’s photographs, films, and tapes were maintained not at the Blues Archive, but at the Archives and Special Collections division at the John D. Williams Library. In the 1990s Thomas Verich was the university archivist, but the daily maintenance of Bill’s archives was handled by Sharron Sarthou. On one of my visits, she allowed me to see that Bill depos- ited a tremendous amount of source material. Today it is now housed at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The notes for Voices of Mississippi state that five people—Scott Barretta, Jake Fussell, April Ledbetter, Steven Lance Ledbetter, and Matt Payne—selected the tracks for the Pecolia Warner and her quilt, Yazoo City, Mississippi, 1975

Page 28 Winter 2019 The Southern Register James “Son Ford” Thomas walks among the tombstones, 1974

with delight about toasts. They are of Leland, Mississippi, and it shows oral recitations, sometimes rhyming, how a toast like “I Dreamed I Went sometimes metrical, often bawdy, to the UN” may be embedded in a Victor “Hickory Stick” Bobb and his spoken by African American men song (by a vocalist now unknown, cane, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1976 among their friends. Like blues lyrics to guitar accompaniment by the and rap, the longer toast a man can great Fred McDowell). The set’s give, the more that man is esteemed credits don’t state how much guid- on the CD accompanying Bill’s book (and the louder the laughter). Toasts ance the compilers received from Bill Give My Poor Heart Ease (Chapel Hill: have been captured on discs at least in making their selections, but their UNC Press, 2009). But this time, as far back as Alan Lomax’s field inclusion of toasts is appropriate for transcripts of these re-released tracks recordings in the early 1940s, but one of his favorite topics. and of all the others are given in the Bill managed to record toasts as they More than his writings and record- hardcover book. were embedded in the blues. Voices of ings, Bill’s films (especially those I remember one conversation Mississippi gives two fine examples of that he made with Judy Peiser for with Bill during which he spoke toasts as spoken by Joe “Skeet” Skillet the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis) show how wide his interest has been in southern culture: blues, black sacred music, men, women, mules, hogs, small-town commerce, spiritual healing, and southern revelation. Combining the DVD in Voices of Mississippi with the DVD included with Give My Poor Heart Ease, nearly all of Bill’s short films are available again. Note: The Recording Academy has nominated Voices of Mississippi for Grammy Awards in the categories of Best Historical Recording and Best Album Notes. Winners will be announced on February 10, 2019. All photos by Bill Ferris, each appearing in the Voices of Mississippi book included in the boxed set.

Tom Johnson Ed Komara

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 29 Oxford Film Festival Features Screenings by Southern Studies Filmmakers

The Oxford Film Festival has announced the full schedule of films for the 2019 fest, and included in this year’s lineup are several Southern Studies filmmakers. Those film- makers’ films include Mary Stanton Knight’s Dear Hubert Creekmore, Jonathan Smith’s Taming the Tarasque, Nicole Du Bois’s Vishwesh Bhatt: The South I Love, Susie Penman’s Bright at Night: North Mississippi’s Foxfire Ranch, and John Rash’s Negro Terror. Also, professor of Southern Studies and English Adam Gussow is the subject of a feature film,Satan and Adam. The film chronicles the relation- ship between Gussow and Sterling people who create them) to North “Satan” Magee as they joined up Mississippi. The annual five-day to play the blues on the streets of festival screens short and feature- Harlem, New York, in the 1980s. length films in both showcase and The Oxford Film Festival was competition settings. founded in 2003 to bring exciting, “As always, we seek to entertain,” new, and unusual films (and the Addington said. “But beyond that,

we embrace our cultural and social responsibility and the mission of being one place and one event that Oxford film fans and Oxford Film Festival filmmakers can count on to help build those bridges between different people in the best and most enjoyable way.” The festival begins on February 6th and screens films each day through the 10th. For more information and a complete schedule of all screenings, visit www.oxfordfilmfest.com.

Page 30 Winter 2019 The Southern Register FROM THE UM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference Kenyatta Berry and Elevator Repair Service Join Lineup for “Faulkner’s Families” Conference

This summer’s Faulkner and Mississippi. The Sound Yoknapatawpha conference and the Fury is the second on “Faulkner’s Families” in a planned trilogy of (July 21–25) will feature a FAULKNER’S literary adaptations that pair of exciting sessions to began in 2006 with Gatz, complement the regular FAMILIES the company’s remark- conference program of able, eight-hour staging, keynote lectures, scholarly again word-for-word, of panels, discussions, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The tours. Great Gatsby. Like Gatz, The First, with support Sound in the Fury offers, in from the University of the company’s words, “not Mississippi Slavery Research Archives and Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries. Cofield Collection, William Faulkner's first home in Oxford. a retelling of the story but Group, Faulkner and a reenactment of the novel Yoknapatawpha is proud itself.” The session, sched- to host an evening session uled for Monday evening, by noted writer, lecturer, July 22, at 8:00 p.m., will and genealogist Kenyatta screen a recording of ERS’s D. Berry. Berry, author 2015 remounting of The of The Family Tree Toolkit: Sound and the Fury, staged A Comprehensive Guide to at the Public Theater in Uncovering Your Ancestry and The University of Mississippi New York. Collins, Knight, Researching Genealogy and Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference Matthis, and Williams will host of the popular PBS Oxford, Mississippi, July 21–25, 2019 provide commentary on The University of Mississippi announces the Forty-Sixth Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. The series Genealogy Roadshow, conference is sponsored by the Department of English and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and the screening, followed by coordinated by the Division of Outreach and Continuing Education. specializes in African For more information: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, Division of Outreach and Continuing a talkback with audience Education, Post Office Box 1848, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. Telephone: 662-915-7283. American genealogy, Fax: 662-915-5138. Internet: www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner members. The session will Bronze busts of William Faulkner and Chickasaw chief Piomingo by William Beckwith; Photos by Robert Jordan / University Communications including the researching provide a unique experi- of slave ancestry, and in ence of, and new insights DNA-based genealogical research. This summer she will into, one of Faulkner’s greatest novels of family. lead a ninety-minute workshop, scheduled for Sunday, For more information about keynote speakers and July 21, at 7:30 p.m., focusing on the challenges and conference registration, please visit the conference website rewards of tracing family history. The workshop will be at www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner/, or see the open to members of the Lafayette-Oxford-University Fall 2018 issue of the Southern Register. Discount rates for community as well as to conference registrants. the conference are available for groups of five or more “Faulkner’s Families” is also excited about the return students. Inexpensive dormitory housing is available of the Elevator Repair Service (ERS) theater company for all registrants, along with many other local lodging to Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha. Core members Vin options. Contact Mary Leach at [email protected] for Knight, April Matthis, and Ben Williams will join details. For other inquiries, contact Jay Watson, director, at company director John Collins for a viewing and discus- [email protected]. sion of ERS’s The Sound and the Fury, its word-for-word adaptation, originally staged in 2008, of section 1 of Jay Watson Faulkner’s 1929 saga of the Compson family of Jefferson,

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 31 Three Center Faculty Begin the Year with New Monographs

To kick off the spring semester, Press), Jessica Wilkerson, assistant follows them into other networks— three faculty members at the Center professor of history and Southern regional and national—as they got for the Study of Southern Culture Studies, examines the War on involved in political and social enjoyed the accomplishment of their Poverty, which was launched in 1964 movements.” books’ publication. in Appalachia. Based on her disser- There are no simple explanations At 5:00 p.m. on January 22 at Off tation, the study blends women’s for complex histories, and it was Square Books in Oxford, an event history and Appalachian history with important for Wilkerson to contex- featured Jessica Wilkerson, author of labor, class, and activism. She visited tualize the women’s lives histori- To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How archives around the region and cally and to understand the move- Women Led Appalachian Movements conducted interviews with people ments in which they participated. for Social Justice; Kathryn B. McKee, who had been activists in the 1960s Appalachian women acted as leaders author of Reading Reconstruction: and 1970s. and soldiers in a grassroots war on Sherwood Bonner and the Literature “Ultimately, I was drawn to poverty—shaping and sustaining of the Post–Civil War South; and Ted the stories of women in eastern programs, engaging in ideological Ownby, author of Hurtin’ Words: Kentucky, where there’s a long debates, offering fresh visions of Debating Family Problems in the history of women’s activism in the democratic participation, and facing Twentieth-Century South. coalfields, from the 1920s to the personal political struggles. In her work To Live Here, You present,” she said. “The book starts “In a broader sense, the big Have to Fight (University of Illinois with their experiences and then takeaway is that starting from the

Page 32 Winter 2019 The Southern Register perspective of women, espe- scholarship texts all cially poor and working-class published on different women, allows us to see all university presses, as well as sorts of things—federal policy, to the three colleagues who social movements, labor, the teach together. history of Appalachia—from a “Having this event on the fresh and, I believe, necessary first day of classes was a way perspective,” she said. to bring people together and The activists she writes celebrate books, scholar- about may have been over- ship, and working together,” looked, but their persistence Ownby said. “Many people brought them into unlikely in their introductions say coalitions with black women, writing is solitary, but cele- disabled miners, and others brating three books together to fight for causes that ranged suggests that finishing a book from poor people’s rights to is not.” community health to unioniza- In Hurtin’ Words, Ownby tion. “My point about care- considers how a wide range of giving is that women’s activism writers, thinkers, activists, and often reflected their predomi- others defined family prob- nant roles in society. Due to lems in the twentieth-century gender, policy, and social American South. The idea for customs, women took on the the book, published by the burden of caring for children, University of North Carolina the elderly, and people with Press, originated when he disabilities,” Wilkerson said. wrote a paper about southern In Reading Reconstruction rock music and the men who (LSU Press), Kathryn McKee thought it was impossible to looks further into the past to stay in a lifetime relationship. gain insight into Sherwood Bonner Reconstruction in American literary “It’s about the problem of family life, (1849–1883), a Mississippi native history and an interest in recovery the relationship between what people from Holly Springs who portrayed of nineteenth-century writers. expect and hope for, and why does it the discord and uneasiness of the “We’ve moved beyond a celebra- matter what people think about you,” Reconstruction era in her fiction tory existence to a stage of seeing Ownby said. “Those southern rockers and nonfiction. knotty imperfection of their efforts,” thought it was really important that no McKee, McMullan Associate McKee said. one understood them and felt it was Professor of Southern Studies and The event at Square Books was important to address other peoples’ associate professor of English, reas- especially important to McKee misunderstandings. Teaching and sesses Bonner’s place in American because it reflected the collabora- writing about Southern Studies means literary history. McKee said she has tion and collegiality of the Center, I find myself writing on a lot of topics, always been haunted by Bonner’s especially as Ownby and Wilkerson wondering what they had to do with life and choices, her blind spots, were all moving in the same phases to each other, and several had to do with her shortcomings, as well as her complete their work. family life and family problems.” successes. “She was a young woman “It also reflected the values of The title comes from Tammy who made controversial choices, this place—a common spirit that we Wynette’s song “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” even by today’s standards, but the all work to understand better the which she said “spelled out the most important thing about her was common subject that we share,” hurtin’ words” to spare her child the her drive to be a writer,” McKee McKee said. “We all have the same pain of family breakup. “Authors said. “She knew she had to leave sets of questions about the region, never know what readers will like Mississippi in order to make writing this place, identity, and power. It or dislike, but what I hope is that the most important thing in her life. is rewarding to work at the Center people are intrigued by these defini- Today society still struggles with because of a common pursuit of tions of family life. Instead of just ambitious women, but she couldn’t shared interests.” thinking about specific issues, they live with herself without trying to be Ted Ownby, Center director are thinking about family ideals and a writer.” and William F. Winter Professor problems,” Ownby said. The book participates in a of History, hoped to call atten- renewed attention to the period of tion to the three interdisciplinary Rebecca Lauck Cleary

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 33 FACULTY INTERVIEW Family Life in the Twentieth-Century South A Conversation with Ted Ownby By Jennifer Gunter Ted Ownby Ted Ownby is the newly named William Winter Professor of History and Southern Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. His new book, Hurtin’ Words: Debating Family Problems in the Twentieth-Century South, pushes into the realm of intel- lectual history, debating and analyzing ideas and thought patterns regarding concepts of southern families in the twentieth century. He is particularly interested in how various communities contemplate and argue about what kinds of families have—or are—problems. After seeing him give a talk on this work at Duke University, I spoke with him about his newest publication.

Jennifer Gunter: Can you walk me through how you realized that this was a cohesive work and not just a set of different articles?

Ted Ownby: As part of my job in history and Southern Studies, I found that I was writing a lot of essays that had something to do with family life in the twentieth-century South. I didn’t set out to weave those into an argument, but I came to realize that these essays made most sense when I connected them to the other essays, that is, when I under- stood them in conversation. thought about into a kind of conversation. Partly it was exciting to be writing history JG: This is new ground for you, in that occurred in one’s own lifetime, because some ways. How did it feel to be you remember things. And, you remember delving into the late twentieth century? the excitement, and why it mattered. Partly it’s exciting to be recognizing that things that I have TO: Exciting, until it got too close to the present. That’s studied, like Habitat for Humanity, for example, or Alex the quick answer. The first of the sections that I wrote Haley’s Roots, were going on simultaneously. The fright- was on southern rock music of the 1970s, which was ening thing is, getting up close to the present is it’s really the favorite music of a number of people I went to high hard to know which things are really important, and school with. So, I felt like I was trying to understand the which things just stand out either in my own life or in my cultural life of the South during my teen years. And then imagination. that brought up the fact that I needed to also understand things going on at the same time. That was an appealing JG: I want to talk to you about the influence of music on challenge: to put southern rock music and the rise of this work. You use words from Tammy Wynette’s song as the religious right and some other things that I hadn’t your title, and you talk a lot about the outlaws of southern

Page 34 Winter 2019 The Southern Register rock in one of your chapters. Can you tell me a little bit response to that was the section on the 1960s. I knew that about how your understanding of music influences this with this topic I would need to confront the Moynihan greater work? report from 1965—the report that said there was a crisis in African American family life. In confronting that, some TO: I wrote a number of things about music that I left interesting things happened. One was that I found an out of the final product. They didn’t strike me as very enormous amount of writing and thinking and talking convincing or original. What I tried to particularly do was about the concepts of brotherhood and sisterhood. And to think about forms of music whose themes seemed to there were other people who talked about the need for overlap very clearly with issues of family policy and in authority and parental power and keeping away from that way the “hurtin’ words” just stood out. As a two-word families in trouble. Supporters of the civil rights move- phrase, what that song accomplished at its heart is awfully ment and most specifically supporters of school deseg- close to what the southern legislatures in the 1970s did regation talked about brotherhood and sisterhood as with divorce reform when they said they wanted a form love and respect and interconnectedness and hope for of divorce in which people would not have to spell out a better future. And their opponents talked about the their worst moments. So, in that case, I wasn’t really rights of parents or the power of parents to supersede trying to understand country music; I was just thinking lofty idealism, what they called brotherhoodism. And, about how that kind of cultural expression overlaps with especially, the opponents talked about how they did not government policy. In the same way, my only significant want their white children sitting in school next to African argument about southern rock music is that the most American children who, they said, came from failed fami- important thing the musicians had to say was that they lies. All these definitions of families all became part of a could not be part of a conventionally defined family with way to think about the civil rights era. a lifetime commitment. They couldn’t. They said, “It’s not possible, don’t ask me. Don’t expect me to.” Part of JG: There’s also warring definitions or uses of morality. why that was so interesting to me in this book is that it Both sides were using Christianity to their own ends. was one perspective on the broader question of, “What does family life look like after the decline of agricultural TO: Yes, the massive resistance side saw the situation families and after the rise of divorce reform?” as family versus no family. People on the integrationist, brotherhood and sisterhood side held up this great hope JG: Can you talk some about the writing process? Can that people would recognize their interconnectedness, you explain about your thoughts on the writing process, their shared humanity. And by the late 1960s, there was a particularly for this book? growing number of African Americans who grew frus- trated with the concept of brotherhood on the terms of TO: This book shows, if it’s good, the possibilities of white people, and far more frustrated with always being writing as a journey or an exploration, or a trip where portrayed as people with crisis-ridden families. you don’t know exactly where you’re going. I didn’t begin with a plan to write about the history of discourse JG: What is the most important thing about this book? about family problems. It started with the pretty vague idea that I was writing about family life, and I thought I TO: I’ll let readers decide that, is the true answer, but I’ll was writing to show the varieties of southern family life. try. First, I hope it builds on an old, maybe conventional As I did research and thought about it in response to idea about southern cultural life that says that family is contemporary events and presented it at conferences, it important. You can’t disagree with that. But, find another started to make more sense as a project about the idea of place in the world where it’s not. I hope I’m contributing family problems. That’s a fairly specific scholarly niche. to that pretty basic idea by talking about family problems The subject of the idea of family problems is certainly in particular, and how different people argued about not a fun topic. But, it was an exciting challenge to try to family problems. So part of the goal is to explore that write the history of so many topics and perspectives and question—who got to define what constituted family prob- to see how they were connected. lems and what did they say about it? Second, as we said before, I hope some of the discussions about family life JG: At some point, did the connectivity start showing in the civil rights movement will strike readers as inter- itself? I really like when I’m doing research and I just esting. And third, I kind of like how the book ends in the start seeing connections. 1970s and the 1980s, pointing toward the present, where there are a lot of people in ongoing conversations about TO: The clearest example of exploring until something the shapes of families, the definitions of families, and the seemed interesting and then organizing my research in permanence or impermanence of families.

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 35 FACULTY INTERVIEW Caregivers of a Region A Conversation with Jessica Wilkerson By Frankie Barrett There’s Bessie Smith Gayheart who, To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How when attempts to seek legal recourse Women Led Appalachian Movements for to address illegal strip-mining Social Justice tells the story of activism near her home failed, organized a in Appalachia during the 1960s and protest to stop three coal trucks in ’70s. Using the lives and perspec- their path. There’s Eula Hall who tives of white, working-class women fought for free and reduced lunch activists in eastern Kentucky as her to address child hunger and estab- guide, Jessica Wilkerson explores lished a community health clinic these activists’ visions for the future to combat the lack of services in of Appalachia and details the strides rural areas. Each of these women, they made towards this better future. and the many other activists whose In recent years, pundits and stories are a part of this history, journalists have frequently cast responds to obstacles and opportuni- Appalachia in the role of national ties of everyday life. Each navigates microcosm. Following in the foot- complex personal relation- steps of industrial corporations who ships and have long exploited the region for community its natural resources and labor, these networks. writers seek to mine the region Each seeks to for universally applicable truths. help family, Drawing heavily on nostalgic images the activists on the friends, and and selective regional history, ground. Readers neighbors—in these popular accounts simplify observe the oppor- particular, the the geographically expansive and tunities that Great most vulnerable— demographically diverse region to Society legisla- to survive. craft a linear narrative. The resulting tion facilitated, A central thread stories point to simple explanations how regional and throughout this and the promise of simple solutions. national political historical text is However, historical context and tensions played the interaction analysis are largely absent from these out locally, and between care- popular narratives. the collective giving and activist In To Live Here, You Have to Fight, memory of prior work. Caregiving Appalachia appears not as a micro- Appalachian is often thought of cosm, but as one link in the broader working-class move- as an apolitical act. chain of radical activism that ments and how it informed activism. However, lessons occurred over the course of the late The book also gives voice to the learned from taking care of sick twentieth century. Wilkerson does activists themselves. The women’s family members and neighbors not shy away from complexity but words and lived experiences are inform the activism of the women explores the multiple factors and woven throughout the text. Their in this book. Drawing connections national, regional, and local contexts stories are enthralling and emotion- between sick and dying commu- that affected Appalachian communi- ally resonant; their creativity and nity members and harmful working ties in the 1960s and ’70s. Her narra- persistence are striking. These conditions, environmental injus- tive, enriched by archival research women’s lives have a powerful tices, corporate greed, or inad- and oral history interviews, invites emotional impact—not because they equate medical care, these women readers to experience this historical possess superhuman abilities—but pinpoint and confront sources of moment from the perspective of because they are so very human. local suffering. Challenging the

Page 36 Winter 2019 The Southern Register status quo with knowledge gained statement feels as relevant to today within broader networks, placing through care work, these women as it is to the past. them within US history of the 1960s demonstrate both the political nature and ’70s. of caregiving labor as well as how to FB: What was one challenge you provide care through political action. faced during the writing process? FB: How does your book fit within To Live Here, You Have to Fight JW: I write about white working- contemporary discourse about presents late twentieth-century class Appalachian women, focusing Appalachia? US history from a largely untold on antipoverty organizations. The JW: As a historian, I never set out to standpoint, documenting how last thing that I want is for people respond to narratives in the present. Appalachian activists drew upon to assume that white working-class I will say that popular myths about local and national resources to fight women stand in for all women in Appalachia today ignore almost for the wellbeing of their commu- the region. This is one story among all of twentieth-century history. nities. Wilkerson invites readers many more that is being told or Appalachia is frequently portrayed to interrogate why things are the needs to be told. Appalachia is a as a dependent region of lazy, hope- way they are in Appalachia and massive region with diverse peoples less, opioid addicts; in tragic contrast to consider how regional history and cannot be represented by one to their hearty, hardworking Anglo- explains the persistence of poverty group. However, I hope that—by Saxon ancestors. These simple, and in Appalachia in ways that more- showing these women’s lives with somewhat romantic, portraits of simplistic narratives cannot. For complexity and by illustrating their Appalachia ignore almost every- readers who are newly curious interactions with diverse peoples thing that occurred over the last about Appalachia or intimately across place, as well as thinking century: the development of the coal familiar with the region, this book through gendered narratives of industry, the impact of strip mining is an important read, providing whiteness in the region—I can push and mountain-top removal, the an in-depth examination of the against simplistic assumptions about legacy of antidemocratic coal towns region’s activist history and the trails Appalachia. and coal bosses, and the backlash to Appalachian women blazed towards the War on Poverty and welfare. The a more equitable future during the FB: How does the book engage with narrative we get today blames poor 1960s and ’70s. regional stereotypes? Appalachians for their own poverty Below is a portion of a conversa- JW: We tend to think of nega- without confronting the region’s tion I had with Dr. Wilkerson about tive stereotypes of Appalachia, but history. I hope this history makes a her research, the writing process, there are also positive stereotypes stereotypical, simple narrative about and Appalachian studies today. that can be equally damaging. The Appalachia harder to consume. same is true in Southern Studies. Frankie Barrett: For starters, what Stereotypes—negative or positive— FB: What other scholarship on inspired the title of To Live Here, You do harm and prevent true under- Appalachia should readers look out Have to Fight? standing of a place or a people. for? Jessica Wilkerson: The title refer- One positive Appalachian stereo- JW: It’s an exciting moment in ences a quote by the famous union type is that of the “strong mountain Appalachian studies. There are organizer Mother Jones: “Pray woman.” Part of this stereotype is new works coming out that show for the dead and fight like hell for the idea that mountain women work the range of experiences and the living.” There is a collective singlehandedly to accomplish heroic diversity within the region. One history around the labor move- feats without resources or support. example is Karida L. Brown’s ment in Appalachia and around When I traced Appalachian women’s Gone Home: Race and Roots through Mother Jones in particular. She is lives over time, I saw that they were Appalachia, a book about the black iconic to these women, appearing not working individually, but partici- Appalachian diaspora. Another is in their stories and in their scrap- pating in networks, which were local, Meredith McCarroll’s UnWhite: books. Several women referenced but expanded across region and Appalachia, Race, and Film, which or reinterpreted this particular nation. While Appalachian women explores images of the region. I am quote. For example, Bessie Smith have been portrayed as highly inde- delighted that my book is part of a Gayheart, one of the activists pendent and outside of US history, new, exciting wave of scholarship in featured in the book, once said, “To my job as a historian is to say that Appalachian studies. stay here you’re going to have to they actually are very much a part of fight like hell.” With the book title, US history. In this book, I contextu- I’m echoing these phrases. The alize Appalachian women’s activism

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 37 READING THE SOUTH Book Reviews and Notes by Faculty, Staff, Students, and Friends of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture

God with Us: Lived The second half of the book embodies the uniqueness of the Theology and the Freedom lived theology approach because it weaves theological issues through Struggle in Americus, stories of individual people and Georgia, 1941–1976 specific moments. The significance of points that might seem a bit vague By Ansley L. Quiros. Chapel or unremarkable become clear when Hill: University of North Quiros shows how theology was part Carolina Press, 2018. 292 of how people talked, sang, prayed, worried, and argued, whatever role pages. $90.00 cloth, $29.95 they had in Sumter County’s civil paper, $22.99 ebook. rights movement or opposition to it. Concepts like redemptive suffering or persistence in the face of obstacles In God with Us, historian Ansley take on specific meanings as people L. Quiros combines two important described them when facing jail, scholarly approaches—a commu- violence, or condemnation. A group nity study of the civil rights move- of young women imprisoned for ment and an analysis of how protest called on strength through people understood and lived their prayer. SNCC protestors connected theologies—into an original work movement. The lived theology to visions of interracial community on Americus and Sumter County, approach works well throughout life at Koinonia Farm, in part by Georgia. The stories from south- the volume as ways both to say new using the farm as a kind of retreat. western Georgia are fascinating, but things about stories that may be Activists in the kneel-in campaign what makes this book so unique is somewhat well known and to study at Americus churches drew on the author’s approach. Working from experiences new to scholarship. For theologies of brotherhood and other the ideas of religious studies scholar example, Koinonia Farm, organized shared religious experiences, and Charles Marsh and others, Quiros by Clarence and Florence Jordan and their opponents said protest was not details what she means by lived their colleagues in Sumter County what they considered real religion. theology and how it differs from the as an experiment in 1942, had three Opponents of the civil rights move- related scholarly movement of lived theological principles: redemptive ment drew on ideas of congrega- religion. “Simply put, lived reli- agriculture, Christian community, tional control, and they increasingly gion examines action to understand and racial reconciliation. The discus- called for schools that would allow belief while lived theology examines sion of white evangelical churches and encourage prayer as part of the belief to understand action.” Taking in downtown Americus addresses curriculum. The book concludes a broad approach to the topic, she the range of conservative theological with more voices, including Charles argues that “to study lived theology principles—the emphasis on conver- and Shirley Sherrod and the in the civil rights struggle, then, is sion and Biblical literalism, issues of Southwest Georgia Project, the polit- to examine marching and singing, race and hierarchy, and also ques- ical campaigns of southwest Georgia shouting, and shooting, voting and tions of the autonomy of churches Baptist Jimmy Carter, a new kneel-in vitriol on the one hand, and the whose members often rejected the from Clennon King, and the start of more hidden beliefs that animated authority of national organizations. Habitat for Humanity. those actions on the other.” The chapter on African American As this volume demonstrates, the Quiros organizes the book into two religious life roots broad ideas about lived theology approach encour- parts, the first dealing primarily with the goodness of God, the connected- ages a kind of multivocal approach institutions and theological principles ness of all people, the evil of racism to history. By listening to so many and the second exploring how people and the goal of deliverance in the people with so many religious in Americus lived their theologies lives of ministers J. R. Campbell and languages, the book gets away from in specific stories of the civil rights R. L. Freeman. some of the either/or arguments that

Page 38 Winter 2019 The Southern Register can plague full historical under- and education—the world above standing, whether those are argu- ground—as it was by coalmining ments concern winners vs. losers or and labor. Moreover, young, black SNCC vs. NAACP or even ideas vs. Appalachians in the 1940s and 1950s action. Instead, by studying reli- had to learn to navigate two struc- gious language wherever it appears, tures: “the patriarchal structure of God with Us is best at telling a full, the company-owned town and their complicated, and often exciting blackness.” They did so within close- story, with lots of people, lots of knit communities of black parents, issues, and lots of religious ideas. teachers, and neighbors who sought to protect them from Jim Crow, Ted Ownby which may have appeared less cruel in Kentucky than in Alabama, but was no less harmful. Schooling and education were vitally important to black communi- Gone Home: Race and ties in Harlan County. Brown explains Roots through Appalachia that in Lynch and Benham—desig- nated as company-owned towns— By Karida L. Brown. Chapel company owners built model towns Hill: University of North with attractive schools in order to lure Carolina Press, 2018. Harlan County became one step in workers. As part of that process, they a longer mass migration, as black successfully recruited highly quali- $29.95 cloth. families moved from Kentucky to fied black teachers from Kentucky cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and cities to teach in the “colored schools.” In the American popular imagina- West in the second wave of the Great These schools “institutionalized and tion, Appalachia is the home of Migration. “Appalachia was both reproduced racial ideologies,” in that mountaineers and hillbillies—all of home and a launching pad,” writes they received less funding and fewer them white folks. This stubborn Brown. And the generation of black resources than white schools. At the myth erases the histories of indig- youth that called Harlan County same time, they became sites of “black enous people, settler colonialism, home would remember those years cultural expression.” Brown shows immigration, and black life and with nostalgia and pride, returning how the schools operated as anchors experience. The latter is the topic of annually for reunions organized by in the community and buffers against UCLA sociologist Karida L. Brown’s the Eastern Kentucky Social Club. the racist attitudes and institutions refreshing and beautifully rendered Histories of black Appalachia have that existed just beyond black neigh- new book, Gone Home. been told in fits and starts, with an borhoods. Black teachers and prin- Based on an astonishing 150 inter- important initial wave of scholar- cipals were among the most revered views conducted by Brown, Gone ship beginning in the mid-1980s, community members, and they cared Home charts the migration of black focusing largely on the history of for and nurtured their students. When men and women from the Deep black coalminers. Brown builds on Harlan County schools desegregated South to three towns in a seven-mile and extends this rich scholarship. in 1964—due to federal legislation but stretch of Harlan County, Kentucky, She also shifts the focus, from the also the declining population—black in the early twentieth century. There history of coalmining to the genera- students experienced a deep sense of men were recruited to work in the tion of children who grew up in the loss. They had to move schools, even burgeoning coal industry, and black coalfields before becoming part of though their school was newer, and families developed strong communi- the black Appalachian diaspora. they lost their teachers and principals, ties and educated their children for Notably, she places this story within the people who cared about their a life beyond the hills. Brown maps the broad histories of Jim Crow, the well-being. black family and community life that Great Migration, and desegregation. The school closures were the solidified between 1930 and 1950. Brown’s Appalachia is a place in first of several dramatic changes She then shows through devastating flux, a place that is home but is also witnessed by this generation of oral history interviews how the black ephemeral, a place that people pass black Appalachians. As the mines Appalachian communities of Harlan through and carry with them. shut down, companies razed entire County began to fracture and dissi- Brown knits together oral history towns and families sent their pate as mechanization of the mines excerpts to show that life for black children to faraway cities, one by altered the labor economy and Appalachians was defined as much one. While these were disposable companies laid off workers en masse. by a sense of community, family, places and people in the minds

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 39 of company executives, the black accountability were requirements neighborhoods of Harlan County for keeping the insides of black would remain home for hundreds boys in Mississippi healthy and of people who are part of the black safe from white folk.” Grandmama Appalachian diaspora. As Brown “is too heavy to blow away or explains, they are connected “by the drown in tears made because collective feeling of loss, mourning, somebody didn’t see [her] as some- and homesickness that accompanies body worth respecting.” She loves the experience of abrupt displace- Jesus and prays through her pain. ment and dispersion.” “Presentation matters,” his father Brown tells us in the appendix that preaches. “So do patience and she decided to begin this study while discipline.” His mother’s boyfriend sitting on her grandparents’ porch strives to carry himself “like he one Memorial Day weekend. She had saw rich radical white men carry gone home to Harlan County with themselves in Mississippi.” Both her parents for the annual reunion. Grandmama and Mama know that Although I resist the notion that we black people “didn’t even have to must be from a place in order to win for white folks to punish us. All understand it or tell the story of its we had to do was not lose the way people, I have no doubt that Brown’s they wanted us to.” ties to eastern Kentucky tuned her to With Heavy, Laymon refuses to hearing the stories and understanding lose the way America wanted him To slap someone on the right cheek their value. Her insightful study to. By his estimation, each strategy, would be to backhand that person, deserves wide readership. each method of survival modeled by to demean him or her, asserting his forebears, breeds dishonesty and power and dominance. To turn the Jessica Wilkerson deception. Those strategies also seem left cheek challenges the oppressor safe and enticing, until they’re not. to slap with an open hand, a gesture In his introduction, Laymon that, though violent, is reserved confesses, “I wanted to do that for equals. Wink writes, “Masters old black work of pandering and backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; Heavy: An American lying to folk who pay us to pander parents, children; men, women; Memoir and lie to them every day.” He set Romans, Jews. We have here a set of out to publish a book about “how unequal relations, in each of which By Kiese Laymon. New York: fundamental present black fathers, retaliation would invite retribu- Scribner, 2018. 256 pages. responsible black mothers, magical tion. . . . [To turn the other cheek] $26.00 cloth. black grandmothers, and perfectly robs the oppressor of the power to disciplined black children are to humiliate. The person who turns our liberation.” In short, Laymon the other cheek is saying, in effect, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American intended to publish a memoir rein- ‘Try again. Your first blow failed to Memoir is a revelation and a reck- forcing the politics of respectability achieve its intended effect. I deny oning. Addressed to his mother, the passed down to him, not only by you the power to humiliate me.’” book lays bare some twenty-five white America, but also by his elders To turn the other cheek, in this years of Laymon’s life as a black who navigated those fraught waters. sense, is to “not lose the way [the male from Mississippi. He wrote Heavy instead. oppressor] wanted us to.” From childhood, Laymon In his book Engaging the Powers: In disclosing the raw details of struggles with his weight, with the Discernment and Resistance in a World his own trauma, Laymon demands physical pain his mother inflicts of Domination (1992), theologian his readers acknowledge the on his black body, with the ways Walter Wink considers Jesus’s violence his generation has inher- he sees other black bodies absorb command in the Sermon on the ited from slavery, from Jim Crow, violence and humiliation. In Heavy, Mount: “Do not resist the one who is and from previous generations of he grapples with how America evil. But if anyone slaps you on the African Americans who adopted taught his parents and grandparents right cheek, turn to him the other a pathology of violence hoping to withstand that violence. also.” Wink postulates that, rather to spare their children from the Laymon holds the dogmas than shrinking in the face of abuse, worst of white America’s blows. He espoused by those he loves up Jesus advocates subverting power probes wounds of vice and addic- to the light. His mother believes structures by exposing them for what tion, eating disorders, depression, that “excellence, education, and they are. misogyny, and poverty.

Page 40 Winter 2019 The Southern Register In the second chapter of Heavy, Mississippi in the Magnolia State for the past a young Kiese is witness to sexual thirty years, she says that Clay, who violence at the house of a neighbor By Ann Fisher-Wirth and is a fifth-generation Mississippian, whose encyclopedias he is supposed Maude Schuyler Clay. San brought an authority to the collec- to be using to write an essay. He Antonio, Texas: WingsPress, tion that she could not. But anyone offers no excuse when his mother who reads Mississippi will find that asked why he didn’t complete the 2018. 101 pages. Fisher-Wirth has a deep under- assignment. “I didn’t know how to $34.95 cloth. standing of the complex lives of tell you or anyone else the stories Mississippians. She slides into a my body told me,” he writes, “but, variety of personas to bring Clay’s like you, I knew how to run, deflect, Poet and Army brat Ann Fisher- photos to life in breathtaking ways: and duck.” Wirth spent her childhood in glass swans elicit senile dementia, He expects his mother to beat him, Washington, DC, Germany, shadows on a diamond-patterned but instead she makes him promise Pennsylvania, Japan, and California, rug evoke a romantic hotel getaway, to do better by the only means she but her new collaborative book and a reflective store-front window trusts—reading and writing. Though with photographer Maude Schuyler calls forth the struggles of a beauty Heavy is very likely not what his Clay gives the appearance that she queen. Inspired by Emily Dickinson, mother intended, with its publica- was born and raised in Mississippi. Fisher-Wirth omitted titles so that tion Laymon makes good on that Each of the forty-seven poems—all of each poem would be identified by promise. “I am writing a different which explore connections between its first line, which also positions the book to you,” he explains, “because Mississippians, the environment, and photo as a visual title. books, for better or for worse, are home—appears on a spread with a As Clay explored Mississippi with how we got here.” color photo taken by Clay. her camera over the past ten years “If you’re not from Mississippi, or so, she sent Fisher-Wirth emails of Jenna Mason it’s hard to claim the right to write random photos with simple captions about it,” Ann Fisher-Wirth said. such as “pink house.” Fisher-Wirth Although Fisher-Wirth has lived then selected the images that spoke to

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The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 41 her and “joggled bits” in her imagi- nation. Clay said that she initially took the photographs with her own projects in mind and was delightfully surprised to discover how Fisher-Wirth found particular voices in the photos. Whether it be a story inspired by a person, a conversation she heard, or experience from her own life, Fisher- Wirth said she aimed to respect the voices she imagined in the photos. Using free verse that feels like it is floating off the page, Fisher-Wirth explores the white space on a page just as a farmer cultivates land—she methodically plots words and pauses to reflect the story she’s telling. In the first photo of the collection, Clay captures a serene moment in which an abandoned canoe drifts on the surface of a moss-filled swamp. Shadows from a tree standing on a bluff in the center divide the sunny scene into two parts, which Fisher- Wirth represents by placing line school girl declares, “No way in hell rubble, representing how although breaks between visually descriptive Id let them vulchers eat my brother time passes, events as atrocious as language in order to convey memo- / no ma’am Id do just like Angon the Till trial refuses to fade into ries of presence and absence: done / my daddy my brother my oblivion. In the accompanying poem cusin all them . . . family the only that begins, “He ain’t done right Between two worlds thing that matters.” Fisher-Wirth said to whistle,” an old woman from the soul floats she wanted to honor the student’s Money—who said she “sure as hell “ferocity about family loyalty.” don’t believe his uncle / / shoulda nothing remains Darker voices engulf us with a stood up and pointed out / Roy and photo of the ruins that were once J. W. in that courthouse”—laments of but purple flowers smeared across the Bryant Grocery Store in Money, people coming to interview her “just the trees Mississippi—where the Emmett because we / was alive then making a silver boat tucked in against the Till murder began in August 1955. out like this / / is a bad town y’all bank Trees and shadows loom around the don’t know.” The very next photo the fecund pond like greenish velvet

Fisher-Wirth was inspired by Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel to take on the voice and perspective of a subject in the image, and in doing so, she utilizes vernacular that makes us feel like we are in conversation with the speaker of the poem. She shies away from formal literary language and embraces orality: a photo of an empty green space enclosed by brick walls sparked a memory in Fisher-Wirth’s mind about a female student she taught in Mississippi twenty-seven years ago. After learning the story of Antigone, the

Page 42 Winter 2019 The Southern Register looks down the dusty back-entrance On the other hand, in her New steps to the Tallahatchie County Yorker essay “Fallout,” on the courthouse, where the trial of Till’s “morphing” of a Kentucky town murderers was held. Instead of “from the Atomic City to the trying to forget about the trial, as the Quilt City,” Mason says Paducah’s speaker in the previous poem does, quilt museum is boldly “on the this speaker, who was a kid when cutting edge. Its quilts are post- the incident occurred, is haunted modern”—perhaps in the mode of and ashamed of his folks who say: the Patchwork dust jacket. In another “get the sheets / go rough up some a New Yorker essay, Mason admires them teach em / what’s right.” the “wonderful, complicated hills” Empathy is a storyteller’s art, of New Zealand, which “look as if Fisher-Wirth writes in the foreword someone had draped a crazy quilt of Mississippi. Only if we listen and over a pile of oranges and rocks”— immerse ourselves in the world another surreal image. Her grand- around us are we able to see and hope- mother taught the young Bobbie fully understand each other. Fisher- Ann how to stitch “scraps” into Wirth writes that she disagreed with a patchwork quilts; much later, Mason snarky comment on Facebook saying wrote a doctoral dissertation at the that expressions such as “might could” University of Connecticut on the and “aks” are not English. “I honor the “literary allusions, obscure words, voices, no matter whose they are, both nonfiction by the award-winning and intricate patterns” in Vladimir white and African American,” Fisher- Kentucky author best known for Nabokov’s Ada. Mason discovered Wirth writes. The poems, however, Shiloh and Other Stories (1982) and In a commonality between creating do not explicitly point out the race Country (1985). Stories and chapters quilts and creating literature: “For of the speaker, because the point from these early books are among me, stories are made out of tiny of Mississippi is not to pigeon-hole the fifty-one selections in the Bobbie details stitched together,” she told certain identities but rather to cele- Ann Mason reader, but so are an Candela Delgado Marin in a 2015 brate the rich orality of the state and excerpt from her Girl Sleuth (1975), Transatlantica interview. promote equality. Instead of elevating an essay on “My Life as a Fifties Introducing Patchwork, the novelist educated voices above uneducated, Groupie,” the unforgettable story George Saunders says it is a “short Mississippi reminds us that we are all “Quinceañera” from a 2013 Good sell” to characterize Mason as a more alike than different—regardless of Housekeeping issue, and a surprising “dirty realist” or “Kmart realist” for one’s background, everyone experi- sample of recent flash fictions. her references to shopping malls, ences the human condition. In her “Note to the Reader about Cokes, and other ubiquitous features This Reader,” Mason considers the of contemporary life. Saunders notes Jacqueline Knirnschild collection “a patchwork autobiog- that Mason’s unpublished first novel raphy of sorts. I see in it my lifelong was a “riff on Donald Barthelme’s tendency to look for patterns, and I Snow White,” and he believes her see my rebellion against them too.” well-crafted stories “retain that University Press of Kentucky editor essential postmodern energy,” with Patchwork: A Bobbie Ann Jonathan Allison views the multi- “shapes” that are “new and odd and Mason Reader genre gathering as a “patchwork” truthful. (Also ornery and funny.)” assemblage for its “variety and When she read from Patchwork at By Bobbie Ann Mason. brilliance.” The literal patchwork Oxford’s Square Books this past Preface by Jonathan Allison. quilts in Mason’s works have no fall, Mason appreciated Saunders’s Introduction by George obvious relationship to Patchwork’s revisionary assessment. “I’m a little cover design of mechanical chicks sensitive about being reduced to the Saunders. Lexington: University on a plowed green field generated terms of ‘popular culture,’ since it’s Press of Kentucky, 2018. 487 by computer. An eighty-three-year- often a pejorative term,” she once pages. $35.00 cloth. old man in the story “Wish” recalls explained to Jo Sapp and Evelyn making love for the first time on a Somers of the Missouri Review. “I traditional quilt in a traditional field: don’t think the culture of the people From the vivid front cover through “He could still feel the clean, soft, ought to be dismissed like that.” In a closing group of interviews, cool cotton of that quilt, the stubble another interview, she told BOMB Patchwork offers new ways of poking through, and the patterns of Magazine’s Craig Gholson that her looking at forty years of fiction and the quilting pressing into his back.” characters “are my people. I’m part

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 43 of them, and so I see myself impli- the twenty-first century.” Techniques cated and reflected in their lives. change, and Mason contrasts flash So I can’t become this Northern fiction’s “new kind of immediacy” to Literary person who looks back the immediacy of the first-person point on them from some great distance of view in her 1982 Shiloh stories. “I’m and judges them.” Stressing music’s excited about things that are new and crucial place in her people’s culture, challenging, things that shatter the old Mason affirms: “For me, Elvis is ways,” she told Craig Gholson, who personal—as a Southerner and some- notes Mason’s laughter at this point thing of a neighbor.” She includes in their conversation. From start to an excerpt from her biographical finish, however,Patchwork upholds the Elvis Presley (2003) with three other “aesthetic principles” that Mason cites pieces in Patchwork’s fourth divi- in another interview: “From Nabokov sion, “Beginnings.” In the headnote I learned that the surfaces are not for this group, Mason confesses that symbolic representations, but the “the radio, girl detective books, and thing itself, irreducible. . . . The work Louisa May Alcott were my early should shimmer”—like the neon green escapes from the isolation of country Patchwork design on her front cover. life. I wanted to go to radioland.” Like her interviews, Mason’s prefa- Joan Wylie Hall tory notes for all seventeen sections of Patchwork are a rich source of contexts seemed uncertain, as politicians and and insights for fans and scholars. For pundits wondered about the logic of example, she leads into part 2, “War,” saving a city built under sea level. As by commenting on her popular Women of the Storm: people waited for help from FEMA, coming-of-age novel about a teenaged Civic Activism after for electricity to be restored, and girl whose father died in Vietnam: for the waters to recede, a group of “No personal loss or connection Hurricane Katrina women lost patience with what was motivated the writing of In Country.” By Emmanuel David. an increasingly inadequate govern- In fact, Mason says she was “reluctant mental response. at first to write about war” but “soon Champaign: University of Anne Milling, founder of Women realized that war wasn’t only battle. It Illinois Press, 2018. 266 of the Storm, organized the group was also the shattering effects on the pages. $95.00 cloth, $26.95 to pressure Congress to support people at home.” Mason’s headnote the rebuilding of New Orleans and for part 5, “Family History,” prefaces paper, $24.26 ebook. the Gulf Coast. The women were a her excerpt from the autobiograph- cross-section of society, including ical Clear Springs (1999) by arguing On the lead single from her album Rebecca Currence, mother of that “a good memoir ought to have 4, Beyoncé asks the question, “Who Oxford chef John Currence; Olivia a larger story.” Mason found hers in runs the world?” Her powerful Manning, philanthropist and wife the history of British pioneers who response, is, “Girls!” In Emmanuel of footballers Archie Manning and migrated to Kentucky, and she real- David’s Women of the Storm: Civic mother of Eli and Peyton; future ized that she herself was a pioneer: Activism after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans mayor Latoya Cantrell; “My generation was the first since that David also demonstrates a message Lindy Boggs, politician and ambas- perilous migration to embrace radical of female empowerment. sador to the Vatican; and chef Leah change.” Her mother, however, is Women of the Storm draws on Chase; just to name a few. “the real center of this memoir.” in-depth interviews, ethnographic Milling led efforts that culmi- The structure of the Bobbie Ann observation, and archival research nated in 130 Louisianans flying to Mason reader is roughly chrono- to tell an engrossing story about the Washington, DC, to lobby for more logical, from part 1, “First Stories” collective action and personal trans- disaster aid. The group realized to part 16, “Flash Fiction,” with the formation of the women who made it politicians needed to see the area for four interviews of part 17 serving their mission to make sure Louisiana themselves in order to sympathize as a sort of coda. The headnote to and the Gulf Coast were not forgotten with the plight of the residents, and Mason’s latest stories announces a in the wake of two powerful storms so they invited every member of “time shift” from works like the family and subsequent levee breaks. Congress to come to New Orleans. memoir Clear Springs or the World In 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina Using her background in philan- War II settings of The Girl in the Blue and Rita made landfall less than four thropy, Milling’s “long career taught Beret: “I wanted to settle down in weeks apart, the fate of Louisiana her how to raise money, maneuver

Page 44 Winter 2019 The Southern Register through difficult political terrain, and group,” defined as private citizens Remembering make bold requests.” These were not coming together in pursuit of collec- just women who went out to lunch; tive goals relevant to disasters. By Reconstruction: Struggles they became political strategists. focusing on the beginning of the over the Meaning of When thinking about the disaster organization, he is guided by sociolo- recovery aid needed for the state, gist Kathleen Blee, who notes in the America’s Most Turbulent most accounts of Katrina don’t introduction that “what happens later recognize the importance of obscures what happened earlier.” Era lobbying to explain the allocation He writes: “I didn’t know it then, Eds. Carole Emberton and of federal funds, and David seeks to but this small group of women make sure the Women of the Storm leaders would arguably become Bruce E. Baker. Baton Rouge: were not written out of history. among the most powerful and influ- LSU Press, 2018. 296 pp. When the bipartisan congressional ential in Louisiana’s history, contrib- $45.00 cloth. visits took place at the 17th Street uting in countless ways to the rebirth Canal levee breach in the Lakeview of New Orleans after one of the neighborhood in March of 2006, it greatest catastrophes of our time.” Remembering Reconstruction, edited was due to the efforts of this group. He seamlessly integrates back- by Carole Emberton and Bruce Women of the Storm also recog- ground about Women of the Storm— E. Baker, is more than another nized the importance of having both information gathered through oral instance of what historian Fitzhugh elite whites and African Americans histories, forty-one interviews, notes Brundage describes in the book’s involved, as the group had varied he took at their meetings, and being introduction as “our enduring racial and ethnic backgrounds. One involved as a participant observer— preoccupation with making sense” of David’s central findings was that with sociological perspectives on what of the period. In fact, in collectively women of color found their “partici- the women were doing. He was with refuting any monolithic accounting pation to be meaningful and empow- them on the plane to Washington, of “Reconstruction,” these essays ering.” Etiquette played a strong role participated in their public demon- render the era productively more as well, whether it was their hand- strations, and maintained an ongoing complex rather than more coherent. written thank-you notes to politicians rapport with the women. As Brundage points out, unlike after they visited the Capitol, or the Though David points out that other other epochs retroactively named graciousness that was part of their social scientists have studied upper- by professionals, “Reconstruction” code of conduct. They also under- class women’s cultures, his book inves- was a word people began using in stood how to garner media attention, tigates the formation of a women’s the moment to describe the monu- using umbrellas the same blue as the group also emerging from a crisis. As mental process they were actively FEMA-issued tarps covering roofs sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi undertaking: the reassembly of when they arrived at Capital Hill for also writes in the introduction, “People a fractured nation. Above all, a press conference. Seemingly small most frequently become conscious of Remembering Reconstruction empha- details were of the utmost impor- their identities at moments of transi- sizes the illusive power of memory tance when they hand-delivered their tion, which are often also moments to create a stable “truth” about heavy card-stock invitations to politi- of crisis,” and indeed Women of the that process, one that often far cians for a ground and aerial tour of Storm came about out of necessity. outweighs anything either partici- the devastated area and the wetlands. David actually returned to the pants or later interpreters might be The book is part history of the project ten years after starting it, tempted to set down as “fact.” group and part sociological study, realizing the passage of time enabled Remembering Reconstruction makes as David, who is assistant professor another vantage point of his inter- at least three significant interventions of women and gender studies at viewees of the initial formation of the in how we understand the post– University of Colorado Boulder, group, an untold story of the catas- Civil War years. First, the collection graduated from Loyola University, trophe. His language is entirely read- intentionally dismantles a recurrent and his scholarly interest in Katrina able, and he meticulously explains storyline that depends on African was shaped both by his past as a his methods, which would be useful American passivity in the face of student in the city and his wanting for anyone interested in studying white supremacy. Shawn Leigh to participate in its recovery. He gender, groups, disasters, politics, or Alexander, for example, examines primarily focuses on the first year of social movements. the power of the postwar black Women of the Storm from January David is also coeditor of The Women press, focusing in particular on the to December of 2006 and then of Katrina: How Gender, Race, and Class career of newspaper man T. Thomas again during the BP oil spill in 2010. Matter in an American Disaster. Fortune, who in a series of promi- He points out that Women of the nent publications made the case for Storm is a “disaster-related emergent Rebecca Lauck Cleary both the brutality of white-on-black

The Southern Register Winter 2019 Page 45 violence and the ongoing asser- nation’s evolving awareness of itself tions of African Americans to their on the international stage. Mark rights as citizens and as human Elliott’s essay, for instance, focuses beings. Justin Behrend reads black on two Lake Mohonk conferences politician John R. Lynch’s autobio- in 1890 and 1891 devoted to the graphical The Facts of Reconstruction “Negro Question,” held not coinci- as particularly shaped by the time dentally on the eve of the Spanish- lapse between the events of Lynch’s American War and at the location account and their publication in where regular policy meetings about 1913; he posits the author’s keen the “Indian Question” took place. awareness of how his narrative In “A New Reconstruction for the would complicate well-entrenched South,” Natalie Ring traces parallels origin stories of white power. In between “civilizing” missions abroad “The Freedwoman’s Tale,” Carole and attitudes toward the South, Emberton returns to the collection likewise temporally out of step with of ex-slave narratives gathered by the nation at large and in need of a the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) in “readjustment” that would concen- the 1930s, what Emberton character- trate less directly on political and izes as “one of the richest yet most civil rights and more on economic, controversial archives in American educational, and cultural uplift for history.” Using the account of both blacks and poor whites—a Hannah Irwin, Emberton explores southerners saw as the regionally benevolent civilizing mission that the FWP narratives as an index of specific dynamics of race and class. folded region back into a national racial power dynamics freedpeople In an archivally based essay, Elaine narrative of white supremacy. A encountered well into the twentieth Parsons reads a wide selection of related sort of benevolence is at the century, suggesting the Jim Crow history textbooks in order to trace a root of Samuel L. Schaffer’s argu- context of Irwin’s retelling as its most remarkable similarity in depictions ment that Woodrow Wilson, because important frame. of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1880s of his exposure to the popular narra- Thus Remembering Reconstruction up to 2015. Despite a movement tives of Reconstruction, resisted a follows recent scholarly trends by away from empathetic portrayals of too strenuous remaking of Europe extending “Reconstruction” and its the group toward overt condemna- in the wake of World War I and influences past the period’s formal tion of its motives, she notes consis- designed a League of Nations that end in 1877, powerfully arguing tent tendencies to figure the Klan fast-tracked some countries and for its reach well into the twen- as a mysterious force discontinuous remediated others along a sliding tieth century. For instance, in his with quotidian and systemic racism. scale of “civilization.” essay K. Stephen Prince argues that The Klan thus problematically Remembering Reconstruction consis- “Jim Crow segregation, disfran- becomes the “stand-in” for all white- tently demonstrates, then, that who chisement, and systemic violence on-black aggression. Bruce Baker’s tells a story always matters. As were . . . the result of a planned closing essay, “Wade Hampton’s Parsons observes, “Part of the work and coordinated attack on African Last Parade,” functions as an after- of any national history narrative is American civil and political rights” word, examining Reconstruction’s to make itself appear to have been rooted in nineteenth-century prac- fitful role in South Carolina’s inevitable.” The work of Emberton tices and carried out in full view of tricentennial celebrations. Federally and Baker’s collection is to expose an entire nation. Similarly Jason mandated school desegregation the nature of white supremacy as Morgan Ward, in “Causes Lost was kicking in at virtually the same a carefully curated narrative that and Found: Remembering and time (1970), creating a paradoxical makes imbalances of power, even Refighting Reconstruction in the blend of racial integration and black in 2019, seem somehow inevitable Roosevelt Era,” suggests “that the erasure as schools originally named or unavoidable. These thoughtful distance between post–Civil War for African American community analyses of Reconstruction— racial struggles and the modern leaders were absorbed into a tide of what Emberton and Baker term civil rights movement is shorter white renaming that privileged one “America’s Most Turbulent Era”— than many realize.” He understands set of memories over others. recover the potential for a nation resistance among southern states Finally, the collection’s focus on differently configured, a nation still to New Deal–era legislation as an “the creation of American Empire” struggling to acknowledge who has extension of postbellum distrust extends this attention to collective told our national stories and why. for carpetbaggers and outsiders memory-making by considering the who fail to understand what white role Reconstruction played in the Kathryn B. McKee

Page 46 Winter 2019 The Southern Register LANDSCAPE IN ART AND LITERATURE—————— continued from page 21 CONTRIBUTORS Annemarie Anderson is the and coeditor-in-chief of SharpOxford, Gun magazines; she is frequently Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral and her writing has appeared in published in the New York Times, Wall historian. She received a MA in oral Number: Inc, the Oxford Eagle, the Daily Street Journal, and Condé Nast Traveler; history from the University of Florida Mississippian, and the Winona Times. in 2017, the first graduate of that and she is the author of a double Ed Komara is the Julia E. Crane program. She also earned her BA in Librarian of Music at the State handful of best-selling books. Her English and history from UF. latest is South toward Home: Adventures University of New York at Potsdam. and Misadventures in My Native Land. Frances “Frankie” Barrett is His book about the blues, 100 Books a second-year Southern Studies Every Blues Fan Should Own, was Simon and Schuster calls Jessica MA student at the University of cowritten with current UM blues Harris the “preeminent authority on Mississippi. Her research interests archivist, Greg Johnson. Even after the culinary culture of the African include globalization, work, identity, seventeen years in the North, he still diaspora.” She has written a dozen feminism, Appalachia, and the South. follows Ole Miss football. She is passionate about social justice books—almost all contain recipes, Derrick Lanois is a first-year and critical thinking. but they aren’t constrained by the Southern Studies MFA student. He cookbook genre. Harris’s most recent Brett J. Bonner is editor of Living Blues. teaches history at Rust College. book is the memoir, My Soul Looks Rebecca Lauck Cleary is the Kathryn B. McKee is McMullan Back. She has also written countless Center’s communications specialist. Associate Professor of Southern essays, book and theater reviews, and She received a BA in journalism from Studies and English. features. She recently retired after the University of Mississippi and her MA in Southern Studies. Jenna Mason is the content and almost five decades as a professor of media manager for the Southern English at Queens College/CUNY. Jennifer Gunter is director of the Foodways Alliance. South Carolina Collaborative on Race All events are open to the public Ted Ownby is William Winter without charge, but registration is and Reconciliation at the University of South Carolina. Professor of History and director of required for the symposium. For the Center for the Study of Southern details, visit museum.olemiss.edu Joan Wylie Hall is a lecturer in the Culture. English Department at the University of or call the University of Mississippi James G. Thomas, Jr. is associate Mississippi. She is the author of Shirley Museum and Historic Houses director of the Center, editor of the Jackson: Studies in Short Fiction and the , and director of the at 662-915-7073. The project is editor of Conversations with Audre Lorde Southern Register Oxford Conference for the Book. supported in part by funding from and Conversations with Natasha Trethewey. the Mississippi Arts Commission, Her work has also been published Jay Watson is Howry Professor of through the Avery B. Dille Jr. Fund in numerous journals such as Legacy: Faulkner Studies at the University of for Art Acquisition, in memory of Mr. A Journal of American Women Writers, Mississippi and the director of the Avery B. Dille Sr., Mrs. Katherine T. Mississippi Quarterly, Faulkner Journal, and Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Dille, and Avery B. Dill Jr. the Eudora Welty Review. Conference. Jacqueline Knirnschild is an under- Jessica Wilkerson is assistant graduate student at the University of professor of history and Southern Mississippi studying anthropology Studies at the University of and Chinese. She is the cofounder Mississippi. In Memoriam Sarah Anderson “Tay” Gillespie May 18, 1924–December 16, 2018

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