The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale is offering a 3-Day Teachers Workshop covering the Mississippi Blues Trail on Tuesday, July 28 – Thursday, July 30. Several people from the Center and the University will be helping, including Ted Ownby, Scott Barretta of Highway 61 Radio, Greg Johnson of the University Blues Archive, and Derrick Harriell of the UM Department of English.
Would you like to join us in Barnard Observatory? The Center is now hiring for a part-time staff position who will handle general organizational and clerical tasks, serve as Building Mayor of Barnard, work with calendars and scheduling, and the like. For all the details and to apply, visit the University’s posting on the HR site.
This week, my book Subduing Satan: Recreation, Religion, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920, turns 25 years old. I remember the date because the book showed up in my mailbox the weekend I turned 30. As birthdays go, the 25th year of a work of history really doesn’t call for or deserve much attention. But it intrigues me to think about it, so I hope anyone reading this will forgive me if writing about my aging book seems a combination of self-congratulation, penitence, and nostalgia. Heaven knows southern history already has plenty of all three.
I’m not absolutely sure I need a state flag. I don’t wave state flags or salute them or wear them on my clothing. But as a resident of Mississippi since the 1980s and as scholar and teacher in History and Southern Studies, I want a different flag than the one we have. I want a state flag that stands for equal access to the law, to education, to health care, and to safety and respect.
June Issue of Living Blues The June issue of Living Blues covers the Holmes Brothers in what has become their final interview. Sherman and Wendell Holmes and Poppy Dixon each speak and tell their story about their lives, music, and friendships in the blues world. Sadly, Wendell Holmes’ health has worsened and Poppy Dixon died …
Jake Xerxes Fussell’s self-titled solo debut album showcases his folk and blues roots. The Southern Studies alum (MA 2013) says that the album came together fairly easily, with most of the basic tracking done one afternoon at Bruce Watson’s studio in Water Valley, Mississippi, with tracking and mixing at Mark Nevers’s studio in Nashville.
Two Southern Studies assistant professors are getting to use their passports this summer as recipients of the Provost’s Faculty Development Award for Campus Internationalization. Catarina Passidomo heads to Peru May 31–June 10 for “Peruvian Food Systems: Balancing Growth and Preservation,” and Jodi Skipper goes to Senegal June 7–17 for “Islam, Politics, and Culture in Senegal and West Africa.”
This article, by James G. Thomas, Jr., appears in the Spring 2015 issue of the Southern Register. Southern Studies Draws Students from Abroad The Center for the Study of Southern Culture is not unfamiliar to guests and visitors from beyond US borders. Whether they be scholars, students, or enthusiasts of Southern culture in general, the …
The Toughest Job: William Winter’s Mississippi, a film by Matthew Graves of the Southern Documentary Project, won an Emmy for best historical documentary from the Southeast division of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The awards were announced on Saturday, June 6 in Atlanta, and Graves attended the ceremony. “It was such an …
Dr. Jessica Wilkerson, who just completed her first year as Assistant Professor of History and Southern Studies, has just won an award from the Labor and Working Class History Association for her dissertation, “Where Movements Meet: From the War on Poverty to Grassroots Feminism in the Appalachian South.”