August/September LIVING BLUES Looks at Protest in the Blues

Living Blues#256 (August/September 2018) takes a look at protest in the blues. There have been songs of protest throughout the history of the blues and in this issue we trace a sampling of the voices of dissent over the decades and then turn our gaze to several contemporary musicians and their strong voices of dissent.  

Study the South Announces Recipient of Research Fellowship

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture is pleased to announce that Bobby J. Smith II is the first recipient of the Study the SouthResearch Fellowship. The award provides the opportunity for funded research in the collections of the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the J. D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi.

Check out the June/July LIVING BLUES

Living Blues #255 (June/July 2018) features Louisiana bluesman Chris Thomas King on the cover. A second generation Baton Rouge bluesman, King has been making records for more than 30 years and over that time his perception of the blues and where it came from has evolved and broadened. King discusses his early years with his father, Tabby Thomas, and his forthcoming book about the origins of the blues.

SouthDocs Welcomes New Documentarian Andrea Morales

SouthDocs Welcomes New Documentarian Andrea Morales The Center and the Southern Documentary Project are excited to welcome visual storyteller Andrea Morales to the staff of SouthDocs. Peruvian-born (1984), Miami-bred and Memphis-based: after years of existing in spaces heavy with the constructs of socioeconomic binaries, my work moves with the hope of observing the things in

Call for Papers for STUDY THE SOUTH: “The American South in the 1970s”

Call for Papers for STUDY THE SOUTH: “The American South in the 1970s” Study the South, a peer-reviewed, multimedia, open-access, online journal published by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, seeks papers on the South in the 1970s. The journal hopes to publish several papers on the subject

Online Version of THE MISSISSIPPI ENCYCLOPEDIA is live

As of this summer, if you don’t want to lug around the nine-pound Mississippi Encyclopedia, just grab your laptop and the wonders of the state are at your fingertips. Soon there will be an online version of the 1,451-page Mississippi Encyclopedia, a project that began at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture in 2003 and concluded with publication in 2017.

Center Director Named William Winter Professor of History

Ted Ownby, Center Director

As director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Ted Ownby fulfills many roles. He recently added one more to the list as the university’s William F. Winter Professor of History.

In 1992, the University of Mississippi Foundation established an endowment fund to promote and recognize excellence in historical scholarship and to honor former Gov. William F. Winter, a staunch supporter of public education.

New Film by John Rash Profiles NC Bookmobile Owner

John Rash of the Southern Documentary Project has a new short film called Nomad Chapter, which profiles Diarra Leggett, owner of Boomerang Bookshop: Nomad Chapter, a North Carolina-based bookmobile. View it on the Center’s documentary media site Mississippi Stories, whose Mississippi-based storytellers tell the stories of people and communities around the globe.

April/May LIVING BLUES Available Now

Living Blues #254 (April/May 2018) features the duo of Warner Williams and Jay Summerour on the cover. One of the last great East Coast blues duos, Williams (age 87) and Summerour do it the old-school way.