OXFORD, Miss. – Passion for the environment and literature
come together in a lecture Thursday (April 24) at the
University of Mississippi.
Writer, naturalist and activist Janisse Ray gives a
“Greening the University” lecture at 7 p.m. in Farley Hall
Auditorium. Ray, author of three books of literary
nonfiction, was UM’s 2003-04 John and Renee Grisham
Writer-in-Residence.
Her return to campus is through the help of Ann
Fisher-Wirth, who is steering an environmental task force
at UM with the goal of raising environmental consciousness
and identifying environmental issues on campus. She said a
dynamic speaker was needed to inaugurate the movement with
energy and charisma, and Ray was the perfect choice.
“I’ve known Janisse through environmental organizations and
activities for over a decade,” said Fisher-Wirth, professor
of English. “When she lived here, she was beloved by the
whole community. She is a stupendous speaker, and I hope
people will come hear her and engage in conversation about
what universities can do in terms of environmental
awareness.”
Ray lectures widely on nature, community, organic
agriculture, native plants, sustainability and the politics
of wholeness. As an organizer and activist, she works to
create sustainable communities, local food systems, a
stable global climate, intact ecosystems, clean rivers,
life-enhancing economies and a participatory democracy.
The author said she enjoyed the year she spent in Oxford,
and she focuses on living sustainably on her family farm in
southern Georgia.
“Our institutions are at an exciting place in that they are
recognizing – in the face of climate change and other
disintegrations of natural resources – that the time to be
sustainable has arrived,” Ray said. “I’ll be talking about
the ways that the University of Mississippi is in a unique
and enviable place to implement more sustainable practices.
I’ll talk about American lifestyles, how we live and how we
need to live, and also about things other universities have
done to go green. The University of Mississippi can easily
make a name for itself and be a regional leader in this
endeavor.”
Elements of ecology and autobiography are woven into Ray’s
works, including “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood” (Milkweed
Editions, 1999). The book is a memoir about growing up on a
junkyard in the ruined longleaf pine ecosystem of the
Southeast. Besides being a plea to protect and restore the
glorious pine flatwoods of the South, the book looks hard
at family, mental illness, poverty and fundamentalist
religion.
Her second book, “Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home”
(Milkweed Editions, 2003), focuses on rural communities.
The third, “Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented
Land” (Chelsea Green 2005), is the story of a 750,000-acre
wild land corridor between south Georgia and north
Florida.
In 2007 Ray started a small press, Wildfire, in order to
publish Southern nature writing. An anthology of local
stories about a Georgia preserve, “Moody Forest,” has
recently been published. She has been a visiting professor
at Coastal Carolina University, scholar-in-residence at
Florida Gulf Coast University, and writer-in-residence at
Keene State College and Green Mountain College. She holds a
MFA from the University of Montana, and in 2007 was awarded
an honorary doctorate from Unity College in Maine.
This year, she is on the faculty of Chatham University’s
low-residency MFA program. She will also teach at
Wildbranch Writing Workshop and Unity College’s workshop
for teachers, “Education in a Changing Climate.”
Her lecture at UM is co-sponsored by the Faculty Senate,
University Lecture Series, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors
College, Associated Student Body and the departments of
English, Art and Biology, as well as the Unitarian
Universalist Church.
For more information or assistance related to a disability,
contact Fisher-Wirth at afwirth@olemiss.edu.