OXFORD, Miss. – This fall’s lineup of Brown Bag Lunch and Lecture
programs at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of
Southern Culture explores new and interesting facets of Southern life
beginning Sept. 3, plus a separate series on environmental issues.
The programs, scheduled each Wednesday for 11 weeks, are free and open
to the public. They are held at noon in Barnard Observatory’s Tupelo
Room. A Green Bag series of environmentally themed lectures is set for
noon on selected Mondays in the same location.
“The main thrust of our Brown Bag series is to talk about different aspects of Southern culture,” said Mary Hartwell Howorth, CSSC operations assistant.
This season brings topics ranging from politically themed lectures to documentaries about the past and present of Oxford.
Joe York, producer/director for UM Media Productions and Distributed Learning, is working on an oral history project called “The Oxonians” for the Nov. 19 program.
“We are interviewing people from Oxford about Oxford, and trying to collect, document and catalog their memories,” York said.
The first goal of the project is to create a Web site that features a virtual map of the Oxford Square. Visitors to the site will be able to click on buildings and learn their history. The brown bag program will preview the Web site as well as feature video clips of interviews.
“The Square is the heart of our town, and I think that as much as we appreciate it, we can appreciate it more,” York said. “It will be a fun, multimedia experience for people in Oxford who are interested in learning about Oxford.”
Joe Atkins, journalism professor and author, hosts the Oct. 15 program. He plans to discuss his latest book, “Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press,” which tells about the difficulties of working people of the South and the way the press treated them when they tried to unionize.
“There is a by-and-large failure in the Southern press to really tell the story of Southern working people on a consistent basis,” Atkins said. “And this has contributed to the fact that Southern workers are the lowest-paid workers in the nation still even today, and the least unionized as well.”
The book also relates a personal story for Atkins, who worked in a Southern textile mill. He describes his approach to the subject as “that of a trained observer and an eyewitness, rather than that of a labor historian or even a media scholar.”
Other topics in the fall Brown Bag series include the Southern Foodways Alliance Film Festival and a lecture about Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
“A lot of times Southern studies is a mystery to other disciplines on campus,” Howorth said. “I would encourage our community members to come. The Brown Bag series is a great way for people to understand what we’re about.”
Following is the fall 2008 list of Brown Bag Lectures:
– Oct. 1 – “A Southern Studies Documentary Fieldwork Film Presentation”
– Oct. 8 – “Turn on Your Radio (or the TV) to MPB,” Marie Antoon, MPB director
– Oct. 15 – “Labor and the Southern Bosses,” Atkins
– Oct. 22 – “A Southern Foodways Alliance Film Festival”
– Nov. 5 – “A Southern Studies Documentary Fieldwork Film Presentation”
– Nov. 19 – “The Oxonians Project Continues,” York
The Green Bag series begins Sept. 8 with “Gender and the Environment in the Global South: Three Perspectives from ‘Women and the Environment, Gender Honors Studies 301.'” The session is to be led by Mary Ott Carruth, director of the Sarah Isom Center for Gender Studies, and Meghan Oswalt, Mary McHenry and Megan Smith, students in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.
Other lectures in the series include:
– Oct. 6 – “The Secrets Hidden in a Southern Landscape” Ann M. Farrell
– Nov. 3 – “‘The River’ (1938), A Documentary by Pare Lorentz on The Highs and Lows of the Mississippi River” by Ted Ownby, professor of history and Southern studies and CSSC interim director
For more information, visit Center for the Study of Southern Culture.