Sociologist Returns to University to Share Mississippi Stories

The talk is part of the Craft at the Brewery series, sponsored by the University of Mississippi's Department of Writing and Rhetoric. It is free and open to the public.

Foster's storytelling philosophy begins with a souped-up cliche: ordinary moments often hold significant sustenance.

"Most of my work is set in a rural, small-town context," he said. "I'm interested both in how elected officials make decisions that affect people, the communities, like their constituents, and then on the other side, how do those everyday people accept and navigate, how do they resist and critique, and make sense of the ways that those decisions trickle down and shape their everyday lives."

Through his documentary work, Foster spent time in Lee and Monroe counties in northeast Mississippi, the Oxford area and the Delta towns of Clarksdale and Tunica. He focuses on uncovering broader themes of memory, community and development.

"We, as storytellers, as writers, as documentarians, have a pretty heavy responsibility both to the communities that we serve, to represent them honestly and truthfully, and to our readers, to represent honesty and truth," he said.

Foster is a native of the Lee County town of Shannon and earned a bachelor's degree in African American studies at Ole Miss in 2011. He also earned master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of North Carolina. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor of sociology at UM.

"I'm always excited to come back to Mississippi and talk to Mississippians, or at least folks who are rooted in the state," Foster said. "The state's got a long history of producing some of the most prolific and important writers across genres, from literature to scholarship, and to be part of that tradition as a contemporary Mississippi-based writer is exciting."

He has written two books, "I Don't Like the Blues" (University of North Carolina Press, 2020) and "Ghosts of Segregation" (Celadon Books, 2024), and produced three short films: "We Travel," "We Dance" and "We Make."

John T. Edge, director of the Mississippi Lab and writer-in-residence in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, co-hosts the discussion series with LaToya Faulk, a lecturer in the same department. The series is an investment in the community, he said.

"It's an investment on our part in the craft of writing, by way of bringing someone we respect who earned his undergraduate degree here at the university, has gone on to do transformative work and is returning to inspire a new generation of students," Edge said.

"Brian and I were friends and colleagues when he taught here, and he published one book while he was here. You could see the promise of his writing in that very good book. Now, with more experience and a second book under his belt, all in attendance will benefit from his take on how to write narrative nonfiction that makes a difference."

Top: Writer and documentarian Brian Foster (right) records an interview with Bobbie Randall, of Shannon, in 2023 for the Siggers High School Oral History Collection. Submitted photo