SouthTalks Focus on 'Reading the South'

SouthTalks is a series of events – including lectures, performances, film screenings and panel discussions – that explore the interdisciplinary nature of Southern studies. All events are at Barnard Observatory, unless otherwise noted, and are free and open to the public.

"Invited speakers will complicate both parts of that theme: 'reading' and 'the South,'" said Katie McKee, the center's director. "Literally, we read the written word, but texts also encompass landscapes and various media, including music, historical artifacts, films, maps and art. 

"'The South' itself is variously defined, not neatly limited by geography or experience. Events in this series will encourage us to 'read' broadly in order to explore and widen what we mean by 'South.'"        

The series kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 2), with photojournalist and Ole Miss alumna Kate Medley talking about her work on "Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed and Fuel the American South" (Bitter Southerner, 2023).

From her base in North Carolina, Medley took road trips across the South to document the evolving service stations, convenience stores and quick stops of the region for the project, which produced a photo exhibition and book. Along the way, she sampled tamales, fried fish and banh mi at venues both familiar and indispensable, learning a lot about the region's communities, generosity and culture along the way.

Michael Morris will discuss efforts to expand interpretation at the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum at noon Friday (Sept. 5). A Jackson native, Morris has served as the director of the Two Mississippi Museums since 2023.

He will also examine how the work is influencing the future interpretive experience of other museum sites administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 

At noon Sept. 10, Thabi Moyo, Blaine Waide and Jimmy Duck Holmes discuss how "The National Folk Festival comes to Mississippi for the First Time." Waide, executive director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, and Thabi Moyo, local National Folk Festival manager, will share the history of NCTA's founding in 1934, how it has evolved over the years and their plans for the festival's first time being hosted in Jackson, in November.

Holmes, a blues musician from Bentonia, will perform and speak about the blues tradition in his community.

Joe Moody and Judy Cox Andrews present "The Charlie Cox Collection: Glass-Plate Images of Benton County from the Early 1900s," an exhibit that showcases the work of artist Charlie Cox in the early years of the 20th century, at noon Sept. 17. The medium is glass-plate photography that depicts a variety of subjects, from portraits of members of the community and farm animals to images of labor and landmarks.

Andrews is Charlie Cox's granddaughter.

"I will be discussing my work with the digitization process while she will be discussing the background of the images," said Moody, audiovisual librarian and an assistant professor for the UM Department of Archives and Special Collections. "It was an honor to digitize such an interesting collection of images from this small community at the turn of the 20th century.

"The images capture a wide variety of subjects and focus on the whole community rather than merely the affluent. As for the medium, I believe people will be surprised by the quality that glass plate negatives can provide." 

Regina S. Baker presents "Is the Past Really Past? Historical Racial Regimes and Contemporary Poverty in the American South" at noon Sept. 19. Baker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, will present her framework of the Historical Racial Regime to empirically demonstrate that past institutionalized systems of racial control still affect contemporary poverty and racial inequality in the American South.

Baker's findings highlight why confronting history is crucial to addressing most modern pressing social challenges. This SouthTalk is presented in partnership with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

In partnership with Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture will screen an extended trailer of "The American Revolution" at 4 p.m. Sept. 22. A panel of Ole Miss faculty members will discuss the film following the 30-minute screening.

"The American Revolution" is a six-part, 12-hour series, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt. It chronicles the people who lived through America's founding struggle, their experiences over eight years of wartime and how they created a new nation where the people themselves would hold the power.

At noon Sept. 24, Jessica Scott examines queer and trans shared realities that translate into activist work that, though underfunded and at the margins, remains transformative. Scott is associate professor of gender studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College, cofounder of the Center for Restorative Justice and author of "Home Is Where Your Politics Are."

This talk "reads the South" by positioning the global North location of the U.S. South next to the global South location of South Africa.

As part of the Visiting Documentarian Series, Elaine McMillion Sheldon screens her film "King Coal," at 6 p.m. Oct. 1 in the Overby Center Auditorium.

"King Coal" meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped and the myths it has created. Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker based in West Virginia.

The Visiting Documentarian Series is supported partly by the Berkley Hudson Visiting Documentarian Fund.

Annette Gordon-Reed will give the Gilder-Jordan Lecture in Southern Cultural History at 6 p.m. Oct. 7 in the David H. Nutt Auditorium.

Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, both for "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." Her latest book is bestselling "On Juneteenth."

At 5:30 p.m. Oct. 9, Adetayo Alabi, Vanessa Charlot and Richard Purcell present a screening and discussion about "In the Year of the Quiet Sun."

The film examines how the astronomical time of the quiet sun converged with the political calendar of conferences that took place in cities such as Bandung, Cairo, Belgrade, Accra, Addis Ababa, Saniquelle and Casablanca throughout the 1950s and '60s. At those conferences, politicians, activists and journalists gathered to debate and plan the continental program of Pan Africanist policy.

Alabi is a scholar and literary critic with extensive teaching, research and administrative experience in the U.S., Canada and Nigeria. Charlot is a documentary photographer, filmmaker and UM professor whose work explores the intersections of race, spirituality, politics and the visual archive within communities of the African diaspora. Purcell is a researcher, writer and teacher whose work focuses on the relationship between race, value and labor in contemporary American art, literature and media.

At 5:30 p.m. Oct. 14, Jazmin Miller Wilson and Anya Groner present a gallery walk about their interactive exhibit "Extractivism." The exhibit contrasts survival and extraction along the Mississippi River.

Scenes from Jazmin Miller Wilson's upcoming documentary, "Jonesland," about Black land ownership, survival and ecological legacy, are displayed in the Gammill Gallery. QR codes throughout the space allow visitors to use smartphones to listen to audio of local residents, activists and researchers discussing the history of extractive economies in Louisiana's Cancer Alley.

Author Jeremy B. Jones will read from and discuss "Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor's Scandalous Secret Diaries" at noon Oct. 15. From 1808 to 1859, farmer and teacher William Thomas Prestwood logged his life in an invented secret code, tracking bird migrations, love affairs and science experiments from the South Carolina lowlands to the North Carolina mountains.

More than 100 years later, his handmade notebooks were discovered in an abandoned house. A retired National Security Agency cryptanalyst deciphered and transcribed the work, leaving Jones, the great-great-great-great-grandson of the diarist, to wonder what this curious man's life might reveal about life today.

At 5:30 p.m. Oct. 21, visual artist, musician and 2025 Sarahfest artist-in-residence Jon Langford and master printer Jim Sherraden will be in conversation about their individual artwork and collaborations together.

Sherraden led Nashville's famous Hatch Show Print letterpress shop for three decades before retiring in 2018. It will be a night of art, music, food and conversation with two artists whose first collaborative moment sprang from Langford's time as the Country Music Hall of Fame's first visiting artist.

Becky Marchiel presents "The Park That Was a Prison: Reading the Landscape in Late Twentieth-Century Memphis" at noon Oct. 22. From the late 1960s to the '80s, Shelby Farms in Memphis transformed from one of the region's largest penal farms into a major urban park, revealing deep tensions over land use, memory and community priorities in the process.

Marchiel is an Ole Miss history professor who researches the nation's urban history and political economy.

Byron D'Andra Orey discusses one of the most controversial textbooks on Mississippi history at noon Oct. 29.  Originally published in 1974, "Mississippi, Conflict and Change" explored the state's history from its earliest days to modern times, emphasizing social dynamics and key contemporary events, especially the Civil Rights Movement and the pursuit of equality.

The book was innovative for its era but has been out of print for many years and was only available as a collector's item. A new edition includes an introduction telling the history of the book's publication, along with updates throughout the text, made by acclaimed author James W. Loewen.

Picking up the reins after Loewen's death in 2021, Orey provides new text on contemporary politics, culture and the economy, bringing the state's history up to date.

At noon Nov. 12, Jim Gulley and John T. Edge will present the history of Greenfield Farm from the time of the Choctaws until author William Faulkner purchased the property in 1938. Gulley and Edge will explain why Faulkner bought the farm, what happened there during his ownership and how Greenfield influenced his writing. 

The talk will examine what happened to the property after Faulkner's death in 1962 and how the university came to own a portion of it. In 2022, Edge appointed Gulley as research fellow for the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency project.

SouthTalks conclude its fall slate at 6 p.m. Dec. 5 with the Fall Documentary Showcase, which highlights the work of students enrolled in Southern studies documentary classes. Each artist will present their work, and attendees can interact with the artists during a reception.

For assistance related to a disability, contact Afton Thomas at amthoma4@olemiss.edu or call 662-915-5993. Click here for information about all the center's events.

Top: Cooper's Country Store in Salters, South Carolina, is among the many gas stations and convenience stores featured in 'Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed and Fuel the American South,' a book and photo exhibition by photojournalist and Ole Miss alumna Kate Medley. She will discuss the work at this fall's inaugural SouthTalks presentation at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 2) in Barnard Observatory. Photo by Kate Medley