This fall, in a special series of events titled, “A Celebration of Southern Photography,” The University of Southern Mississippi will host a lecture by renowned Southern studies expert Dr. William R. Ferris, as well as two exhibitions on campus and a special issue of The Southern Quarterly. The Vicksburg native will give a talk on Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. in Gonzales Auditorium, Liberal Arts Building 108 on the Hattiesburg campus of Southern Miss, which will be followed by a reception and book signing at 7 p.m. in the Gallery of Art and Design in the George Hurst Building. The Gallery exhibition, Portraits of Southerners: Photographs from The Do Good Fund, will be open through Nov. 3. Prior to the Ferris lecture, Cook Library Art Gallery will host an opening reception and book signing for Mississippi Landscapes: Places in the Land from 4-5:30 p.m. All events in this celebration are free and open to the public.
The work of several Mississippi artists will be featured in the Mississippi Landscapes: Places in the Land exhibition in Cook Library Art Gallery. Visitors will enjoy photographs of landscapes from Ashleigh Coleman of Jackson, Thomas Pearson of Hattiesburg, Euphus Ruth of Greenville, David Wharton of Oxford, Brooke White of Oxford and Malcolm White of Jackson. Each artist demonstrates his or her personal vision of–and reverence for–special places across Mississippi’s remarkably broad and varied landscape. The Cook Library Art Gallery exhibition will run through Dec. 12 and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Images in the Portraits of Southerners exhibition have been chosen from the Do Good Fund’s collection of southern photography. Since its founding in 2012, the Georgia-based charity has focused on building a museum-quality collection of photographs taken in the American South since World War II. According to their website, Do Good’s mission is “to make its collection of over 400 images broadly accessible through regional museums, nonprofit galleries and nontraditional venues, and to encourage complementary, community-based programming to accompany each exhibition.” The exhibition, sponsored by the Department of Art and Design and College of Art and Letters is open during normal gallery hours, Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. through Nov. 3.
William Ferris’s lecture, “The South in Color: A Visual Journey,” will open the Portraits of Southerners exhibit and will surely interest Southern culture enthusiasts near and far. Ferris, a widely recognized leader in Southern studies, African American music and folklore, is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the senior associate director of its Center for the Study of the American South.
The Ferris lecture is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Letters, the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, the Center for the Study of the Gulf South, The Southern Quarterly, the Department of Art and Design, University Forum, the Arts Institute of Mississippi and the Mississippi Humanities Council.