Southern Literary Scholar Jones to Present 50th Anniversary Lamar Lecture Series

243

MACON — Southern literary scholar Anne Goodwyn Jones will present the 2007 Lamar Memorial Lecture Series of Mercer University, marking the program’s 50th anniversary, on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 15-16, on the university’s Macon campus. Jones, visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, will present three lectures around the theme: “Before and After the War: Formations of Southern Manliness,” which are free and open to the public.

At 10 a.m. on Oct. 15 in the Medical School Auditorium, Jones will present a lecture titled “National Ideologies and Southern Masculinities.” She will give two evening presentations – “Shaping Southern Manliness: Southerners before the Surrender,” on Oct. 15 and “Reshaping Southern Manliness: Southern Writers after the War” on Oct. 16 –each of which will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Medical School Auditorium.

In its 50 years, the Lamar Lecture Series has become one of the most prominent Lectures series on Southern Culture and History, and has included presentations by renowned historians, sociologists and literary scholars. Jones, a past president of the William Faulkner Society, is yet another example of the fine scholarship done through the Lecture Series, notes lecture series director Sarah Gardner, Ph.D., associate professor of History at Mercer.

“Literary critic Donald Davidson inaugurated the series in 1957 and the committee thought it fitting to bring Jones, a pioneering voice in southern feminist literary criticism, on this anniversary,” Gardner said. “Her talks both follow the tradition established by Davidson as well as showcase recent trends in the discipline.”

Jones’ many publications include “Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts” (co-edited with Susan Donaldson), and “Tomorrow is Another Day: The Woman Writer in the South, 1859-1936.” She has also contributed a number of important essays and articles on Southern literature and culture to periodicals and anthologies, and has served on the editorial boards of Southern Cultures, Mississippi Quarterly, the Southern Texts Society, and the Heath Anthology of American Literature. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Jones has established herself as one of the leading voices in Southern literary criticism.

Jones has been invited to speak at conferences held in England, France, Norway, Poland, and Japan, and has delivered papers at meetings of the Southern Intellectual History Circle, the Modern Language Association, the Study for the Society of Southern Literature, the Southern Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. 

She is currently finishing two book-length manuscripts: “William Faulkner: Writing as a Man in the Kotex Age” and “Theory and the Good Old Boys:  Masculinity and Writing in the Southern Renaissance,” as well as completing a collection of essays: “Faulkner’s Daughters: Women Writers of the Southern Renaissance.”

She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her bachelor of arts, cum laude, from Hollins College.

About the Lamar Lecture Series:

Made possible by the bequest of the late Eugenia Dorothy Blount Lamar, began in 1957.  The series promotes the permanent preservation of Southern culture, history and literature.  Given each fall, it is recognized as the most important lecture series on Southern history and literature in the United States.  Speakers have included nationally and internationally known scholars, such as Cleanth Brooks, James C. Cobb and Eugene Genovese.  All lectures are original and are then published as books by The University of Georgia Press.

About Mercer University:
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University has 7,300 students; 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies; major campuses in Macon and Atlanta; four regional academic centers across the state; a university press; two teaching hospitals — Memorial Health University Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central Georgia; educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta; an engineering research center in Warner Robins; a performing arts center in Macon; and a NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.

— 30 —