OXFORD, Miss. – Camille Dungy, award-winning author and poet, is the University of Mississippi’s 2018 Earth Day keynote speaker. She will close the 10th annual UM Green Week celebration with her talk, “It’s All Environmental Writing” at 7 p.m. April 22, Earth Day, in the Overby Center Auditorium.

Dungy will read several of her own poems and excerpts from her essays and then contextualize her work within the framework of contemporary environmental writing. She also plans to elaborate on how the decisions we make when engaging in readings about the environment become statements about our relationships to it.

“As a woman of color, I find it is particularly important to share my voice on conversations related to environmental concerns because one of the most powerful things about writing is to be able to tell a truth that is yours, but that is likely also shared by other people,” Dungy said. “Good literature makes us carefully and imaginatively pay more attention to the world, meaning I must also pay attention to people and all the ways we interact in the environment around us.”

Dungy is a professor of environmental poetry and English at Colorado State University. She is a poet and essayist whose work focuses on the environment and is also an avid environmentalist.

She is best known for her work as editor of the anthology “Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry” (University of Georgia Press, 2009). “Black Nature” is the first collection of American nature writing that focuses on poetry written by African-Americans, and “it significantly challenges the propagated belief that black people have little or no creatively intellectual connection to the natural world,” Dungy said.

“The key to success is persistence,” she continued. “The struggle to care for the planet and our cohabitants demands persistence.”

Dungy is also the author of four collections of poetry, “Trophic Cascade,” “Smith Blue,” “Suck on the Marrow” and “What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison.” She debuted in prose in 2017 with the release of “Guidebook to Relative Strangers” (W.W. Norton, 2017), and has been featured in “Best American Poetry,” “The 100 Best African American Poems” and nearly 30 other anthologies.

She is the recipient of an American Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, two NAACP Image Award nominations and a California Book Award silver medal.

“Camille is an electrifying speaker and it is a privilege to bring her to campus as this year’s Green Week keynote speaker,” said Ann Fisher-Wirth, professor of English and director of the UM environmental studies minor. “I know her talk will be challenging and exciting.”

Green Week is a week of events to celebrate the environment and the sustainability efforts in the area and strengthen the presence of sustainability at Ole Miss and in the Oxford community. The week starts Monday (April 16) and ends Sunday (April 22) with the keynote address from Dungy.

The Earth Day Keynote Address is sponsored by the UM environmental studies minor and the Office of Sustainability. It is free and open to the public. For more information about Green Week and this year’s events, go to http://greenweek.olemiss.edu/.

For more information about Dungy, visit her website.

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Slavery Research Group will host several events April 18-22 that explore the stories of enslaved people in north Mississippi.

“Slave Dwellings: Rediscovering the Enslaved in North Mississippi” aims to discuss the narratives of the lives of enslaved people and the houses in which they lived.

“The goal of these events is to bring attention to the issue of slavery as it relates to the history of our campus,” said Jeffrey Jackson, UMSRG co-chair and associate professor of sociology. “We also hope to emphasize the importance of historical preservation and the need to preserve existing slave houses in the area.”

Jobie Hill, historic preservation architect, will deliver a lecture during a brown bag lunch on saving slave houses. Hill has conducted research to examine the homes of American slaves and started a database in 2012 to protect these structures and the information they provide to historians.

Slave Dwelling Project founder Joseph McGill also will deliver a presentation. The project’s mission is to raise awareness of these dwellings and assist with their preservation.

McGill, a descendant of slaves, had traveled to nearly 100 historic sites in more than 18 states to give lectures and spend the night in the slave dwellings.

“Now that I have the attention of the public by sleeping in extant slave dwellings, it is time to wake up and deliver the message that the people who lived in these structures were not a footnote in American history,” he said.

McGill will host an overnight stay for 12 Ole Miss history, sociology and anthropology students and faculty members in the old kitchen behind Rowan Oak.

“We hope that students who will be sleeping over with Joseph McGill will develop a deeper appreciation of what life was like for the enslaved and that this event will help us remember the legacies of slavery for our campus and our nation,” Jackson said.

This will be McGill’s fifth visit to the UM campus.

“He is looking forward to the opportunity to discuss preserving structures where slaves lived,” said Chuck Ross, UMSRG co-chair and director of African American studies. “His visits to these locations are helping to facilitate discussions about the institution of slavery, more importantly and specifically about the lives of the slaves themselves.”

The Slavery Research Group also will conduct a campus tour, detailing the history of slavery on campus.

The UMSRG has also partnered with the city of Holly Springs for this year’s “Behind the Big House” programming. The preservation initiative is aimed at interpreting the legacy of slavery through educational efforts and examination of historic sites.

This year’s focus is the Hugh Craft House, its slave quarters and kitchen on Memphis Street in Holly Springs. McGill will return to the site to spend the night in the structures.

Carolyn Freiwald, assistant professor of anthropology, will take students to the site to conduct an excavation of the slave quarters and kitchen area. A table exhibit of past finds at the site will be on display for the public.

The events are sponsored by the UM Slavery Research Group, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Preserve Marshall County, Holly Springs Inc. and the Whiting Foundation.

Here is a full schedule of events that are free and open to the public:

Wednesday (April 18)

Saving Slave Houses – Noon, Barnard Observatory Tupelo Room

Slavery on Campus History Tour – 2 p.m., meet at the Department of Archives and Special Collections on the third floor of the J.D. Williams Library

The Slave Dwelling Project – 4 p.m., Barnard Observatory Tupelo Room

Friday (April 20)

Slavery in Antebellum North Mississippi – 4 p.m., Holly Springs Depot, 540 Van Dorn Ave., Holly Springs. Max Grivno, University of Southern Mississippi professor and historian, will deliver a lecture on his research.

For more information, visit http://slaveryresearchgroup.olemiss.edu/.

OXFORD, Miss. – The film industry is achieving big things as this year’s 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival is set to premiere 75 new films. Adam Gussow, University of Mississippi associate professor of English and Southern studies, is among the stars of the festival and will attend the Friday (April 20) premiere of “Satan & Adam,” a documentary about his longtime blues duo, in New York City.

“Satan & Adam” is the story of two emerging musicians who not only found each other, but their passion for blues, on the streets of Harlem. After 23 years of closely following the lives of Gussow and Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee, filmmaker V. Scott Balcerek has finally finished the story of the acclaimed blues duo.

“It’s remarkable,” Gussow said. “I think it’s a film about a lot of things. First, I think it shows the potential of someone who looks old and broken down. It’s obviously about New York and the racial strife of the 1980s and ’90s.

“And in the end, I think it’s testifying to what Dr. King called ‘beloved community’: the ‘true interrelatedness’ of the human family.”

Gussow began his musical career when he picked up the harmonica at age 16, and he continued to play through his adolescence and into his college years. As a young white harmonica player, a Princeton graduate and Columbia graduate school dropout, Gussow was driving through the streets of Harlem in 1986 when he found “Satan,” an African-American guitarist and local legend.

The two men bonded over their love of music and immediately found their rhythm as a blues duo. They began as street musicians in Harlem in 1986 before taking their talents further as a touring act, playing at clubs across New York, until they were finally “discovered” in 1991.

They issued their first album, “Harlem Blues,” which was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award for traditional blues album, in 1991.

Promising young filmmaker V. Scott Balcerek found the duo in the fall of 1995 and instantly had the idea to make them the subject of his newest project. Balcerek’s other projects include the short documentary “Street Songs,” which received a Student Academy Award, and the acclaimed LeBron James documentary “More Than a Game.”

“Satan & Adam” was initially going to be filmed over the span of a few years, following the duo as they trailblazed their way through the New York music scene.

Although Balcerek started filming the musicians in the ’90s, he begins the documentary with original footage of the two men from the mid-’80s, in a moment when New York was rippling with racial tension and musical expression. More than two decades later, Balcerek’s efforts are complete.

“We’re all incredibly excited to be going up to New York,” Gussow said. “We’ll be there for the screenings at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20 and 21 – they’re all sold out, too. We’re really hoping for the best-case scenario with it.”

The Tribeca Film Festival, founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, has evolved into a cultural event that brings together visionaries across industries and diverse audiences. It celebrates the power of storytelling in a variety of forms.

As a platform for creative expression, independent filmmaking, and immersive entertainment, Tribeca champions emerging and established voices, discovers award-winning filmmakers and creators, curates innovative experiences, and introduces new technology and ideas through premieres, exhibitions, talks and live performances. This year’s festival runs April 18-29.

See https://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/satan-adam-2018 for a list of showings.

OXFORD, Miss. – Neil A. Manson, University of Mississippi professor of philosophy, has used a grant from the Society of Christian Philosophers to establish a reading group on the works of one of the world’s most influential philosophers of religion. 

In 2017, Alvin Plantinga, professor emeritus at Calvin College, won the prestigious Templeton Prize, which came with a $1.4 million award. Past winners of the prize, which honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, include Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

In honor of Plantinga’s achievement, the Society of Christian Philosophers awarded 25 colleges and universities $3,000 grants for 2017-18 for undergraduate reading groups on his works. The fund covers books, food and expenses. 

Manson applied for and received one of the grants to establish an Ole Miss reading group, which convened last fall and will continue through April.

“Alvin Plantinga is perhaps the most influential living philosopher of religion,” Manson said. “The offer of a chance to read Plantinga’s works elicited a tremendous and enthusiastic response, with nearly 30 students across the University of Mississippi signing up.”

Select graduate students and other community members were allowed to participate in the group.

The group began with Plantinga’s “Warranted Christian Belief.” Manson said the book is Plantinga’s most thorough statement of the position that has come to be called “Reformed epistemology.” In October, the group also had lunch with Christopher Weaver, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, who discussed some central objections to Plantinga’s position.

This semester, the group is reading “Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism,” in which Plantinga argues, contrary to popular conceptions, that it is atheism, not theism, that is at odds with modern science. 

“The Plantinga reading group has been incredibly informative, thought-provoking and fun,” said Aaron Graham, a recent graduate of the philosophy master’s program from Jackson. “We have enjoyed a guided tour of some of the principal arguments against the rationality of theistic belief, and against theistic belief’s compatibility with science.

“At each turn, Plantinga gave powerful rejoinders to those arguments.”

Manson agrees with Graham’s assessment and added that the university is fortunate to be able to have the experience with Plantinga’s works, thanks to the grant. 

“Alvin Plantinga is a bold and brilliant thinker, a trenchant writer, an impeccable practitioner of analytic philosophy and one of the kindest people I have ever met,” Manson said. “He provides a model for how to address profound religious and philosophical disagreements in a civil manner. Reading his work is always enriching and enlightening.”

The reading group will conclude its work at the end of the month. Unused funds will go toward getting students additional books on related topics in the philosophy of religion, Manson said.