OXFORD, Miss. – Work on a project that began at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture in 2003 has concluded at long last. The Mississippi Encyclopedia, a mammoth collaboration that includes more than 1,600 entries and 1,451 pages, goes on sale in May.

The first encyclopedic treatment of the state since 1907, the volume features work by more than 700 scholars, who wrote entries on every county, every governor and numerous musicians, writers, artists and activists. Published by the University Press of Mississippi, the encyclopedia should appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home, said Ted Ownby, director of the center and the volume’s co-editor.

“Any good encyclopedia has detailed, thorough, smart information on topics people want to find,” Ownby said. “So, from a journalist or traveler to a scholar or teacher to a kid doing a school project, everyone should find ways to use the book.

“But holding it in their hands, they should find all sorts of things they hadn’t thought to look up. We think it’s revealing that the work starts with ‘Abdul-Rauf, Mahmoud (Chris Jackson)’ and ends with ‘Ziglar, Zig,’ and both of those entries seem likely to surprise a lot of readers.”

The encyclopedia will be especially helpful to students, teachers and scholars researching, writing about or otherwise discovering the state, past and present, he said. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else.

The Mississippi Encyclopedia is the result of numerous collaborations – between the University Press of Mississippi and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, among the numerous supporters who contributed to or helped organize the project, among the 30 topic editors from around the state and far beyond it, and among the authors, an intriguing mixture of scholars.

The Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History supported the project, and the university’s history department and School of Law joined the Southern studies program in encouraging advanced students to write for it. Early support came from the university and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Each entry in The Mississippi Encyclopedia provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. It also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, contemporary issues, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports and visual art.

Senior editors Ownby and Charles Reagan Wilson and associate editor Ann Abadie began work on the project when Wilson was center director.

“Seetha Srinivasan, then the director of the University Press of Mississippi, approached the center about editing a state encyclopedia as other states were beginning to do,” said Wilson, professor emeritus of history and Southern studies. “The center’s advisory committee was supportive, and we began this long effort, which is now coming to fruition.”

Odie Lindsey, who now teaches at Vanderbilt University and is author of “We Come to Our Senses” and other works of fiction, began working on the project as managing editor in 2006.

James G. Thomas Jr., the center’s associate director for publications, was managing editor of the center’s New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture from 2003 to 2013. Before that project ended, he began working on The Mississippi Encyclopedia project.

Several events are planned to publicize and discuss the book. Events will commence at the Oxford City Hall, 107 Courthouse Square, at 3 p.m. May 20 with an event for the encyclopedia’s contributors, who will have an opportunity to speak briefly about their contribution to the book.

A signing and reception will follow at 5 p.m. at Off Square Books.

A celebration reception is set for 6 p.m. June 13 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and a kickoff event is slated for Aug. 17 at the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, as well as visits to independent bookstores and cultural organizations across the state.

Visit http://southernstudies.olemiss.edu/ for more details and a full schedule.

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi’s Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and Center for the Study of Southern Culture are co-sponsoring a series of lectures, discussions and presentations in April examining “The Radical South – Expanding Southern History and Identity.”

The series challenges the conventional stories of the South with topics involving Southern identity, cultural movements, racial justice, economic justice, and gender and sexual equality. Speakers will be featured from UM and around the country.

“This series represents the commitment of the Isom Center staff and faculty to amplify voices and perspectives that have often been silenced in the historical record of this period in American history,” said Katrina Caldwell, vice chancellor for diversity and community engagement. “This work is extremely necessary for real progress to take place in our community.”

Topics include “They Don’t Even Know: Black Southern Abundance in the Age of Donald Trump” at 5:30 p.m. April 4 in Overby Center Auditorium, “Recovering the Radical Oral History Tradition within Southern Freedom Movements” at noon April 17 and “Lobbying in the Heart of Dixie: LBGTQ Advocacy in the Alabama State House” at noon April 26. The latter two lectures are in the Tupelo Room of Barnard Observatory.

More than 20 events will be held throughout the month. For a full schedule, visit http://sarahisomcenter.org/the-radical-south-april-2017-schedule/.

The events were planned following the declaration last year of “Confederate History Month,” said Jaime Harker, professor of English and director of the Isom Center.

“Our heritage includes much more than the Confederacy, and we want to encourage our students and the larger Mississippi community to learn about some of that diverse and unexpected history,” Harker said. “We hope ‘The Radical South’ will broaden our sense of Southern history and identity to include the full complexity of the region – past, present and future.”

Co-sponsors for the event include the Master of Fine Arts program within the Department of English; the departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Art, and Social Work; and the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.

Jessica Wilkerson

OXFORD, Miss. – Jessica Wilkerson, an assistant professor of history and Southern studies at the University of Mississippi, is trading Oxford for Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the 2016-17 academic year as part of the Visiting Scholars Program at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The academy’s Visiting Scholars Program provides residential fellowships for junior faculty members and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences. The fellowship offers scholars a year for research and writing free from teaching and administrative duties, a collaborative work environment and an opportunity to interact with academy members.

“The academy also organizes weekly seminars when we will meet with the other fellows, as well as editors, publishers and senior scholars, to discuss our work,” said Wilkerson, who has taught classes on Southern history, women’s history, contemporary U.S. history and oral history at UM since fall 2014.

Her research interests include Southern and Appalachian history, U.S. women’s and gender history, labor and working-class history, 20th century social movements and oral history. She earned her master’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In spring 2016, Wilkerson taught a successful graduate class on oral history techniques. The class ended with students performing short pieces from their oral histories.

One of the students in that class, Kate Wiggins, said she learned a great deal about how to capture personal stories of oral history subjects.

“I enrolled in Dr. Wilkerson’s class with a curiosity about oral history, and I found that I loved it,” said Wiggins, a second-year master’s student in Southern studies from Boone, North Carolina. “This work is not easy, and Dr. Wilkerson’s guidance and gentle nudging outside our comfort zones made us all better interviewers and students.”

Wilkerson will not be required to teach any classes at the academy so she can devote all her energy to writing “Where Movements Meet: From the War on Poverty to Grassroots Feminism in the Appalachian South.” The book traces the alliances forged and the grassroots movements led by women in the Appalachian South in the 1960s and ’70s.

She received the news just before spring break, and said she was pleasantly surprised.

“My motto is to apply for anything and everything that could support my research and writing, and that means I am used to getting rejection letters,” Wilkerson said. “But every now and then, the stars align. I feel very fortunate to have the time to pursue my writing goals, and I am grateful for the support of the academy and the University of Mississippi.”

Housed at the academy headquarters, visiting scholars participate in academy-sponsored conferences, seminars and informal gatherings while advancing their scholarly research. The academy provides office space and computer services as well as library privileges in cooperation with the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University.

Nearly 60 academic institutions across the country have become university affiliates of the academy, supporting the Visiting Scholars Program and participating in academy studies on higher education.

Wilkerson said she is looking forward to meeting the other seven visiting fellows in her cohort.

“I love being a part of small, focused scholarly communities and writing groups, so it’s a perfect fit for me,” she said. “And while I enjoy small-town life, it will be lovely to explore a new-to-me city. Is there a more intellectually thriving place than Boston and Cambridge? Museums, bookstores, lectures, exhibits, performances galore. It will be fabulous!”