A part of the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy’s National Center for Natural Products Research, the Maynard W. Quimby Medicinal Plant Garden houses over 1,000 medicinal plants from all geographic regions of the world, including the popular Corpse Flower. Learn more about the UM Medicinal Plant Garden by setting up a tour for your class or group!
Ole Miss Outdoors (OMOD) is a multifaceted, inclusive program offered through the Department of Campus Recreation that introduces students, faculty, staff, and community members to the great outdoors. OMOD emphasizes adventure and fun, environmental awareness and education (Leave No Trace), and personal development and safety with a variety of exciting and diverse outdoor recreation opportunities. Register for one of our exciting weekend or extended adventure trips, or join us for weekly kayak water polo! Bring your student group to the Rebel Challenge Course, a high and low ropes course located on campus. Visit our office check out gear and plan your own trip, or purchase an OMOD t-shirt or water bottle. Explore the South Campus Rail Trail to enjoy trail running or mountain biking. Choose your own adventure below, and Get Out and Live!
Wednesday, September 8th
SouthTalks: Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country
12:00 p.m. Online
Register to receive the Zoom link
Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country is a collection of interviews with residents of Benton County, Mississippi—an area with a long and fascinating civil rights history. The product of more than twenty-five years of work by the Hill Country Project, the book examines a revolutionary period in American history through the voices of farmers, teachers, sharecroppers, and students. No other rural farming county in the American South has yet been afforded such a deep dive into its civil rights experiences and their legacies. These accumulated stories truly capture life before, during, and after the movement. In this SouthTalk, coauthor of Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country Roy DeBerry will discuss the region’s history and the everyday struggles of African American residents of Benton County, who had been organizing since the 1930s.
Roy DeBerry is executive director of the Hill Country Project. He recently retired as vice president for economic development and local governmental affairs at Jackson State University, where he also served as executive vice president and vice president of external relations.
SouthTalks is a series of events (including lectures, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions) that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public, and typically takes place in the Tupelo Room of Barnard Observatory unless otherwise noted. However, as a result of the ongoing health crisis, many events will be virtual, free, and made accessible on the Center’s YouTube channel after each live event.
Friday, September 10th
Mississippi Creates with Annemarie Anderson, Kelly Spivey, and Schaefer Llana
7:30 p.m. | Old Armory Pavilion, Van Buren Exd., Oxford, MS
The Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Yoknapatawpha Arts Council partner for the premiere of Mississippi Creates, an event that pairs musical performance with short documentary films, providing a glimpse into the creative life and environments of two local musicians: Tyler Keith and Schaefer Llana. This pair of films is part of a larger series that highlights artists and performers who have been influenced or inspired by the culture and sounds of Mississippi. The screening includes a live musical performance by Schaefer Llana and will be followed by a brief Q&A with the musician and film directors Annemarie Anderson and Kelly Spivey. This event is free to the public and open to all ages. Please bring a chair and your own refreshments. Mississippi Creates is made possible by Cathead, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and the Mississippi Humanities Council. For assistance related to a disability, contact Afton Thomas: amthoma4@olemiss.edu
Date: Tuesday, September 21st
Fall Convocation
5:30 p.m. | Livestreamed Event
The University of Mississippi Fall Convocation commemorates the beginning of the college journey each year at Ole Miss. Due to conditions and the weather forecast, the University of Mississippi Fall Convocation will be held as a livestream event on Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 5:30 p.m. Faculty, staff and students are invited to join the event via this link: https://www.btsvirtual.com/2021fallconvocation. Groups of students will be invited to attend the Ford Center up to its capacity. These students will receive invitations from their EDHE instructors. A recording of the event will be posted on the official university YouTube channel later this week. More information about this year’s Fall Convocation event and speaker is at this link: https://news.olemiss.edu/author-aimee-nezhukumatahil-set-to-deliver-fall-convocation-keynote/
Thursday, September 30th
The Land of Open Graves: Understanding the Current Politics of Migrant Life and Death along the US/Mexico Border
4:00 p.m. | David H. Nutt Auditorium, 542 University Ave.
Since the mid-1990s, the US federal government has relied on a border enforcement strategy known as Prevention through Deterrence. Using various security infrastructure and techniques of surveillance, this strategy funnels undocumented migrants toward remote and rugged terrain such as the Sonoran Desert of Arizona with the hope that mountain ranges, extreme temperatures, and other natural obstacles will deter people from unauthorized entry. Hundreds of people perish annually while undertaking this dangerous activity. Since 2009, the Undocumented Migration Project has used a combination of forensic, archaeological, and ethnographic approaches to understand the various forms of violence that characterize the social process of clandestine migration. On Thursday, September 30, at 4:00 p.m., Jason De León will present a lecture that focuses on what happens to the bodies of migrants who die in the desert. He argues that the way that bodies decompose in this environment is a form of hidden political violence that has deep ideological roots, and he demonstrates how the postmortem destruction of migrant corpses creates devastating forms of long-lasting trauma.
Jason De León is a professor of anthropology and Chicana, Chicano, and Central American studies at UCLA. He is executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a research-arts-education collective that seeks to document and raise awareness about the experiences of clandestine migrants, and president of the board of directors for the Colibri Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization that seeks to identify and repatriate the remains of people who have died while migrating through the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. De León is the author of the award-winning book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail and is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow.
This lecture is part of the Movement and Migration/Future of the South Initiative, launched by Simone Delerme in 2019. An accompanying exhibit, Hostile Terrain, will be on display in Lamar Hall beginning on October 15. De León’s visit to the UM campus is cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Honors College, the Center for Population Studies, the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement, the Center for Inclusion and Cross-Cultural Engagement, and the Croft Institute for International Studies.
Wednesday, October 6th
Mississippi Wildlife Demonstration
5:30 p.m. | Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library, 401 Bramlett Blvd., Oxford, MS (outside event)
Whether you are from Mississippi or new to the area, come learn about Mississippi wildlife in an exciting and unique presentation by Debora Waz Davis, Conservation Biologist and Outreach Educator for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, who will showcase live turtles and a baby alligator. This talk will also include information about endangered species, adaptations, and native ecosystems in North Mississippi.