A visiting research scholar at the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University will deliver an illustrated lecture on Faulkner’s link to New Orleans on Tuesday, Feb. 15.

John Shelton Reed, the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will speak on “Dixie Bohemia: Faulkner’s French Quarter Circle” at 3:30 p.m, Feb. 15, in the Reading Room of Kent Library’s third floor lounge.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Reed is on campus utilizing the University’s Louis Daniel Brodsky Collection of William Faulkner materials for a book he is writing for Louisiana State University Press.

Reed served as director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science for 12 years and helped to found UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, one of the outstanding research centers in the nation. 

He has written or edited 18 books, including “1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South” and “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue,” both written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed.  His articles have appeared in professional and popular periodicals ranging from “Science” to “Southern Living,” and he was founding co-editor of the quarterly “Southern Cultures.”

Reed grew up in Kingsport, Tenn., did his undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his doctoral degree from Columbia University.  He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the National Humanities Center, and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.  He has lectured at more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, including a number of universities in India as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer.

In 2010, Reed was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and he is currently Chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

In addition to his many academic achievements, Reed has served as a consultant for the musical comedy “Kudzu,” judged the Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, and written a country song, “My Tears Spoiled My Aim,” recorded by bluegrass musician Tommy Edwards.

Location:	Kent Library, Reading Room
Price:	Free and open to the public
Sponsor:	Center for Faulkner Studies
Contact:	Center for Faulkner Studies (573) 986-6155

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