Mississippi Humanities Council

HTA Lecture: Service to Others: A Christian Perspective on Social Work Values
2025-02-20 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Alcorn State University, 1000 ASU Drive, Lorman, MS, 39096
Valtreasa Tolliver-Cook is Alcorn State University’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Tolliver-Cook’s lecture, Service to Others: A Christian Perspective on Social Work Values, will be presented 2/20/25 at 12:30 pm on the college’s campus in Dumas Hall Lecture Room 107. The presentation explores the alignment between Christian teachings and the core values of the social work profession by focusing on the theme of service to others. Attendees will gain insights on how to apply these values to create meaningful, positive impacts in their communities.
Tolliver-Cook will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

HTA Lecture: Elevated: The Influence of Vernacular Music on American Art Music
2025-02-18 18:00 - 19:30 | Aven Hall, 200 Capitol Street, Clinton, MS, 39056
Dr. Renee Wilson is Mississippi College’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Dr. Wilson’s lecture, Elevated: The Influence of Vernacular Music on American Art Music, will be presented 2/18/25 at 6:00 pm on the college’s campus in Jean Pittman Recital Hall, Aven Hall Rm 202. The presentation explores vernacular music as music of the people. Lovingly passed along within and among culture groups, it both preserves and shares the culture(s) among us. It includes folk music and, in the United States, it includes styles such as jazz and blues. This presentation calls attention to masterworks for band, choir, and orchestra which have been clearly influenced by folk music, jazz, and blues.
Dr. Wilson will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

HTA Lecture: “Women Directing Humanity: Models of Women’s Leadership in Creative Approaches to Social Change”
2025-02-18 17:30 - 19:00 | Gonzales Auditorium, 1999 Pearl St, Hattiesburg, MS, 39401, United States
Dr. Candice Salyers is the University of Southern Mississippi’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Salyers’ lecture, “Women Directing Humanity: Models of Women’s Leadership in Creative Approaches to Social Change,” will be presented 2/18/25 at 5:30 pm on the college’s campus in Gonzales Auditorium in the Liberal Arts Building on the Southern Miss (LAB room 108) Hattiesburg campus.
Salyers’ will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Speakers Bureau: "Mississippi Foodways"
2025-02-18 17:00 - 18:30 | Walthall County Library, 707 Union RD, Tylertown, MS, 39667-2261
This presentation, by Malcolm White, offers observations by a longtime connoisseur of Southern food and culture on topics ranging from the history of Comeback Dressing to how the tamale came to Mississippi to the evolution of dining out in Mississippi.

Speakers Bureau: "Robert Johnson at the Crossroads"
2025-02-18 15:30 - 17:00 | Boys and Girls Club of North Mississippi, 1242 S Green St, Tupelo, MS, 38804, United States
Since 1920 the number of farmers in America has been dropping, yet the place of farming — and of rural life generally — in the American mind is stronger than ever. The images we encounter in country songs, labels at the grocery store and in country-fried restaurants tell us that to live the rural life is to live the most American of lives: to work honestly, for long hours and for mostly internal rewards. Our culture presents farmers as nothing short of heroes. But this was not always the case. This talk, by Wendy Garrison, charts the rise, fall and rise again of the American farmer and rural life in the American consciousness with images from music videos, snippets of song lyrics, Cracker Barrel billboards and even some Congressional testimony. It seeks to answer the questions, why does this particular image of the farmer hold such sway, and what do the changes in that image over time tell us about Americans’ insecure relationship with its history?

Speakers Bureau: Ida B. Wells: The Mother of the American Human Rights Movement
2025-02-18 11:00 - 12:30 | Jackson Association of Black Journalists, 4412 Will O Run Dr, Jackson, MS, 39212, United States
C Sade Turnipseed presents a lecture: “Ida B. Wells: The Mother of the American Human Rights Movement.”
Ida B. Wells’s life has intriguing ties to Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, President William McKinley, Booker T. Washington, Duke of Argyll and Sir John Gorst. She was a journalist who wrote about human rights and had a clear understanding about her rights as a woman. This presentation highlights her fearless campaign to realize the most significant contribution to the investigation and avocation against human lynchings. Yet, she is unknown to most people of this generation.

HTA Lecture: Building A Community of Learners: Fostering Community
2025-02-18 11:00 - 12:30 | Mississippi Delta Community College, Hwy 3 & Cherry St., Moorhead, MS, 38761, United States
Brandi Pillow is Mississippi Delta Community College’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Pillow’s lecture, Building A Community of Learners: Fostering Community, will be presented 2/18/25 at 11:00 am on the college’s Moorhead campus in the Fine Arts Auditorium.
Pillow will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Short Film Showcase
2025-02-16 14:00 - 16:00 | TWO MISSISSIPPI MUSEUMS, 222 NORTH STREET , JACKSON, MS, United States
At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 16, the MHC will present a free showcase of “Hotaru,” “(I’m Not) Your Negroni,” and “Our Rebellious Hearts.” All three short films explore themes of identity, change, and resilience. Following the screening will be a panel featuring filmmakers from each film. This program is in partnership with the Mississippi Humanities Council, Two Mississippi Museums, the Mississippi Film Office, and the Mississippi Film Society.

Mississippi Philosophical Association 2025: Keynote: 'AI, Art, and Artists: What They Are, What They Could Be, What They Should Be'
2025-02-14 16:30 - 18:00 | Gonzales Auditorium, 1999 Pearl St, Hattiesburg, MS, 39401, United States
The University of Southern Mississippi is hosting the 2025 annual conference of the Mississippi Philosophical Association (MPA). The MPA is the premier venue for philosophical work in the state of Mississippi and aims to provide space for faculty and students to present rigorous academic work with other philosophers in the state and the broader community.
This year’s MPA: keynote address from Dominic McIver Lopes (University Killam Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia), one of the most prominent currently active philosophers of art in the English-speaking world. His address is titled “AI, Art, and Artists: What They Are, What They Could Be, What They Should Be,” will take place Friday (2/14), at 4:30 pm in LAB 108, Gonzales Auditorium, on USM’s campus.

Speakers Bureau: “The Early Pioneer Settlers 1790 to 1840”
2025-02-14 13:00 - 14:30 | Hatley Elementary School, 60286 Hatley RD, Amory, MS, 38821-7215
Willam P. Arinder presents a living history program about the early pioneer settlers in Mississippi. Discussion centers around how they dressed, built their homes, produced and cooked their food, the use of flintlock rifles for hunting and protection of their homesteads, building fire using flint-and-steel, grinding corn in hollow stumps, children’s homemade toys and music on the mountain dulcimer. Period clothing worn, hands-on artifacts display and audience participation encouraged.

Film Screening: This World Is Not My Own
2025-02-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Mississippi Museum of Art, 380 South Lamar Street, Jackson, MS, 39201
We will co-host a screening of the unique documentary and animation film This World is Not My Own, which tells the life story of the self-taught artist Nellie Mae Rowe. Stay afterwards for a panel discussion and Q + A with the filmmakers and to learn more about works on view by other self-taught artists at MMA.
This screening of This World is Not My Own is part of South Arts’ Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers.
Schedule of Events

6 PM – Doors Open, Cash Bar Available
6:30 PM – Screening of This World is Not My Own (1h 37m)
Following the film, there will be a Q&A session with Chase Quinn, MMA’s Creative Director and Curator of Special Projects, and filmmaker Ruchi Mital.

About the Panelists
Ruchi Mital is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer with a social justice background. She is the Foundress of Solani Media, whose first co-production, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow (dir Martina Radwan) was an official selection at DOCNYC 2023.
In 2014, Ruchi produced We Could Be King, which won the Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary. Her subsequent films Sky Ladder: The Art Of Cai Guo-Qiang (2016), and This is Personal (2019) premiered at Sundance. For HBO, she produced the Emmy-nominated series, The Case Against Adnan Syed. In 2021, she produced The Me You Can’t See for Apple TV+ and in 2023 the emmy-nominated Encounters for Netflix. This World is Not My Own, a hybrid documentary about self-taught artist Nellie Mae Rowe that Ruchi produced and co-wrote premiered at SXSW in 2023 and will air on PBS in Spring 2025.
In 2020, Ruchi was selected as one of DOCNYC’s 40 Under 40 list of emerging non-fiction talents. She has served as a filmmaking mentor through the 2021 Sundance Producer’s Intensive and 2022 DOCNYC Storytelling Incubator and served as a juror for DOCNYC and Reel Sisters of the African Diaspora film festival.
Chase Quinn is recognized by Garden & Gun magazine as one of the art world’s rising vanguards, Chase serves as MMA’s Creative Director and Curator of Special Projects, overseeing education and curatorial departments to foster inclusive storytelling and innovative programming. Previously, at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC, he led bold initiatives, including a diversity-focused internship and the landmark exhibition Something Terrible May Happen, which recontextualized Charleston’s art history with support from institutions like Harvard Art Museums and the Musée d’Orsay.
In partnership with the Mississippi Film Society, Mississippi Museum of Art

HTA Lecture: Epic Ideas, Lyric Insights: Homer, Virgil, Ovid
2025-02-13 16:00 - 17:30 | Millsaps College, 1701 N. State Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 39202
Michael Gleason is Millsaps College’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Gleason’s lecture, Epic Ideas, Lyric Insights: Homer, Virgil, Ovid, will be presented 2/13/25 at 4:00 pm on the college’s campus in the McMullen Lecture Hall Room 122.
Gleason will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Speakers Bureau: "The Early Pioneer Settlers 1790 to 1840"
2025-02-13 13:00 - 14:30 | Hatley Elementary School, 60286 Hatley RD, Amory, MS, 38821-7215

HTA Lecture: Stone Tools to Social Media: The Ubiquity and Relevance of the Visual Arts from Prehistory to the Forseeable Future
2025-02-12 12:00 - 13:30 | Coahoma Community College, 3240 Friars Point Road, Clarksdale, MS, 38614, United States
Geoffrey Latham is Coahoma Community College ‘s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year.Latham’s lecture, Stone Tools to Social Media: The Ubiquity and Relevance of the Visual Arts from Prehistory to the Forseeable Future, will be presented 2/12/25 at 12:00 pm on the college’s campus.
Latham will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Speakers Bureau: "The Cakewalk"
2025-02-08 15:00 - 16:30 | M.R. Davis Public Library, 8554 Northwest Dr, Southaven, MS, 38671-2440, United States
If you think the cakewalk is just a musical chairs game to win a cake, think again. Step back into the ’90s to recapture ragtime when the African American “cakewalk” dance was popular. Speaker Barbara J Clark allows you to meet the famous African American song and dance duo, Williams and Walker, who took the country by storm and took the cakewalk from America to England during the 1890s and 1920s. Experience a combination of storytelling, music, video, photos and cakewalk steps. Audiences will have an opportunity to try cakewalking, if they like.

Speakers Bureau: "Savoring African American History through Stories and Poetry"
2025-02-08 12:00 - 13:30 | Walls Public Library, 7181 Delta Bluffs Pkwy, Walls, MS, 38680-8415, United States
Take a story walk through the eyes and feelings of African Americans from slavery to the mid-seventies with Barbara J. Clark. Using award-winning literature via stories and poetry, the audience will experience plantation life and escape, life view of a 110-year-old supercentenarian, living with Jim Crow during a motor trip down south, death of Emmitt Till poetically immortalized, feelings of interracial children (Black and Jewish) during the ’70s and some experiences of outstanding African Americans (George Washington Carver, Gordon Parks and Mary McCloud Bethune). Program contents can vary to suit the audience

HTA Lecture: Ancient Foes, Modern Narratives: Framing the Ottomans as Trojans in Venetian Humanism
2025-02-07 15:00 - 16:30 | Belhaven University, 1500 Peachtree Street, Jackson, MS, 39202
Seth Parry is Belhaven University’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Parry’s lecture, Ancient Foes, Modern Narratives: Framing the Ottomans as Trojans in Venetian Humanism, will be presented 2/7/25 at 3:00 pm on the college’s campus in the Student Center Theatre. The presentation will look at a linguistic construct used by Venetian Renaissance humanists in respect to the Ottoman Empire, namely their use of the Latin word “Teucri” to identify the Ottoman “Turks.” “Teucri” was originally used to describe the ancient Trojans of Homeric fame. This presentation analyzes why Renaissance humanists would adopt this terminology by looking at the connotations and purpose of such a duplicate identification.
Parry will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

HTA Lecture: This is a Beast. The Beast is Us.
2025-02-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Delta State University, 1003 W Sunflower Rd, Cleveland, MS, 38733, United States
Jesse Brown is Delta State University’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Brown’s lecture, This is a Beast. The Beast is Us., will be presented 2/6/25 at 7:00 pm on the college’s campus.
Brown will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Surviving Southampton: A Story in Three Grandmothers
2025-02-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Mississippi College, 200 Capitol St., Clinton, MS, 39056
Dr. Vanessa Holden from the University of Kentucky will speak at Mississippi College as part of MC’s continued effort to bring lived and scholarly expertise of the African American experience to the Mississippi College campus and the larger metro Jackson community. She is an associate professor of History, the Director of African American and Africana Studies and the Director of the Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative. Her research focuses on African American women and slavery in the antebellum South. She will share her award-winning research from her book Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (University of Illinois Press, July 2021), which explores the contributions that African American women and children made to the Southampton Rebellion, often called Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Holden’s lecture will serve as the keynote for our Black History month commemorations.
The lecture will be on February 6, 2025 at 6pm at Entergy Theatre at Gore Arts Complex.

HTA Lecture: "Yes, You CAN Sing Classical Music!"
2025-02-06 11:00 - 12:30 | MS
Shelly Garlotte will present the 2025 Humanities Teacher Award lecture for Mississippi Valley State University: Yes, You CAN Sing Classical Music!”
Experience a voice lesson as a classical music singer! The presentation will include an introduction to basic singing anatomy, music reading, and singing in a foreign language. By the end of the ‘lesson,’ participants will be singing a well-loved piece from standard classical repertoire.”
The lecture will take place on the Mississippi Valley State University campus February 6, 2025 at 11:00 am.

HTA Lecture: Me, Myself and AI (Artificial Intelligence)
2025-02-05 12:00 - 13:30 | Copiah-Lincoln Community College, 11 Co Lin Cir, Natchez, MS, 39120-4452, United States
Priscilla Hartley will present the 2025 Humanities Teacher Award lecture for Copiah-Lincoln Community College: Me, Myself and AI (Artificial Intelligence)
The lecture will take place on the Copiah-Lincoln Community College campus February 5, 2025 at 12:20pm.

Speakers Bureau: "The Marquis de Lafayette Visits Mississippi"
2025-02-04 19:00 - 20:30 | South Mississippi Genealogical & Historical Society, 307 2nd Ave, Hattiesburg, MS, 39401-3887, United States
In 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette visited Natchez on his farewell tour of America. Learn more from William “Brother” Rogers about who he was and why this historic event was significant.

HTA Lecture: The Heart of Humanities: Fostering Understanding, Culture, and Connection
2025-02-04 18:00 - 19:30 | MS
Dr. Emily Pollard is Northeast Mississippi Community College’s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Pollard’s lecture, The Heart of Humanities: Fostering Understanding, Culture, and Connection, will be presented 2/4/25 at 6:00 pm on the college’s campus. Dr. Pollard explores how the humanities cultivate empathy, celebrate diverse cultures, and build meaningful connections. From insights in social psychology to her impactful work with the student food pantry, discover the transformative power of humanities in shaping compassionate, informed individuals.
Pollard will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

HTA Lecture: In Your Face History: How Technology and Mass Media Have Transformed the Study of History
2025-02-04 18:00 - 19:00 | Itawamba Community College, 602 W Hill Street, Fulton, MS, 38843
Megan Eidt is Itawamba Community College ‘s 2025 Humanities Teacher of the Year. Eidt’s lecture, In Your Face History: How Technology and Mass Media Have Transformed the Study of History, will be presented 2/4/25 at 6:00 pm on the college’s campus.
Eidt will be among those honored at the Mississippi Humanities Council Awards Ceremony March 28, 2025 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The event pays tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of the state’s institutions of higher learning.
Since 2004, she has taught history at ICC, where her activities have included former two-term president of the Tupelo Campus Faculty Association and former adviser to the ICC Political Science and Humanities Clubs. Her professional memberships include ICC Faculty Association, National Council on Public History, Atlanta History Center and American Historical Association.

African American Read-In
2025-02-03 09:00 - 10:00 | Jackson State University College of Education Room 100, 1400 John Lynch Street , Jackson , MS, 39217, United States
Please join the mothers and daughters of the Blossoms Mother-Daughter Reading Club as we celebrate the 2025 African American Read-In.

HOMEGROWN: A WRITERS' EXCHANGE: 2025
2025-02-01 09:00 - 17:30 | University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Park Campus, 730 E Beach Blvd, Long Beacj, MS, 39560, United States
HOMEGROWN is a full-day literary arts event, — free and open to the public — that presents acclaimed southern authors in moderated panel discussions that cut across multiple current, timely, and relevant topics pertinent to writing and publishing. This annual Mississippi-centric event includes programs which appeal to a broad scope of patrons who may be aspiring writers, or simply avid readers. In addition, a series of break-out sessions provide intimate opportunities for attendees to learn from and interact with literary experts and authors.
HOMEGROWN 2025 will be presented during a two-day period on Friday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1, 2025 on the University of Southern Mississippi’s lovely Gulf Park Campus in Long Beach (MS). Sessions presented on Friday, January 31, will be specifically developed for young people (students) and will be facilitated by faculty and graduate students from the University of Southern Mississippi. Friday’s sessions will be offered during the period of 10 AM to 2 PM.
The event on Saturday, February 1st, will begin at 9 AM and continue until 5:30 PM …. a full day of programming.

Speakers Bureau: Mississippi Telling
2025-01-29 15:30 - 17:30 | Boys and Girls Club of North Mississippi, 1242 S Green St, Tupelo, MS, 38804, United States
The presenter, Rebecca Jernigan, provides an overview of the storytelling Renaissance in America with emphasis upon the oral tradition in Mississippi. The literary tradition of Mississippi owes much to the rich storytelling legacy that riddles the tales of our families and our communities as reflected in the works of many of our best authors: Welty, Wright, Faulkner, Henley, Williams. As part of the presentation, Dr. Jernigan performs as a story teller calling upon on her rich repertoire of original tales and literary masterpieces gearing her choices of tales according to her audience and offers material for children and adults.

Speaker Series: Matthew Skic
2025-01-28 17:30 - 19:00 | Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St., Natchez, MS, United States
The 2024-2025 season is an annual program of the Natchez Historical Society, consisting of 8 regular monthly presentations by expert speakers on humanities topics pertinent to the history of the Natchez area. Scheduled for January 28, 2025:
Matthew Skic, Curator of Exhibitions, Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Muskets Along the Mississippi: The Revolutionary War in the West

Speakers Bureau: Parallels of Southern Storytelling and Folktales from Around the World
2025-01-27 12:00 - 13:00 | Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at The University of Southern MIssissippi, 118 College Dr #5055, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406, United States
Speaker Diane Williams is a neo-griot, along the lines of the storytellers from times gone by when oral historians were crucial to maintaining black folks’ history because book publishers didn’t believe the history worth chronicling. Williams is also a quilter, an artistry befitting for a woman known for paying homage to the past. Williams uses silk yarns, beads, stones and vibrant colors to make traditional quilts with Motherland inspiration to tell stories of strength, resilience and hope.

Sunday Screening: Always a Winner: Roy Curry, A Quarterback Ahead of His Time
2025-01-26 14:00 - 16:00 | MS
Join us for a free screening of “Always a Winner: Roy Curry, A Quarterback Ahead of His Time” at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26, at the Two Mississippi Museums! Directed by Seth Schwartz, this film tells the story of Roy Curry who played quarterback for his high school in Clarksdale, then at Jackson State, and went on to play two seasons as a wide receiver with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL. This program is in partnership with the Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi Department of Archives, Mississippi Film Society, and the Mississippi Film Office
