Eudora Welty at Home: A Conversation with William Ferris, Kate Medley, and Michael Pickard
A conversation about Welty’s life and legacy, with Michael Pickard and Durham photojournalist Kate Medley, co-authors of the Welty photo essay in Southern Cultures, and William Ferris, folklorist, emeritus professor of history, and friend of Welty’s. Refreshments provided.
Presented with Carolina Public Humanities
William R. Ferris is former senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and is widely recognized as a leader in southern studies, African-American music, and folklore. He is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to his role at NEH, Ferris served as the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he was a faculty member for 18 years. Ferris is the author of numerous works including The South in Color: A Visual Journey, Give My Poor Heart Ease, and Blues from the Delta.
Kate Medley is a visual journalist based in North Carolina, whose work across the American South focuses on storytelling and environmental portraiture, often exploring issues of social justice and the shifting politics of this region. She regularly contributes to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. Medley is the author of Thank You Please Come Again.
Michael Pickard is the Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Literature at Mill-saps College, where he directs the Millsaps Digital Welty Lab and serves as chair of the English department. As an associate editor of the Eudora Welty Review, he has published articles and book chapters on Welty’s fiction, as well as on eighteenth-and nineteenth-century British literature.