Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A novel set against a backdrop of this Deep South state's racially segregated past and a photography exhibit focusing on issues of race and ethnicity will be featured this month in events at Mississippi State.
Laurel native and author Jonathan Odell will discuss his widely acclaimed first novel, "The View from Delphi," Feb. 22 during a 6:30 p.m. University Honors Forum lecture and book-signing event at Giles Hall's Bettersworth Auditorium. Earlier in the day, he will meet with about 40 University Honors Program students who are reading the book.
Minnesota native and award-winning visual artist Jim Kuether's photo exhibit, "MSinterpretations: Images of Mississippi," will be displayed alongside the documentation photography of David Perkes Feb. 7-March 25 in the College of Architecture, Art and Design Gallery, also in Giles Hall.
"Jim's work dovetails so nicely with the themes in Jon's book," said UHP director Nancy McCarley. "I love that our students will experience them in tandem.
"I want to encourage students to stretch, to think about larger issues, to have those 'big idea' discussions," she added. "I want them to read books that generate those discussions. When I read 'The View from Delphi,' I knew I had found my book."
Foreign languages major Peyton Hunter is one of the UHP members who has read the book. The Gulfport senior said it was entertaining, well-written and "shows how far racial relations have come. There is something happening with every turn of the page."
Immediately following his presentation, Odell will sign books during a reception held among the photo exhibit in the Giles gallery.
"This exhibit is a double billing of two artists (Kuether and Perkes) working in a similar vein of subject, the Southern vernacular as evidenced in the culture of the South," explained MSU art instructor Bill Andrews.
He said another campus exhibit, "Stories of the Community: Self-Taught Art from the Hill Collection," will take place Feb. 15-March 25 at the Department of Art Gallery in McComas Hall. Thirty-three vernacular art objects from 19 Southern states will be featured.
Kuether spent four weeks last year traveling throughout Mississippi, capturing images for his photographs and watercolor paintings. His work emphasizes the human condition, particularly issues of race and ethnicity.
"Attempting to capture and reconcile the contradictions between Mississippi's elegance and beauty with the darkness and complexities of its past has been an experience unlike any other for me," said Kuether.
Odell's novel (MacAdams/Cage, June 2004) tackles institutionalized racism in a small Mississippi Delta town in the 1950s through the eyes of two young mothers--one wealthy and white, the other poor and black. They have only two things in common--the devastating loss of their sons and an abiding hatred for one another.
"Odell has said that he wanted to pay tribute to the brave men and women of both races who risked their lives to end segregation in Mississippi, and he has succeeded with a stirring, unforgettable novel," wrote Hattiesburg American reviewer Robyn Jackson.
Odell was born in Laurel in 1951 on the day Willie McGhee, an African-American convicted of rape, went to his death in the state's old electric chair at the Jones County courthouse. McGhee's death followed a highly controversial trial before an all-white jury.
Currently a resident of Minneapolis, Minn., Odell often collaborates with Kuether on creative projects.
Growing up "as a white man during the Jim Crow era," Odell became a civil rights activist while on his way to completing a degree in psychology in 1975 from the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1997, he gave up a long and successful career as a problem-solving consultant for Fortune 500 companies to focus on writing.
Jonathan Odell is a pen name, he said, explaining that his real name is Johnny Johnson. He is the son of former Sanderson Farms president Odell Johnson, whose "portrait hangs over in the Poultry Hall of Fame" at MSU's Hill Poultry Science Building.
The author has younger twin brothers--David Johnson, an MSU graduate and one-time Bulldog track star, and Doug Johnson who, like Johnny, graduated from USM. He said one of David's daughters, Reagan, is an MSU graduate and another daughter, Lacey, currently is a student at the university.
"My dream in life is to get an honorary degree from MSU so I can join the crowd," said Odell.
For more information, contact McCarley at (662) 325-2522 or nmccarley@honors.msstate.edu. Andrews may be reached at 325-0393 or wpa@ra.msstate.edu.