Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A series of lectures about cultural history and fences, as well as a collection by state artists, will be featured as part of a national exhibit at Mississippi State through April 25.
The University Libraries is sponsoring "Between Fences," a traveling display coordinated by the Smithsonian Institution's Museum on Main Street and focusing on every region of the United States.
Showcased on the Mitchell Memorial Library's third floor, "Between Fences" tells the story of the country's settling: the establishment of communities and building of borders. "Fences" include tools, photographs and a range of publications from product literature to journals to postcards and other materials.
The exhibit is co-sponsored by MSU's Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; colleges of Arts and Sciences and Agriculture and Life Sciences; Center for Historical Studies; and departments of history; sociology and anthropology and social work; and political science.
Titled "Shared Spaces," original art being featured in Special Collections on the third floor includes works of Kathryn Brown, Linda Cambre, Betty Jane Chatham, Fay Fisher, Sarah Hubbard, Briar Jones, Dylan Karges, Arch Pitts, Francis Thompson, Barbara Walker, and Kathy Westbrook. The Starkville Area Arts Council's Art in Public Places co-sponsors this section.
In addition, the library is organizing three related public presentations
featuring university and visiting scholars. All beginning at 3 p.m. in the Grisham Room, the topics and speakers include:
--April 4, Connie Lester, a former MSU history faculty member now an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, "Cowboys, Sheepmen, Herders, and Clodhoppers: Fence Laws and Social Turmoil."
--April 11, Gerald Emison, MSU associate professor of political science and public administration, "Environmental Pollution and the Erasure of Manmade Boundaries." He is a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency senior adviser.
--April 18, William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies and Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin, "Discovered Land, Invented Past." A Rhodes Scholar, he is past president of the American Society for Environmental History.
"Between Fences" will be on display during normal library operating hours. The exhibit is a collaboration of the Smithsonian and Mississippi Humanities Council.
For more information, visit http://library.msstate.edu/betweenfences/.