Contact: Allison Matthews
STARKVILLE, Miss.--An academic authority on Eudora Welty who specializes in 20th century American prose and poetry from an American point of view will be featured Tuesday [Nov. 1] at Mississippi State University.
Pearl A. McHaney will present "Narratives of the South in Word and Image" at a 7 p.m. public program in the Colvard Student Union's third-floor Fowlkes Auditorium.
Her visit is sponsored by the Maroon Edition campus-wide reading program, which this year is focusing on the Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Jackson who died in 2001.
Prior to McHaney's presentation, an opening reception for the photography exhibit, "Eudora Welty: Exposures and Reflections," will take place 5-7 p.m. in the union's second-floor art gallery. The exhibit continues through Dec. 15.
In addition to the MSU appearance, McHaney will be featured at 7 p.m. Monday [Oct. 31] in conjunction with the Starkville Reads program at the Starkville Public Library on University Drive. Also open to all, that program begins at 7 p.m.
A Georgia State University associate professor of 20th century American literature and secondary English, McHaney focuses on the cultural contexts revealed through art, music, history, and biography. Welty's writings are her primary focus for research and publications.
Recognized worldwide, she has given lectures on Welty and other 20th century authors throughout the U.S., as well as in France, Norway, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.
McHaney is editor of "Eudora Welty as Photographer" (University of Mississippi Press, 2009), which features 30 never before-published photographs taken by Welty.
McHaney currently is working on a book-length study of Welty photographs and prose that deal with the intersections of race, gender and authority. She also continues as editor of the Eudora Welty Newsletter, which has been published at GSU since 1998. (For more biographical information, visit www.english.gsu.edu/people.php?req=mchaneyp.)
MSU's Maroon Edition program encourages all first-year students to join with faculty, staff and other students in reading a selected book that becomes the focus of campus discussions and activities during the fall semester. "The Optimist's Daughter," for which Welty won the 1973 Pulitzer, is this year's selection.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see www.msstate.edu.
For additional information, contact Maroon Edition committee chairperson Linda Morse at 662-325-7105 or lmorse@colled.msstate.edu.