UA Department of American Studies Hosts Lecture, Book Signing by Southern Culture Expert

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama’s department of American studies will host a lecture by Dr. David Wharton, director of documentary studies at the University of Mississippi, at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 4, in room 110 of the AIME Building on campus. A reception and signing of Wharton’s recently published book, “Small Town South,” will follow.

Wharton, who also wrote “The Soul of a Small Texas Town: Photographs, Memories, and History,” received the 2013 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Photography.  His photographs have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and in group exhibitions in Latin America and Europe.

“Small Town South,” featuring 116 duotone photographs combined with Wharton’s insights, conveys an overall sense of what the small Southern town looks like at the turn of the twenty-first century.

“I believe the social and physical fabric of any given place to be all of one piece, and that each continually shapes the other,” Wharton said. “This has led me to photograph the South both as a set of physical places and as a site of ongoing human activity.”

The lecture is co-sponsored by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the department of art and art history and the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South.

The American studies department is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.