Sounds of the South is a symposium focused on the evolving historical and contemporary music of the American South. The symposium features lectures by renowned folklorists, historians, ethnomusicologists, musicians, and Southbound photographers, with presentations on subjects ranging from praise-house history to songwriting to photographing traditional musicians in Appalachia. 

Dr. Karen Chandler |Bin Yah: Jazz Influences in Gullah Culture | 10:00 AM

Rachel Boillot | Silent Ballad: Time Sings in the Cumberland Plateau | 10:30 AM

Jake Xerxes Fussell | Out of this World: Hearing & Reconsidering Southern Soundscapes | 11:00 AM

Bill Carson | Moving Star Hall: A Personal Journey | 11:30 AM

Lunch Break | 12:00 – 1:30 PM

Dr. Bill Ferris | Voices of Mississippi | 1:30 PM

Bill Steber | Stones in my Pathway: Blues Culture in Mississippi | 2:30 PM

Lisa Elmaleh | American Folk | 3:00 PM

Cary Ann Hearst | The Dynamics of the Modern Southern Idiom in the Opinion of One Songwriter | 3:30 PM