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hrough the Mike Curb Institute for Music, students engage in research, leadership and preservation to foster awareness and understanding of the distinct musical traditions of the South and study the effects music has had on its culture, history and economy.
seminars, lectures, and to visually showcase research from the member programs. The search is currently under way for a two-year postdoctoral position in the history and culture of Memphis, the Mid-South region, or the Lower Mississippi Valley. The holder of that position will teach classes and work closely with students and faculty within the Memphis Center.
The Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies furthers academic research and understanding of the MidSouth and the ways in which Memphis has figured prominently in the social, cultural, political and economic life of the nation.
“We foresee the Memphis Center becoming a lively working space where faculty and students can collaborate on new and existing projects, and together build a community of engaged scholars who are interested in a wide variety of topics related to our The Center for Outreach in the Development of the region,” says Milton Moreland, chair of the Archaeology Arts (CODA) promotes leadership that will expand the program and associate professor of Religious Studies, impact of the arts in the lives of members of the Rhodes who is heading up the working group for the Memphis community, Memphis and the region. Center. Other members of the committee overseeing its implementation are Tim Huebner, the L. Palmer The Rhodes Learning Corridor partners with Brown Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities adjacent neighborhoods, nearby public schools and (History), Charles McKinney (History), John Bass other community organizations to provide learning (Curb Institute), Suzanne Bonefas (Learning Corridor, opportunities for Rhodes students and extend these Crossroads) and Darlene Brooks (Library Services). educational opportunities beyond the classroom and into the immediate Memphis community. To experience regionally connected research currently being done by Rhodes students and faculty, a person The Crossroads to Freedom Digital Archive promotes now must travel from building to building, from space preservation and supports conversations in our to space, and must know just what will be available and community regarding the impact of the civil rights era where. The Memphis Center hopes to be a gathering on Memphis today. place for regional research from a wide variety of departments across the campus with events and archives The Rhodes Archaeological Field School at Ames that will attract people who seek access to such materials, Plantation is a working site for archaeology and and to be home to a permanent space that will attract archaeological methods, expanding our knowledge of students, faculty and the Memphis community at large. West Tennessee. Rhodes prides itself on its tradition of sharing research The Shelby Foote Collection is an archive of the novelist and information, which will be made simpler by having and historian’s papers, manuscripts, signed first editions the clear, focused voice of the Memphis Center to speak and personal effects available for scholarly study. for all the work coming from the programs. Within the next year, these programs and organizations will be gathered under one umbrella, and their research promoted and discussed within the Memphis Center. The center is seeded with a $250,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to focus on the human experience of Memphis and the Mid-South region, from the Civil War to the civil rights movement and beyond. Eventually, physical space within the Paul Barret Jr. Library will be set aside as a place for
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“I think the physical space is important because we’re talking about multiple programs,” says Russ Wigginton, vice president for External Programs. “The center will allow people to understand intimately what it means to be a liberal arts college with an interdisciplinary focus in a dynamic, culturally rich, complicated, historically significant city like Memphis. I think when you walk into the center you’ll grasp that pretty quickly.”
rhodes.edu
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