Upcoming Events
Sarahfest musical artist Julie Williams on Thacker Mount
The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour is delighted to be a part of Sarahfest, a series of lectures, films, concerts and exhibits sponsored by the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi.
Sarahfest Art Show Reception
Join us before the Thacker Mountain Radio Show for refreshments celebrating this year's Sarahfest Art Show with Chuck Steffan.
Southtalks: “Surplussed Atlanta: The Built Environment of Homelessness”
Downtown Atlanta is known for its glass office towers and professional sports venues. It is also known for having the densest population of unhoused persons in the metropolitan area. For nearly half a century, a succession of city governments, hotel and convention interests, real estate developers and property owners, neighborhood associations, and university administrations have pursued a campaign to relocate this population from the central business district to lower-income Black neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city—either that or put unhoused people in jail. In his talk, Chuck Steffen will place this campaign in the context of efforts to transform the downtown built environment after the Second World War. The actors who tore down and rebuilt the heart of the “City Too Busy to Hate” created a built environment in which homelessness could and would flourish.
Sarahfest Artshow - Surplussed Atlanta: The Built Environment of Homelessnessment of Homelessness
The photos gathered in this exhibition were taken between 2010 and 2017. During these years I became involved with a homeless shelter called Peachtree-Pine, which was a twenty-minute walk from my downtown office at Georgia State University. The shelter was then at the center of a political battle between downtown business interests who wanted to shut it down and the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless that fought to keep it open.
THE ART OF THE UNEXPECTED MULTI-LOCATION ART EXHIBITION
Nutt Auditorium + Reception
Free Admission
Queer Studies Lecture featuring Joshua Whitehead
The Queer Studies Lecture was established in 2014, connected with the development of the queer studies emphasis in the Gender Studies minor. This fall’s Queer Studies lecture will be given by Joshua Whitehead. Whitehead’s lecture will also serve as the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement’s Native American Heritage Month Lecture.
Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is currently a Ph.D. candidate, lecturer, and Killam scholar at the University of Calgary where he studies Indigenous literatures and cultures with a focus on gender and sexuality. He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017) which was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018) which was long listed for the Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Whitehead is currently working on a third manuscript titled, Making Love with the Land, to be published with Knopf Canada, which explores the intersections of Indigeneity, queerness, and, most prominently, mental health through a nêhiyaw lens.
Sarahfest Concert featuring The Shindellas
The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, This is Noteworthy (TIN), and OUTGrads announce a free Concert featuring The Shindellas at 7:30 PM on October 22, 2023, at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have our friends The Shindellas come to Mississippi as they promote their latest album,” says Becca Finley, founder, This Is Noteworthy. “Their energy, harmonies, and kindness are unparalleled. Bring on the women who spread LOVE.”
The free show will kick off the University’s Homecoming Week. In addition to the concert, The Shindellas with be participating in an LMR Live with Nancy Maria Bolach on Monday, October 23 at 1pm in the Mobley-Collins Studio Theatre at the Ford Center.
“We are excited to have The Shindellas perform as part of our annual arts and music festival, Sarahfest. The festival is made possible through collaboration such as the one we have formed with dynamic nonprofit This Is Noteworthy. We can't wait for them to share their music with our UM and larger Oxford Community. The concert will be stellar and is also a great way to kick off Homecoming Week, too!” states Theresa Starkey, associate director, Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies.
The Shindellas are a band formed under the belief that when women come together, powerful change can happen. They are advocates aligned under the tenets of sisterhood, excellence, elegance, and empowerment.
The concert is free and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Sarahfest Punk Pop Up: Film Screening and Concert
The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies announces a concert and film screening pop-up on the University of Mississippi campus in partnership with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and the Southern Documentary Project.
The event will feature a screening of Christina Huff’s documentary, “Big Clown” followed by a performance of the Memphis-based punk band, Big Clown.
The energetic show represents a modern connection to this year’s Sarahfest Art Show which focused on the Pensacola punk music scene in the 90s.
Located on campus at the Grove Stage- 218 Student Union Drive- the concert will begin at 6:00pm. The Tupelo Room in the Barnard Observatory will serve as a back-up location in the event of rain. The event is free and open to the public.
For more information on Sarahfest and for assistance related to a disability, contact Kevin at (662)915-5916 or email at isomctr@olemiss.edu.
Special Sarahfest Episode of Thacker Mountain Radio (TMR)
An evening of Mississippi poetry and tunes and tales from Tennessee
A debut poet from Mississippi and two cool songwriters from Tennessee – who are also published poets. Join us for an evening of poems, songs, stories and more!
Author: C.T. Salazar (Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking: Poems)
Music: Amelia White (Rearview Rocket) and RB Morris (Rich Mountain Bound)
Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers
Thacker Mountain Radio Hour is proud to partner with the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies on this special Sarahfest edition as part of its annual arts and music festival that highlights women and minorities in the arts. Thacker Mountain Radio Hour has long been a community event that creates the space to build long-lasting relationships among community members, artists, and authors. The partnership with the Isom Center is a natural one, and we are pleased to be included in the Sarahfest lineup of events.
Air times:
Thursday, Oct. 13 – 6 pm (CT) WUMS 92.1 FM University of Mississippi
Friday, Oct. 21 – 6 am (CT) WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN
Saturday, Oct. 22 – 3 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN
7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
hours
Price Walden (composer), Alice Anne Light (mezzo), and Kristy Kristinek (artist) pair music and visual art for a performance experience entitled “hours”. Price and Light will perform a melodrama for mezzo and piano that defies the traditional "song cycle" as Kristinek creates a visual triptych of three large canvases.
Co-sponsors: Living Music Resource and the Department of Music
An Evening of Conversation with Elain Tomlin's Family and Friends
The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies announces an exhibit of Elaine Tomlin’s groundbreaking work for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as part of Sarahfest. During her career as the only Black woman staff photographer for the SCLC, she captured images of Civil Rights Leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Sr. and helped to influence the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement by documenting countless demonstrations and marches, including the Selma to Montgomery March, during her thirty-year career. The reception on September 27th at 6 PM at the Powerhouse will featureTomlin's family and friends sharing insights into this remarkable unsung visual historian and her vital contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.
Some of the images in the exhibit and presented at the reception will be seen publicly for the first time or the first time in many years as her home was broken into in 1987 and most of her life’s work was stolen. Thankfully, Tomlin has the foresight to store over 3,000 negatives for safekeeping.
The exhibition is being curated and contextualized by UM journalism professor and Isom faculty-in-residence Alysia Burton Steele as part of her research for her doctoral dissertation.
Cosponsors: Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, College of Liberal Arts, School of Journalism and New Media, Department of History
Sarahfest Art Show
Sarahfest’s annual Art Show kicks off the fall 2022 events calendar. The month of September, Powerhouse will feature three mini exhibits:
309 Punk Project by Christopher Satterwhite, who is a former resident of the 309 house and one of the founders of 309 Punk Project, which seeks to draw attention to and preserve the house’s history and connection to DIY movements and aesthetics.
The graduate students exhibit pairs with Satterwhite’s exhibit, and features student’s final projects of their class from spring 2022. The class examined what it means to uncover a queer avant-garde punk south, to wrestle with it, and to participate in it through DIY projects.
Isom Affiliate and Associate Professor of Journalism Alysia Steele delves into the archive to uncover the story and photog- raphy of Elaine Tomlin. Tomlin captured the Civil Rights Movement with her lens, as the only Black woman staff photographer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The curated images are part of Steele’s dissertation project that seeks to bring Tomlin’s dynamic career and contributions into focus.
Partnering W// YAC and Co-Sponsor W// CLA/DCE
Sarahtalk: Craft Talk with Filmmaker Kate Tsang
Artist, Filmmaker, and Emmy-nominated Writer Kate Tsang will discuss the creation of her debut film Marvelous and the Black Hole and film-making by women of color.
Kate Tsang’s Debut Film Screening
Artist, Filmmaker, and Emmy-nominated Writer Kate Tsang’s debut film Marvelous and the Black Hole will be screened prior to her talk on November 4.
Club Sarahfest: An Evening with Kelly Hogan
Singer and Inaugural Sarahfest Artist-in-Residence Kelly Hogan, accompanied by musician Jenny Conlee and UM music students, will perform an evening of music covering different styles and decades.
Thacker Mountain Radio: Sarahfest Edition
Our TMR show is part of Sarahfest, a month-long series of lectures, films and concerts presented by our friends at the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi. More info at Sarahfest.
Author: Artist Lee Harper
Music: Vocalist Kelly Hogan and, from The Decemberists, keyboard-accordion player, Jenny Conlee plus jazz pianist Bill Perry, Jr.
Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers
FREE Admission.
5:30 pm – Happy Half-Hour – Signature Cocktail by Party Waitin’ To Happen and Cathead Distillery!
Health protocols will be observed including spaced seating and masks when needed. Come early for a cocktail! We’re asking our audience to please space their seating and keep the health of everyone in mind.
Air times:
Thursday, Oct 28 – 6:00 pm (CT) WUMS – University of Mississippi
Saturday, Nov 6 – 7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
3 pm (ET) University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Thursdays 6 pm (CT) WUMS – University of Mississippi
Fridays 9 am (CT) WYXR Memphis Community Radio
LMR Sarahfest Concert: "The Ladies I Love"
Award winning Producer, Director, Actor, Singer, and Songwriter Blake McIver Ewing, who will be serving as a visiting faculty artist in the Department of Music, will be performing an evening of songs from some of his favorite female voices from Barbra Streisand and Carole King to Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys.
Hosted by the Department of Music, Living Music Resource, and the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies.
Queer Studies Lecture: Notes on Reading Errantly
Presented by Dr. Karen Tongson, Chair, Gender Studies Program, and Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, English and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern
Registration is required to receive Zoom link: https://olemiss.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUtdO-hrTMvHNX2s9V5gp_PMeFoUbAoHUN9
Sarahtalk: Feminist and Queer World Making in North Mississippi
Jaime Harker, director of Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and professor of English, will discuss how the Isom Center has put theory into practice to create a more feminist and queer environment in North Mississippi.
Thacker Mountain Radio: W8ing4UFOs
For the Thacker Mountain Radio show, Bill Taft will be joined by cellist Brian Halloran and drummer Will Fratesi. W8ing4UFOs will perform songs from their new album on Knoxville’s Striped Light records, Don’t Let the Asshats Burn You.
Pop-up Art Show: See Us Differently
Oxions will have the chance to explore the impact of bringing the humanities into places of mass incarceration on Sept. 29 when a special Sarahfest pop-up art exhibit, See Us Differently, will be on display at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center. The multimedia exhibit comprising bookmaking, paintings, mixed media sculptures, and graphic narratives based on Milton’s Paradise Lost and Shelley’s Frankenstein, were created by current and formerly incarcerated individuals taking free college courses through Common Good Atlanta (CGA). The exhibit is being brought to Oxford through a partnership with CGA, Emory University, and the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies. It is also made possible through cosponsorships with the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Mississippi and the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council in Oxford.
Thacker Mountain Radio - Sarahfest Edition
The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour celebrates Halloween with legendary rock and roll trailblazer Suzi Quatro and blues slide guitarist Ghalia Volt in conjunction with Sarahfest.
Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers
Air times:
Saturday. October 31 – 7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
3 pm (ET) University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Thursdays 6 pm (CT) WUMS – University of Mississippi
Fridays 8 am (CT) WYXR Memphis Public Radio
Tinderbox - The Untold Story of the Upstairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation
The 2020 Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture and Queer Studies Lecture will be presented by Robert W. Fieseler. Forty-three years before the Pulse nightclub shooting became the largest mass murder of gays in the United States, an arsonist set fire to the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, killing 32 people. Author Robert W. Fieseler will lecture on the history revealed in his book Tinderbox, which recounts the tragic fire that happened on the night of June 24, 1973, with first person interviews and extensive research weaving a story of memorable people such as trans pioneer Regina Adams inhabiting in a closeted, but thriving, underground world. Fieseler’s story of this forgotten history also reports the political and societal change that followed the fire within a nascent "Gay Liberation" movement, which was not yet LGBTQ+.
Screening and Q & A: All We've Got
ALL WE’VE GOT is an insightful personal exploration of LGBTQI women’s communities, cultures, and social justice work through the lens of the spaces they create, from bars to bookstores to arts and political hubs. Social groups rely on physical spaces to meet and build connections, step outside oppressive social structures, avoid policing and violence, share information, provide support, and organize politically. Yet, in the past decade, more than 100 bars, bookstores, art and community spaces where LGBTQI women gather have closed. In ALL WE’VE GOT, filmmaker Alexis Clements travels the country to explore the factors driving the loss of these spaces, understand why some are able to endure, and to search for community among the ones that remain. From a lesbian bar in Oklahoma; to the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center in San Antonio run by queer Latinas; to the WOW Café Theatre in New York; to the public gatherings organized by the Trans Ladies Picnics around the US and beyond; to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, the film takes us into diverse LGBTQI spaces and shines a light on why having a place to gather matters. Ultimately, ALL WE’VE GOT is a celebration of the history and resilience of the LGBTQI community and the inclusive spaces they make, as well as a call to action to continue building stronger futures for all communities.
Jordan Occasionally
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.