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Distinguished professorship honors two Southern studies experts at UNC

CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. William R. Ferris, a widely recognized leader in Southern studies, African American music and folklore, has been appointed the Joel R. Williamson distinguished professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The appointment recognizes Ferris for "pre-eminent teaching and research in the study of the South," while paying tribute to Williamson, the distinguished Southern historian and longtime UNC professor known for his writings on William Faulkner, Margaret Mitchell and race relations in the South.

Ferris, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a prolific documentarian of blues music and Southern culture, joined the faculty last summer as professor of history, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South and adjunct professor in the curriculum on folklore. His new appointment to the distinguished professorship was recently approved by the UNC’s Board of Trustees in December.

Williamson, the Lineberger distinguished professor in the humanities, has been a member of the history faculty at Carolina since 1960. He is the author of many acclaimed books, including "William Faulkner and Southern History" (Oxford University Press, 1993) and "The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation" (Oxford University Press, 1984). Both books received the prestigious Mayflower Cup award and were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History. "The Crucible of Race" also won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award (from Phi Beta Kappa), the Francis Parkman Prize (from the Society of American Historians) and the Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award. He is writing a book about Elvis Presley.

"I have long admired Joel Williamson’s fine work as a scholar and a teacher," said Ferris. "He embodies the highest standards of academic excellence, and I will strive to live up to these standards in my own work. Joel Williamson has pioneered the study of the American South, and his career will always be an inspiration for my own."

The distinguished professorship is a gift of John A. and Paula R. Powell of Palo Alto, California. John Powell is a 1977 UNC alumnus. The Williamson professorship is the largest single endowed chair established by an individual in the College of Arts and Sciences during the university’s Carolina First fund-raising campaign.

"Our extraordinarily generous benefactor has given the university a gift that will make a difference in the lives of our students for generations to come," said Williamson. "More resources for researching and writing translate directly into more effective teaching. Nothing makes for better teaching more than the teacher’s conviction that he or she has discovered a story that the students have just got to hear."

Ferris has discovered many compelling stories during his distinguished career. He has conducted thousands of interviews with musicians ranging from the famous (B.B. King) to the unrecognized (Parchman Penitentiary inmates working in the fields).

He has written or edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films. He co-edited the massive "Encyclopedia of Southern Culture" (UNC Press, 1989), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His other books include: "Mule Trader: Ray Lum's Tales of Horses, Mules and Men" (1992), "Images of the South: Visits with Eudora Welty and Walker Evans" (1978), "Mississippi Black Folklore: A Research Bibliography and Discography" (1971) and "Blues from the Delta" (1970, 1978, 1988).

Ferris’ films include "Mississippi Blues" (1983), which was featured at the Cannes Film Festival. A nationally acclaimed expert on blues music, Ferris has produced numerous sound recordings. He also has published his own poetry and short stories. A native of Vicksburg, Miss., Ferris was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he taught for 18 years.

He has won many prestigious honors, including the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities, the American Library Association's Dartmouth Medal, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the Top Ten Professors in the United States. He was recently named a Fellow of the American Folklore Society.

At Carolina, Ferris has been teaching classes on the history of music in the American South and its impact on the region’s history and culture. His students have explored Native American songs, Appalachian folk ballads and Afro-American hymns, spirituals and work chants, and considered a range of forms including blues, country music, gospel, jazz, rock, and rap.

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Photo url: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/facultyferris_william.jpg

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339

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