Oxford

I will spend two nights in Oxford, passing each night in a different hotel. By doing so, I hope to get a feel for two different sides of the town’s character.

The Inn At Ole Miss

http://www.theinnatolemiss.com/

Located on the campus of the University of Mississippi, the Inn at Ole Miss is steeped and quite literally  immersed in Oxford's university town tradition. If the University is a symbol of learning and progress in the South, then I hope that my stay at the campus hotel will soak me in an atmosphere where those values ring out.

Days Inn Oxford

http://www.daysinn.com/hotels/mississippi/oxford/days-inn-oxford/hotel-overview?reg=Local-_-all-_-DI-_-all&cid=IP_Local&wid=local

I don't suppose that there's much cultural learning to be done at a Days Inn, but then again, there's something to be said for the study of chain establishments. The contrast between high university culture and anonymous mass culture is a contrast between two forms of progress. What differences may I observe between intellectual elites and common travelers as I pass through Mississippi? What value systems are in play?

Ole Miss

http://www.warblogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Ole-Miss.jpg

http://www.olemiss.edu/

A roadtrip which seeks to examine the role of modernity in the South can hardly afford to neglect the University of Mississippi. I should think that my visit to Ole Miss will be the central event of my journey. What is a University, after all, if not a point of contact between the new and the old, between tradition and progress? The above picture seems to capture the spirit of things: Colonel Reb, mascot of the University of Mississippi up until 2003, is an image of Southern self-construction. The dapper, flashy Southern gentlemen beams plantation pride, and an unrepentant Confederate past is bundled up in his very name.

The learning, growth, and progress that one necessarily associates with a University here comes into contact with unreconstructed Southern pride. What does Colonel Reb tell us about progress and tradition in Oxford?

Of course, Colonel Reb has been off the sidelines of Ole Miss football games for nearly a decade now. The school's new mascot is the Rebel Black Bear:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5684400

Surely, this change of mascots says something about Oxford's cultural anxieties, its reluctance to shed all of its confederate pride (they're still called the Rebels, after all), even as it acknowledges the historical flaws of Southern gentlemanhood. 

Rowan Oak

http://www.rowanoak.com/

Central to my visit to Oxford, of course, will be a trip to Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home. A museum and a monument for the South's great author, Rowan Oak is curated with an awareness of the tension between modernity and tradition in Faulkner's writing.

There is a certain timelessness to the place. The stately Greek Revival style and the lushly rustic atmosphere seem to mingle coldness and intimacy. Here, I want to experience something of William Faulkner’s sense of place and atmosphere. What did the South, or at least his home, look and feel like to him? Where in the cultural and emotional continuum of the South did Faulkner’s immediate surroundings place him? Does Rowan Oak look like it belongs to any particular time? If so, how does that inform his writing?

It is the apparent timelessness of Rowan Oak that interests me most. Faulkner, a writer so burdened by questions of change, progress, past and future, lived in an old and elegant house. It seems removed and distant, yet somehow comforting. Times and moods seem to merge at Rowan Oak. does this blending affect Faulkner's writing? I look forward to taking a closer look.

Freedmen Town

http://www.historymarkersofms.com/Lafayette/Freedmen_Town.JPG

Following the Civil War (during which Oxford faced attack by Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman), many free African-Americans travelled to Oxford, where they established a neighborhood called Freedman Town. Those who lived in Freedman Town valued education and built schools. The neighborhood became a significant bastion of Black Southern independence. I hope that Freedman Town will offer some insight into the growth of African American culture in the South, and the role of education and intellectual progress in defining that culture.

Rambling On My Mind

On my way out of town, I'll listen to one of the most beautiful songs ever written about leaving the South: "Sweet Home Chicago" by Mississippi's own Robert Johnson.