Eighty-nine years ago, a 16-year-old girl from Jackson began studying English literature at what was then known as Mississippi State College for Women (now MUW). While she never received a degree from The W, her name is indelibly linked to the school.
Thursday marks the beginning of the 26th annual Eudora Welty Writer’s Symposium and, as it has been since the start, the three-day event is both a reminder of our town’s rich cultural heritage as well as a powerful argument for what is called the “liberal arts.”
The lineup is impressive: Louisiana-based novelist Tim Parish (“Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist”) will open the symposium with a reading from his new novel, “The Jumper” while Columbus-based novelist Deborah Johnson will read from her acclaimed novel, “The Secret of Magic” on Friday. Robert Edsel, a New York Times bestselling author and author of “The Monuments Men,” will be the guest speaker at Friday night’s Welty Gala.
Columbus, as much as any town in the South, enjoys a literary tradition that blends both old and new. It is not only the birthplace of the great playwright Tennessee Williams and temporary home to Welty, it is the current home of two emerging literary heavyweights in Johnson and Michael Farris Smith, who presently teaches creative writing at The W.
In recent years, when the subject of education emerges, we have been told that there needs to be a greater emphasis on math and science in college and for developing skilled workers for our growing industrial economy among those who might not be best-suited for university training.
But as our educational focus shifts toward these disciplines, we should not be dismissive of the value of the liberal arts. The annual Welty symposium is, then, a reminder of those benefits.
Certainly, we need doctors and nurses and scientists and engineers and skilled factory workers.
But we also need writers and artists and historians and social workers.
Writers and artists have always served as the consciences of a society. Free societies are known for their writers. Their importance cannot be overstated.
Today, as was the case 89 years ago, there are 16-year-olds on the MUW campus, where many of the state’s brightest young students study at the Mississippi School for Math and Science.
Most of them will likely pursue the fields of medicine, science or engineering.
But we are hopeful that there may be one or two who will instead choose the path taken by that teen-aged girl from Jackson back in 1925.
It remains a great and honorable pursuit.
This year’s Eudora Welty Writer’s Symposium reminds us of that.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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