Delta Blues Symposium will feature panel 
discussions on ‘Defining the Delta,’ March 27-29

Three invited panels will provide focus for Delta Studies Symposium IX: Defining the Delta, sponsored by the Department of English and Philosophy at Arkansas State University.  The event will be held on the ASU campus March 27-29.
            “Defining Arkansas Blues” features three Arkansans who have been active in performance and publicizing the blues.  Moderated by JoBeth Briton of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she hosts a weekly blues radio program, the panel will consider whether Arkansas blues can be identified by distinctive themes, characteristics, forms, and contexts.

            Panelists will be music producer Lee Anthony, who owns Soul Brothers Records in Little Rock; blues harmonica player Willie Cobbs, whose recording career has spanned five decades; and musician and blues radio host Thomas H. Jones, who has performed with Jessie Mae Hemphill, Ce Dell Davis, and others.

            The panel will begin at 1:30 on Thursday, March 27, in ASU Museum Room 157.

            On Friday, March 28, at 10:30, also in Museum Room 157, "What Is the Delta?  A Heritage Studies Perspective," will look at the Mississippi River Delta region from the points of view of the disciplines involved in ASU’s Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program.

             Moderated by the program’s director, Dr. Clyde Milner, the panel will involve David Evans, professor of music at the University of Memphis and winner of this year’s Grammy Award for best album notes for “Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The World of Charlie Patton”; Jeannie Whayne, professor of history at the University of Arkansas and editor of “Arkansas Historical Quarterly”; and William H. Wiggins Jr., professor of Afro-American studies at Indiana University and author of “O Freedom.” 

Panelists will discuss ways in which the music, history, arts, and literature of the Delta contribute to the region's identity.

            The third invited panel “What Is the Delta? An Environmental Sciences Perspective” will take place on Saturday, March 29, in Museum Room 157 at 10:30.  Dr. Jerry Farris, director of ASU’s Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program, will moderate a discussion of the ways in which disciplines in the sciences have defined the Delta.  The program will also consider some of the ways in which nature has contributed to characterizing this region.

            Participants will be Charlie Cooper, who works for the National Sedimentation Laboratory of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture in Oxford, Miss.; Jack Grubaugh, professor of biology at the University of Memphis; and Billy Justus, who works for the U. S. Geological Survey in Little Rock.

These events are free and open to the public. 

For further information, contact the Department of English and Philosophy at 870-972-3043 or via e-mail at delta@astate.edu.  Symposium information is also available on the web at: http://www.clt.astate.edu/blues.

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