WILSON, N.C. — October 7, 2025 — Barton College will host author and scholar John Shelton Reed as the featured speaker for the 2025 Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 4:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Family Theatre Atrium. The program is free and open to the public.
Reed has written more than 20 books and numerous articles, often focusing on the American South, as well as a few country songs. His work has been described by “The Washington Post” as “provocative, instructive and amusing” and by the “San Francisco Review” as “funny and erudite and annoying.”
He taught for many years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, retiring in 2000 as William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor and director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. He helped establish UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South and co-founded the quarterly “Southern Cultures.”
Reed has lectured at more than 300 institutions in the United States and abroad, including as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in India. He has held visiting positions at Oxford and Cambridge universities, the University of London and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His professional recognitions include election to the Fellowship of Southern Writers, where he served as chancellor from 2009 to 2011. In 2023 he was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina’s highest civilian honors. He is also co-founder of the Campaign for Real Barbecue (TrueCue.org).
The Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series is one of several endowed lectures presented as part of the Barton Forum Lecture Series, which brings speakers in religion, history, literature and the arts to campus for programs that engage both the College and the wider community.
Boone graduated from Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) with degrees in business administration in 1978 and nursing in 1988. She served on the Barton College Board of Trustees and the Alumni Council and was president-elect of the Alumni Council at the time of her death in 2004. The lecture series was established in her honor.
For additional information, contact Michael Brantley, Elizabeth H. Jordan Chair of Southern Literature and associate professor of English, at [email protected] or 252-399-6370.
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