The Center is pleased to announce that work on its latest publication, the Mississippi Encyclopedia, is off and running. The Mississippi Encyclopedia, to be published in 2005, will be a comprehensive, single-volume work based on the historical study of Mississippi’s literature, art and architecture, music, folklife, religion, politics, and a wide range of other themes. Planning for the publication began at the suggestion of the University Press of Mississippi, which will publish the volume. Its director, Seetha Srinivasan, proposed that the Center sponsor the project, in large part because of its success in producing the award-winning Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Humanities Council joined the project as major partners, and the project has received grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Mississippi Encyclopedia will embrace Mississippi’s past and present and will include entries on each of the state’s regions, on every county in the state, on the state’s writers, artists, and musicians, and a full treatment of state and local politics. The volume will illustrate the reality of multiple perspectives on events in the state’s history and the relationships that bind all Mississippians together. In an effort to ensure that it will be an encyclopedia of the people, the editors will be attending public meetings around the state to encourage suggestions from citizens, particularly nonacademics. Its A to Z format will facilitate use by a wide cross section of society, from students and scholars to local history buffs and curious coffee table readers. 

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Andrea Finley Managing Editor of the Mississippi Encyclopedia   In November 2002, I came aboard as managing editor of the Mississippi Encyclopedia. I will manage many of the daily functions of the Encyclopedia, chief of which is corresponding with authors and making sure that all entries are assigned and written within our production deadlines. As a 1995 Southern Studies graduate and Mississippi native, I am delighted to return to the Center in this capacity. I was in the middle of completing a Master of Library and Information Science degree at San Jose State University in California when the opportunity for this position opened up, but the moment I was offered the job, I knew I was going to accept. As managing editor of the project, I look forward to the education I’ll be getting about this state. I feel that Mississippi is not so much misunderstood, but rather that it is incompletely understood. The extreme things that people tend to associate with the state—poverty, racism, for example—have been, and to some extent still are, real. But there is much more going on in the state, and there always has been a fascinating list of people, places, and things that richly deserve to have their existence illuminated by a book such as the Mississippi Encyclopedia. It will serve as a valuable resource for those who live, work, and learn in Mississippi, as well as for those in the world beyond who need a much longer list of things to associate with the state of Mississippi.    Those interested in the forthcoming Mississippi Encyclopedia may contact me by e-mail at afinley@olemiss.edu or at 662-915-5993.

Photograph: Mississippi Encyclopedia editors  (from left) Charles Wilson, Ted Ownby, and Andrea Finley by Joe York