Gwin situates aesthetic and ethical responses from Baldwin, Moody, Welty, and Walker, highlighting attention to the local (3/6)

The city of Jackson in the spring and summer of 1963. Situating four writers (Baldwin, Moody, Welty, Walker) who responded to Evers's death aesthetically and ethically. Where are these writers' voices coming from? "Location," in Welty's words, is "the proving ground of what happened, who's here, who's coming." Location as "the heart's field." Conceptualizing the local in this time and place of terror: the neighborhood and house of Medgar and Myrlie Evers.

Mourning Medgar: Justice, Aesthetics, and the Local, a presentation by Minrose Gwin
southernspaces.org/2008/mourning-medgar-justice-aesthetics-and-local
Published on March 11, 2008

Speaking at Emory University on February 19, 2008, Dr. Gwin considers how attention to historical location and to locally-embodied experiences raises questions about justice, aesthetics, and memory. She examines the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, through writings by James Baldwin, Anne Moody, Eudora Welty, and Margaret Walker.