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10 Guest Appearances
1. National Book Award-winning scholar Imani Perry discussed how the South’s people and cultures have influenced the nation, speaking during Black History Month as part of the College of Media and Entertainment’s Tom T. Hall Writers Series of lectures. A scholar at Princeton University, Perry is author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
2. “Green Room Conversations” tour creator Julie Williams (below center) performed and took part in a panel March 27 as MTSU served as the launch site of the multi-city college tour about sexual harassment in the music industry. Williams, a survivor and CMT Next Women of Country artist, joined forces with advocacy organization Calling All Crows and social impact leadership firm The Change Agent·cy.
3. Comedian Gary Mule Deer participated in a Q&A session following a screening of a documentary on his life, Show Business Is My Life, But I Can’t Prove It, along with his wife, Nita, and his manager, MTSU alumnus Ryan Blazer (’04). Mule Deer combined comedy and classic country music during a six-decade career.
4. As part of MTSU’s Pulitzer Prize lecture series, two honorees spoke on campus recently, including Anna Wolfe, who reported on welfare misuse in Mississippi involving former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Wolfe, investigative reporter on poverty for the Mississippi Today nonprofit news organization, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for her work.
5. Pulitizer finalist Meribah Knight visited MTSU to discuss her “Kids of Rutherford County” series that received global attention for exposing how hundreds of children— some as young as 7—were unlawfully arrested and jailed. A senior reporter and producer at Nashville Public Radio, she spent three years working on the series.
6. Heirloom: Guitar writer and director Daniel Putkowski appeared at MTSU to showcase his recent film, which chronicles the progression of the steel string guitar from a parlor instrument to the universal sound of modern music in international arenas. Putkowski appeared as part of the Center for Popular Music’s “American Guitar” lecture series.
7. Kathy Roberts Forde, author of the award-winning book Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America, gave the keynote lecture at the 48th annual AEJMC Southeast Colloquium hosted by MTSU. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication event marked the first time the School of Journalism and Strategic Media hosted an internationally recognized journalism organization.
8. Musician Mac Phipps, whose lyrics were used against him for a 2001 manslaughter conviction, held a special “Un-Rapping the Issue” webinar with MTSU students on the controversial practice of using rap lyrics in criminal court cases. The talk was hosted by MTSU’s Urban Entertainment Society student organization.
9. Dynamic mother-daughter duo Rita Mitchell and Britt Mitchell, who are authors and empowerment coaches, shared “What They Know for Sure About Elevating Success” in a talk sponsored by the College of Media and Entertainment.
10. Brkwyipoi Kayapó screened and discussed her film, Indigenous Filmmaker Warriors in Defense of Biocultural Conservation, during a Distinguished Lecture Series visit to MTSU along with some Brazilian colleagues. MTSU film professor Paul Chilsen and students have helped indigenous Brazilian filmmakers use their talents to bring attention to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
