- Title
- Our State
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-
- Date
- February 2005
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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Our State
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For more than # years.
North Carolina sociologist
distinctly __ . .
southern
John Shelton Reed has been
observing and sharing his
beloved South.
by Jimmy Tomlin
Probably i he
пхм
unfathomable chapter — if not ihc most
unpardonable sin — in «he life of noted “Disieologist" John
Shelton Reed is ilut dec ade he spent up North, where the
rumo draw most of their impressions of the South from
Smokcy
ли!
the
Ы
and The Dukes of I lar/ard.'
Ironically, Reed had ventured north of the Mason-Dixon
line — during the radical ‘60s, which may, to a certain extent, excuse his
ill-conceived migration — in the name of higher education, pursuing
degrees at two decidedly un-Southern institutions the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Columbia University.
Initially, he say», he wanted to study not sociology — the held in
which he ultimately would make a name for himself, both teaching and
writing — but mathematic». "That didn't last very long, though,” Reed
says wryly. ”1 figured out very quickly that if I worked really, really
hard. I could be a very mediocre mathematician.”
At MIT, he abiuptly changed his focus, majoring hi political science
(although still minoring in mathematics), before going on to Columbia and
earning his doctorate in sociology.
finally, in 1969. Reed made the most of his newly ordained intelligence
and came to his senses: He returned home to the Sooth, settling in Chapel
Hill with a teaching position at the University of North Carolina. ”1
wanted to get Kick to the South, and I NC had a wonderful sociology
department.” he say».
And this time, Reed was in the South for good.
106 Out Male
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