Ann Abadie, associate director emerita of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, passed away on July 30. She was 84 years old.
In the 1970s, Dr. Abadie worked with her colleagues to establish the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, which aims to document, interpret, and teach about the southern United States through research initiatives and public engagement. Dr. Abadie served as the center’s primary leader from 1979 through her retirement in 2011. She founded several academic conferences in the fields of English and history including the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference and the Oxford Conference for the Book. For her many contributions to advancing southern culture and history, she received lifetime achievement awards from the Mississippi Institute of the Arts and Letters and the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Over the course of her lifetime, Dr. Abadie edited and authored over 30 books and publications including The Mississippi Encyclopedia (University Press of Mississippi, 2017) and Fifty Years After Faulkner (University Press of Mississippi, 2016).
Dr. Abadie was a graduate of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she double-majored in English and history. She received her master’s degree and doctorate in English from the University of Mississippi.