For those in the Jackson area, the 2013 ceremony for the Governor’s Awards for the Arts, hosted by the Mississippi Arts Commission, is next Thursday, February 21st. A fantastic celebration of the state’s artistic, musical, and literary heritage, the ceremony is open to the public (and tons of fun). Hope to see you there.

For those who may not have already heard about it, the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh has begun a campaign to preserve its collections from prospective dissemination and relocation in coming years. As a former researcher at the school’s archive while at IASH, I cannot overstate how important it is to keep these collections together. From the campaign’s website:

Students and Academics at Edinburgh University are greatly concerned by proposals to carve up the School of Scottish Studies, an internationally respected beacon for Scotland’s culture, by separating the world famous archive collection from its associated libraries and from ongoing teaching and research. A student campaign is under way to convince the University and the public that the School of Scottish Studies resources must remain intact and accessible to researchers, ethnologists and to the wider public.

If you work in libraries, folklore, ethnography or ethnology, history, literature, or anything within a caber’s toss of those fields, please do consider reading and supporting the petition. Even if you’re not based in Scotland, every signature matters.

New Orleans is the latest in Ploughshares’ profiles of literary cities, in a lovely piece contributed by our own Michael Allen Zell. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by Crescent City Books down in the Quarter to say thanks.

Good friends Asymptote, one of the finest journals specializing in works in translation, have just launched a funding campaign. From the description of their needs:

We are dreaming of some serious upgrades to the site, and raised funds will go towards the development of an interactive world map that will allow viewers to explore Asymptote’s contents based on region; holding a new translation contest (see below); establishing more journal partnerships around the world, and investing in farther-reaching publicity (so our authors reach even more readers).

Well worth supporting if you can.

It’s an honor to say that the International Journal of Heritage Studies has just published an article which grew out of my master’s thesis some years ago, on the curious case of the disappearing town of Dunwich, England. The article is available on the IJIH website; more information about Dunwich for those without institutional access is available at various websites, including the Dunwich Museum, the Dunwich research consortium, and Atlas Obscura (itself a gem of a site).

If anyone out there does make it to Dunwich, please, for the love of God, have a meal of fish and chips at the Flora Tea Rooms. You’ll remember it for the rest of your life.