Course Description

Instructors: Jill and Bert Parks

“Alas, for the South!  Her hooks have grown fewer-She never was much given to literature”.  These words from HL Mencken’s famous 1917 essay, “Sahara of the Bozart”, are among the most famous lines written about the South in this century.  He did see some redeeming qualities in the old South but since the Civil War the culture of the South seemed to have dried up completely.  So how do you account for the fact that the South is the most fertile, productive home of the best stories that have been written in the United States? 

This class will look at the literary heritage of the South through the short story. Its history is one of violence, disenfranchisement and struggle dating back centuries, but it also shows the resilience of the human spirit. We will read and discuss selected stories and look at what is about Southern history that produced writers such as Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Zora Neale Hurston and others. Stories will be available on the internet or on YouTube. They can also be found in many anthologies.

Bio: Bert has lived in Atlanta most of his life. He participated in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta in the 1960's and 70's, working closely with Howard Zinn. He received his MA from Georgia State University. He did his PhD dissertation at NYU on Saul Bellow. He has taught literature, film, and screen writing at Georgia State, NYU and Morehouse. He sold an original screen play to the actor Stuart Whitman, a Deliverance type adventure film taking place in South Georgia. He also owned Atlanta Trailer City, with 1000 tenants, for 18 years. He has taught over 30 different classes at OLLI at Emory since 2007.  

Bio: Jill Fein Parks was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She holds a BA degree in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and did graduate work in education at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. She taught in the public schools for several years in Rhode Island, Arizona, and Florida. She left teaching to become the first female switchman for the Southern Pacific Railroad in Salt Lake City in the early 1990's. Ms. Parks became politically active while at the University of California, Berkeley, protesting the war in Vietnam. After moving to Rhode Island in the early 1970's, she became a leader of the Updated 06/08/2023 Pro Choice Movement giving speeches around the state, debating, and publishing articles. Due to her involvement in Pro Choice activities, she was followed by the FBI for months. She received her FBI file of over 100 pages from the Freedom of Information Act. She helped organize marches in Washington DC and around the country for the Equal Rights Amendment and for the Right to Choose. In 1986 Ms. Parks ran as a socialist candidate for US Senate in Washington. In 2015, Ms. Parks participated on a visual arts tour of Cuba with The University of New Mexico Latin American & Iberian Institute and Tamarind Institute. She shared her experiences at a Lunch and Learn at OLLI. She has taught several classes at OLLI since her retirement in 2012 from Kaiser Permanente as HR Manager. She is also a co-leader of the OLLI Book Club.