Strohmann Breeding 4/16/21
OLLI students were in for a treat on April 6, 2021 when in the early afternoon on the cool spring day University of Arkansas professor Jared Phillips gave an inside look at the revolutionary and radical past of the Ozark region.
Phillips is a professor second and farmer first with his wife Lindi, running a small mixed power farm on the western edge of the Arkansas Ozarks. In addition to farming, Jared teaches on rural development, human rights, and food security at the University of Arkansas in the International and Global Studies Program. Among his other projects, Phillips helped found the Ozarkansas Tool Library, and is the author of Hipbillies: Deep Revolution in the Arkansas Ozarks (University of Arkansas Press, 2019). His current book projects examine the competition between modernity and tradition in the Ozarks and the notion of a Southern Cosmopolitan tradition in the careers of Johnson, Fulbright, and Carter.
“Hipbillies was an accident,” Phillips said, “I’ve grown up my whole life hearing about hippies coming to Arkansas,” better known as “Back-to-Landers.”
Phillips outlined how America has experienced expansion and contraction of the “Back to the Land” movement, with current events driving people back to a more nomadic, natural way of life.
The class addressed the influx of agrarian farmers into the Ozarks and across America’s mountains during the 20thCentury, citing a 66% increase in farm size across these regions. This even had an effect on the literature of the area, with authors such as Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder introducing naturalist and environmental essays, poems, and books.
Phillips didn’t omit the racially violent and strenuous period where Black Americans were persecuted and discriminated against in Arkansas, but felt the influx of West Coast immigrants provided for a more tolerant atmosphere that we see today in Northwest Arkansas.
OLLI classes, programs and activities are geared toward the interests of adults 50 and over, but there are no age restrictions or academic prerequisites. Anyone is welcome to participate.
Annual membership is $50 and Arkansas Alumni Association members pay $40 every year. Courses are individually priced and payment is due at the time of registration.
For more information, visit olli.uark.edu.
