Retired Rhodes history professor Dr. Gail Murray will discuss her journey as a historian in academia on Sept. 21 at Novel bookstore. She is one of the writers whose personal account is featured in the new book No Straight Path: Becoming Women Historians (LSU Press, 2019).
Yale University historian Glenda Gilmore writes in the book’s foreword: “The ten essays that comprise No Straight Path are radically honest. Written by women who were among the first sizeable cohort of women teaching at the university level in the South—and by one who benefited by their trail blazing—they tell us about love and struggle, race and class, persistence and resilience, improbability and destiny.”
Murray completed a Ph.D. at The University of Memphis at the age of 47 and joined the Rhodes history department that same year. She later became the department’s first female chair, serving four years.
Novel Bookstore is located at 387 Perkins Ext. The talk begins at 2 p.m.