About John Shelton Reed
John Shelton Reed is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science for twelve years and helped to found the Center for the Study of the American South and the quarterly Southern Cultures. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the National Humanities Center, and twice a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has written or edited 20 books, including 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South and Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, both written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed. His articles have appeared in periodicals ranging from Science to Southern Living and his country song “My Tears Spoiled My Aim” has been recorded by Tommy Edwards.
Reed has been a judge at the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, and a consultant for Southern Living, Quaker Grits, and the Turner South cable network. He is co-founder and Eminence Grease of the Campaign for Real Barbecue, a lieutenant colonel in the Unorganized Militia of South Carolina, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. His collection of barbecue’s greatest hits, Barbecue: A Savor the South Cookbook,will be available in February 2016.