Deep Ecology in the Hills
Press Release
Date: Monday, October 26, 2026
Time: 7:00-8:00 PM
Location: PC Theater
Speaker: Dr. Jared Phillips, University of Arkansas and 5th Generation Ozarker
Bio: A fifth generation Ozarker, Jared Phillips, and his wife Lindi, use draft horses
to run an old fashioned Ozark farm on the western edge of the Arkansas Ozarks where
they raise heritage sheep, hogs, and forage. In addition to farming, Jared teaches
on rural development and Ozark history at the University of Arkansas in the Department
of History. Among his other projects, Phillips helped found the Ozarkansas Tool Library,
is author of Hipbillies: Deep Revolution in the Arkansas Ozarks (University of Arkansas Press, 2019), and the forthcoming Harvesting Hope: How Organic
Farming Tried to Save the Ozarks (LSU Press, 2027/2028).
Title: Deep Ecology in the Hills: Bioregionalism, Ecological Economics, and the Search for
a Third Way, 1977-1990
Description: In the fall of 1980, John Mulligan found himself on a deeply moving drive across
the Ozark hill country. He was leaving the inaugural meeting of the Ozark Area Community
Congress (OACC), crossing through forests and creeks, and he suddenly “felt a feeling
of ‘home’ as a feeling not limited to my house or homestead. I was at home anywhere
in the Ozarks now, and the Ozarks were my country.” Mulligan wasn’t alone in his experience:
as the 1970s closed, a group of hipbillies—back to the landers—near West Plains, Missouri
organized this meeting, the nation’s first bioregional community congress. Inspired
by the work of Peter Berg from California, this group, sought to build what they termed
the “Ozark Free State,” a “third way” that organized their understanding of economics,
politics, and land use from the perspective of the Ozark bioregion that inspired a
continental-wide movement. This project, relying on oral histories and untapped archival
materials in Missouri and Arkansas, unpacks the story of OACC and its impact on the
development of green politics and ecological consciousness in Missouri, the Ozarks,
and the nation.
