After his retirement from the University of North Carolina, he held visiting positions at a number of institutions; among other things, he was a visiting fellow at
All Souls College, Oxford University and a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina Unorganized Militia while he was teaching at
The Citadel, in
Charleston. In 2023 he was presented the
Order of the Long Leaf Pine by the governor of North Carolina.
Reed married Dale Volberg (1941 – 2018) in 1964. They wrote several books together. They have two daughters.[1]
Selected works
The Enduring South: Subcultural Persistence in Mass Society (D. C. Heath, 1972; paperback ed., University of North Carolina Press, 1974; revised ed., 1986)
The Enduring Effects of Education (with H. Hyman and C. Wright; University of Chicago Press, 1975)
Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics and Culture (edited with M. Black; Gordon & Breach), vol. I, 1981; vol. II, 1983
Regionalism and the South: Selected Papers of
Rupert Vance (edited and with an introduction by J. S. Reed and D. J. Singal; University of North Carolina Press, 1982)
One South: An Ethnic Approach to Regional Culture (Louisiana State University Press, 1982)
Southerners: The Social Psychology of Sectionalism (University of North Carolina Press, 1983; Booksurge, 2008)
Southern Folk, Plain and Fancy: Native White Social Types (University of Georgia Press, 1986)
Whistling Dixie: Dispatches from the South (University of Missouri Press, 1990; paperback ed., Harcourt Brace, 1992)
"My Tears Spoiled My Aim" and Other Reflections on Southern Culture (University of Missouri Press, 1993; paperback ed., Harcourt Brace, 1994)
Surveying the South: Studies in Regional Sociology (University of Missouri Press, 1993)
Kicking Back: Further Dispatches from the South (University of Missouri Press, 1995)
1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South (with D. V. Reed; Doubleday, 1996)
Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism (Vanderbilt University Press, 1996; U.K. ed. Tufton Press, 1998)
Minding the South (University of Missouri Press, 2003)
Townways of Kent, by Ralph Patrick (edited and with a new introduction by J. S. Reed and D. V. Reed; University of South Carolina Press, 2008)
Cornbread Nation 4: The Best of Southern Food Writing (edited with D. V. Reed; University of Georgia Press, 2008)
Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue (with D. V. Reed and W. McKinney; University of North Carolina Press, 2008)