Graduate Theses in Southern Studies
Theses/Dissertations from 2023
Unsung Heroes: The Jones County Drug Court, Elise Joelle Denoulet
"No Redemption in Nonfiction": Portfolio Reflection on the Queer, Anticapitalist Directions of Creative Nonfiction, Bethany Fitts
Mothers and Daughters: A Reflection on the Cyclical Nature of Life, Greta Rose Koshenina
Unveiling Mississippi's Artistic Souls: A Documentary Journey, Sandip Rai
I Say See You Later, Lillian Slaughter
Houses That Try to be Haunted: A Look at Ursuline Convent and the LaLaurie Mansion, Kallye Virginia Smith
This Land is Our Land: The Erasure and Reclamation of Black Land Ownership in the U.S. South, Jasmine A. Williams
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
"Agitate, Agitate, Agitate": Stories from Mississippi Valley, Parchman, and the Largest Mass Arrest of Students in U.S. History, Katherine Aberle
No Peace in the Valley: A Documentary Film on the 1970 Protests at Mississippi Valley State College and the Largest Mass Arrest of Students in U.S. History, Katherine Aberle
GOOD LOVE IS BLACK: STORIES ON BLACK QUEER LIVING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, Danielle Buckingham
Seeing Queer Joy in Mississippi: Pride Parades in Tupelo, Starkville, and Oxford, Ellie Campbell
"How It Was Made", Bethany Fitts
The Hollidays in Mississippi: A Documentary Project about Queer Family, Legacy, and Community Struggle, Christina Alison Huff
THE RESILIENCE OF BLACK LOVE, Janeth Jackson
"The Wild Asleep": A Cultural and Environmental History of Ramps, Catherine Jessee
Blues is My Business (And Business is Good?), David N. Larson
This Is Home: Stories of H-2A Placemaking in the U.S. and Mexico, Lillian Slaughter
Bridging Souths: Interdisciplinarity and Knowledge Production in Southern Studies, Matthew David Streets
Theses/Dissertations from 2021
THIS GARDEN: OYSTERS AND PLACE ALONG FLORIDA'S FORGOTTEN COAST, Annemarie Anderson
Black Grocers, Black Activism, and the Spaces in Between: Black Grocery Stores during the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement, Keon Ahmad Burns
QUEER SUBCULTURE IN THE CONSERVATIVE SOUTH: A STUDY OF DRAG PERFORMERS IN MISSISSIPPI, Christina Alison Huff
What Remains: Telling the Story of Irene Taylor's Murder, Christian Leus
JUST SOUTHERN FOOD: FOOD JUSTICE FOR THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA, Christian Tabor Owen
The Bake Sale: Fundraising and Social Justice in the 21st Century, Kelly E. Spivey
Theses/Dissertations from 2020
The Black Men I Know, Zaire Love
The Southern Front: Gay Liberation Activists In The U.S. South And Public History Through Audiovisual Exhibition, David Hooper Schultz
The Lebanese In Mississippi: An Oral History Documentary Project, James G. Thomas
Post-Soul Speculation: An Exploration Of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction, Hilary Word
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
Truth Marching On: Documenting the Plan to Bring Robert F. Kennedy to the University of Mississippi in 1966, Mary Paige Blessey
Dear Hubert Creekmore: An Archival Search into the Life of a Queer Mississippi Writer, Mary Stanton Knight
How ghost stories shape the state of Mississippi and the people, Ana Lauren Martinez
The Carolina Gay Association, the Southeastern Gay Conferences, and Gay Liberation in the 1970S South, David Hooper Schultz
Silence Descends: Lynchings and Their Aftermath in Lafayette and Union Counties, Mississippi, Jonathan Smith
Theses/Dissertations from 2018
A Body a Day: Constructing Deviance at the Mississippi State Asylum, Rachel Christine Childs
How Sweet It Is: Swamp Pop Soda And Modern Day Sugar, Rebecca Lauck Cleary
Small Batch: Women's Positions In Southern Craft Beverages, Victoria De Leone
Marketing the Myth: The Racial Commodification and Reclaiming of Aunt Jemima, Holly Robinson
The Same Old Blues Crap: Selling The Blues At Fat Possum Records, Jacqueline Sahagian
Down Under Punks And Dixie Rock: Reflections On Making The Documentary Film Chinese Whispers - Southern Roots In The Australian Swampy Sound, Gretchen Labudde Wood
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Before Me, After Me, Through Me: Stories Of Food And Community In Eastern Kentucky, Abigail Myers Huggins
Native Music And Regular Gigs: A History Of The Maple Leaf Bar, Pieter Frank Kossen
Object Of Your Rejection: The Symbolic Annihilation And Recuperation Of Queer Identities In Country Music, Lauren Veline
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Thrill of a Billion Eyes: The Prancing J-Settes, Mary Paige Blessey
Southern Sound And Space: An Exploration Of The Sonic Manifestation Of Place, Christopher James Colbeck
Representation of the American South in Marvel Comics, 1963-2016, Katherine Gill
Boxing Men: Ideas Of Race, Masculinity, And Nationalism, Robert Bryan Hawks
Sookie's Place(s): New Roadways Into The South Of The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Sarah Holder
Furling The South Carolina Confederate Flag: Political Expediency Or Cultural Change?, Grant Burnette Lefever
William Eggleston's Guide To The Suburban South, Amanda Katherine Malloy
Bluesman, Guitar, And Migration, Yaeko Takada
If There Wasn’t Farming, Somebody Wouldn’t Eat: Small Scale Agriculture, Community Autonomy, And Food Sovereignty In Mississippi, Irene Van Riper
How To Find What's Lost When What's Lost Is You: The Presence of Disappearing Bodies in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq War Literature, Brandy Rachele Williams
Theses/Dissertations from 2015
I Have Been Somewhere: Place In The South Carolina Poems Of Nikky Finney And Kwame Dawes, Purvis L. Cornish
Fetishizing Southern Brutality: An Intersectional Analysis of Animalistic Dehumanization in Interracial Pornography, Shawna Faye Felkins
The South According To Quentin Tarantino, Michael Henley
The Costs of Cuba Libre: U.S. Neo-Imperialism, Tourism in Cuba, and the Habana Hilton, Lauren Elizabeth Holt
The Sweet Auburn Curb Market: The Search For Contested Space in the City Too Busy to hate, Katie Carter King
“The Hard Work is Done in the Looking”: Analyzing Representations of and Responses to Appalachia in Popular Culture, Elizabeth Rose Barnes Trollinger
Being Nice is Lethal: Disciplining and Subverting Southern Femininity in Contemporary Southern Popular Culture, Kaitlyn Vogt
Theses/Dissertations from 2014
The Discursive Commons: The Establishment, "Outside Agitators," And "Communist Subversives" In Gadsden's Depression-Era Political Environment, John Disque Agricola
Southern Bestsellers In The Twenty-First Century, Jodie Free
Bottling Hell: Myth-Making, Cultural Identity And The Datil Pepper Of St. Augustine, Florida, Anna Hamilton
The Life And Songwriting Of Vic Chesnutt, John Hermann
Fixin' To Tell: Cultural Preservation, Multiculturalism, And A Delicate Double Commitment In Appalshop's "Insider" Activism, Kathleen S. Hudson
In A Foreign Land: Stories Of African Immigrants And Their Children In Jackson, MS, Renee N. Ombaba
I Am See-Through: Participatory Video Making As A Method For Social Change In The Mississippi Delta, Paige Prather
Mississippi Motoring: Mom And Pops And Entrepreneurs, Erin Elizabeth Scott
Exploring Acculturation And Intercultural Identity Building Of International Students At The University Of Mississippi, Rachael Clare Walker
Theses/Dissertations from 2013
Growing Communities: Urban Agriculture In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Roy Button
Out Of This World: Hearing Indigenous And Immigrant Music In The American South, Jake Xerxes Fussell
Black Male Incarceration And The Preservation Of Debilitating Habits Of Judgment: An Examination Of Mississippi, Teah Monique Hairston
Talking Back To History: Leanne Howe, Linda Hogan, And Louis Owens's Rewriting Of The Southeastern Native Past Through Fiction, Kimberlee Kaitlyn Hodges
Plants And Animals As Saviors And Invaders: Changing Perspectives On Invasive Species From The Colonial Era To The 21st Century, Meghan Leann Holmes
Chasing That Ghost On Stage: The Haunted Continent And Andrew Bird's Apocrypha, Mary Elizabeth Lasseter
Last (Un)Fair Deal Goin' Down: A Case Study On The Racial Ideologies And Projects Advanced By The Blues Tourism Industry In Clarksdale, Mississippi, Kathryn Anne Radishofski
The Darker Angels Of Our Nature: The South In American Horror Film, Steven Clayton Saunders
I Won't Be Reconstructed: Good Old Rebels, Civil War Memory, And Popular Song, Joseph Melvin Thompson
Down Friendship: A Journey Home, Chelsea Wright
Theses/Dissertations from 2012
We Didn't Get Famous: the Story of the Southern Music Underground, 1978-1990, Camilla Ann Aikin
Nonviolent Bodies and the Experience of Breakdown in the American Movement for Civil Rights, Danielle Andersen
Disciplining The Body: Societal Controls Of Gender, Race And Sexuality, Michelle Renae Bright
Six Days of Twenty-Four Hours: the Scopes Trial, Antievolutionism, and the Last Crusade of William Jennings Bryan, Kari Lynn Edwards
Mississippi Breakdown: a New Look at the Mississippi Old Time Fiddle Music Traditions, Joseph Jamison Hollister
C.C. Bryant: a Race Man Is What They Called Him, Judith E. Barlow Roberts
Y'all eat: Foodways, performative regional identity, and the South in the twenty-first century, Kirsten Schofield
Language as Microaggression: the New Lexicon of American Racism, Juan Thurmond
Place, Race, and Religion in the Local Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community and Movement of Memphis, Tennessee, Amy Catherine Ulmer
Only Nixon Could Go to China: L. Q. C. Lamar and the Politics of Reconciliation, Richard Brian Wilson
A Historical Analysis of Living Blues Magazine, Melanie Young
Theses/Dissertations from 2011
Starved: Food Deserts in the Mississippi Delta, Novelette L. Brown
Well I'll Be: Positive Images Of Southern Women As Response To Feminism From 1980-2000, Jennifer Holman Gunter
Frontier Identity in Cultural Events in Holmes County, Florida, Tyler Dawson Keith
Minds in Place: Thornwell, Palmer, Dabney, and Breckinridge in Fast Day Sermons: Or, The Pulpit on the State of the Country (1861), Xaris A. Martínez
The Blues Is Alright: Blues Music as a Root for Cultural Tourism and Public History, Katherine Duvall Osteen
Theses/Dissertations from 2010
Beyond the sunset : race and ethnicity in Cullman County, Alabama, Miles Laseter