American Studies Commons^™

Art In An Apocalypse: Aids, Activism, And Abolition In Work Of Essex Hemphill And Alternative Video Production, Sydney E. Guntharp

Honors Theses

This thesis is an exploration of Black, POC, feminist, and queer art in the late twentieth century, examining both the AIDS crisis and the increasing privatization of the prison industrial complex as key factors in the development of Essex Hemphill’s poetic, expressive works and the filmmaking activism of various videotape collectives. Through employing the lens of critical prison studies, this work seeks to understand how Black and POC art emerged as a site of political resistance to a carceral state as well as the broader social punishment doctrine that influenced the public health response to AIDS in the United States. …

Esports Cosmopolitan Canopy, Reice Hicks

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns the area of sociology. Specifically, it is a sociological study of a community on Ole Miss’s campus and how they form what is known within the sociology field as a “cosmopolitan canopy,” a term coined by Elijah Anderson. Using this term, I proceed to prove not only how the Ole Miss Esports club falls under this jurisdiction, but the effects of esports on the youth as a whole, both positive and negative. All of my data was extracted via literature review, online research, note-taking, visual observation, and one-on-one interviews with people involved with the club. The entire …

Southern Rambles: Seeking A Place, Finding A Self, John Hayes

Study the South

"So, we set out from Atlanta in August 1997 on the older US Highway 19, heading south. We were seeking a South and we didn’t have a consciousness of being southern, but in a very elemental way, our consciousness had been deeply shaped by forces we were unaware of."

Finding Aid For The Baylor University Oral History Transcripts Collection(Mum00828)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

The collection contains oral histories documenting personal experiences with civil rights and race relations in the South. The oral histories took place at the University of Mississippi as part of a national symposium on civil rights.

"Ole Miss": A Case For The Name's Removal And Steps Toward Implementation, William Henderson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this project is to provide one justification of why the University of Mississippi should cease its usage of its nickname, “Ole Miss,” and provide insight into what the next steps of the University should be. “Ole Miss” is a term that was installed with the intention of romanticizing the social order that the system of slavery provided in the Antebellum South. The attitudes toward plantation society that the name perpetuates pose several forms of harm to members of the University’s community. Institutions of higher learning maintain a special relationship with their students, which presents a strong obligation …

Interpersonal Activism: How Local Black Residents Shaped The University Of Mississippi And Oxford In The Mid-Twentieth Century, Anna F. Kaplan

Study the South

"It is difficult to measure the direct impact—and sometimes even the existence—of daily personal interactions on individuals’ thoughts about race and desegregation. Rather than attempting to parse between change stemming from interpersonal relationships versus change as a result of federal intervention, I examine interracial and intraracial interactions across the town/gown divide in Oxford as spheres of influence. Black challenges to White supremacy at UM brought systemic racism into question even though those systems of oppression remained in place."

Mercy Buckets: Country Music, Southern Fiction, And The Limits Of Rewriting The South, Andy Oler

Study the South

"During World War II, GIs began saying “mercy buckets” as an intentional, joking mispronunciation of the French “merci beaucoup.”1 In the 2011 song “Mercy Buckets,” the southern rock and alt-country band Drive-By Truckers rewrite the phrase’s origin by treating it as an idiom of the American South. As might be expected, however, DBT do not reinforce stereotypical notions of the ignorant southern redneck. Instead, songwriter and lead singer Patterson Hood takes the phrase seriously, explaining just what it would mean if bringing someone “buckets of mercy” were a recognized part of southern culture. . . . In this article, I …

An Architectural Riddle: Billy Tripp's Minefield, Frédéric Allamel

Study the South

"The Mindfield, the sculptural environment created by self-taught builder Billy Tripp, is an alternative to architecture, or at least a countermodel that brings a novel perspective to the discipline. Challenging present architectural principles, such as functionality, cost-effectiveness, building techniques, and materials, the Mindfield opens the way to new possibilities. An ever-evolving edifice not designed to be inhabitable, and whose raison d’être emerged late in the building process, the Mindfield positions itself at the antipodes of mainstream architecture, thus enriching the architectural discourse with its innovative experiments. In building the Mindfield, Tripp inaugurates a holistic art where architecture, sculpture, and literature …

Preservation And Public History In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Walker Bray

Honors Theses

This paper is an exploration of the history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all Black community in the Mississippi Delta formed by freedmen in the wake of Reconstruction. This paper also discusses the ways in which Mound Bayou citizens are working to preserve their history and make it known to a wider audience. In particular, this work discusses the recently opened Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History and related efforts to restore and preserve historic structures in Mound Bayou. In addition, this work also seeks to explore ways in which the University of Mississippi can effectively supplement …

Women Without Bodies: Autonomy, Empowerment, And Embodiment In Southern Women, Martha Peyton Ford

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between rural, upper-class, Southern, white women and their bodies. In my attempts to understand this relationship, I analyze sources from the fields of gender studies, philosophy, and psychology, utilizing concepts such as the Cult of True Womanhood, the newly-emerging field of body memoirs, and the long-lasting but elusive idea of Southern ladyhood to make sense of cultural expectations of Southern women and their bodies. This research, alongside my use of autoethnography and oral history, serve as an anchor for my analysis of women’s relationships to their bodies, in which I use myself, my mother, and …

By Way Of Remembrance: Rural Cemeteries Of North Mississippi, David Wharton

Study the South

"My habit was to drive back roads, explore, and not worry about getting anywhere quickly or about getting lost. With my wife, Marianne, often accompanying me, we would stick to county roads, always on the lookout for places of visual interest. Among the places we frequently stopped were small towns—in both business and residential areas—and, especially, rural churches and cemeteries. Many of the churches, whether still active or not, had burial grounds close by, and even long-abandoned churches sometimes had cemeteries that showed signs of recent use. A few cemeteries were off by themselves, however, apparently forgotten by any church …

The South In Review, Adam Gussow, Peter Lurie, David Wharton

Study the South

The following books are reviewed in this issue:

• I Am a Man: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1970 / William R. Ferris and Lonnie G. Burch, III. University Press of Mississippi. Reviewed by David Wharton
• William Faulkner and the Faces of Modernity / Jay Watson. University Press of Mississippi. Reviewed by Peter Lurie.
• New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond / Edited by Larry Simon and John Broven. Photos by Robert Schaffer. Reviewed by Adam Gussow.
• Road Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial / Jessica Ingram. University of North Carolina Press. Reviewed by …

What Has Been Will Be Again: Photographic Meditations On Social Isolation In Alabama, Jared Ragland, Catherine Wilkins

Study the South

"Social isolation is both a phrase and an experience that has defined the past year in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Jared Ragland’s ongoing photographic travelogue, What Has Been Will Be Again: Photographic Meditations on Social Isolation in Alabama, expressly evokes the loneliness that has characterized this period; solitary subjects inhabit these frames, and many images in the series are devoid of people altogether. One can imagine the photographer, alone, navigating deserted landscapes with only a camera as his companion, documenting the recent ravaging of the public sphere. Yet, while the theme is certainly au courant, What …

Brain Drain In Mississippi, Clifford Adam Conner

Honors Theses

Brain drain is the out-migration of educated individuals from an area. It is a problem with which Mississippi is overly familiar. This thesis uses data gathered from a survey of 965 respondents to identify who is leaving the state and for what reasons. The data gathered suggest confirmation that brain drain is an issue for the state, with roughly two-thirds of respondents having left the state or seriously considering doing so. The impetus for this varies with each individual, but respondents underscore economic and societal factors within Mississippi as pushing them away from the state. Quality of life factors are …

The Iran Hostage Crisis: A Media Narrative, Catherine Claire Hausman

Honors Theses

The Iran Hostage Crisis, from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, was a defining moment in American foreign policy and US – Iranian relations. The news media – local and national newspapers and television – was saturated with coverage of the situation in Tehran and the subsequent US reaction. Americans watched the news over the 444 days, feeling sympathy and forging a collective national bond with the hostages; the international conflict was deeply personal for many Americans. The media played a central role in the establishment of the narrative of the hostage crisis, developing specific roles and personas of …

Art And Aids: Viral Strategies For Visibility, Stephen Baylor Pillow

Honors Theses

“Art & AIDS: Viral Strategies for Visibility” examines the complex relationships between social stigma, healthcare, homophobia, and mortality, and how these impacted the lives of Western artists and manifested in their works. Most of the art discussed in this thesis was produced during the height of the AIDS crisis (late-1980s to mid-1990s). During this period, gay artists and their allies employed new strategies in their work to inspire activism, and convey intense emotions –– predominantly frustration, grief, and anxiety –– associated with HIV/AIDS. In the U.S., the inaction of the Reagan administration was largely due to widespread homophobia kindled by …

The Neon Bible, From Page To Screen: John Kennedy Toole’S Portrait Of Small-Town Southern Life, Heather Duerre Humann

Study the South

Louisiana-born writer John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) represents the South in such a way that stereotypes about the region are brought to bear, he also uses his novels -- his short novel, The Neon Bible (1989), and in his better-known tragicomic novel, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) -- to question the culture of the South. In this manner, Toole offers a multifaceted portrait of the region while also raising questions about the nature of representation.

"Beyond The Lines": A Reassessment Of Civil War Prisons, Beth Kruse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Beyond the Lines”: A Reassessment of Civil War Prisons, challenges the historical interpretations of Civil War military prisons. Specifically, it analyses the political, social, and economic conditions of these systems by not only adding omitted gender, class, and race scholarship but flushing out the power dynamics between these group and military administrations. The re-examination of primary source material by reading against the grain to find overlooked insights reveals these sources not only provide a wealth of information about omitted groups, but that they have been misinterpreted. Additionally, applying the concepts of historical memory establishes how the Lost Cause shaped not …

Masculinity And Cold War Fairy Tales: Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, Donald Barthelme, And Ross Macdonald, Susan E. Wood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of fairy-tale allusions to explore masculinity in four novels published during the Cold War period. This notable focus on men and masculinity held in common across these four novels from four different decades is interesting because it suggests that the shift in focus to women and feminist ideals in fairy-tale revisions of the 1970s and after is even more stark a shift than has yet been recognized by scholars. This dissertation finds that Eudora Welty’s novella The Robber Bridegroom (1942), Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita (1955), Donald Barthelme’s novel Snow White (1967), and Ross Macdonald’s novel …

"No Place In American History": Remembering And Forgetting The Sultana Disaster, Elias John Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the historical memory of the Sultana steamboat disaster of April 27, 1865. The Sultana, ferrying recently-released federal prisoners, exploded north of Memphis, killing over 1,700 in the nation’s worst maritime disaster. Contemporaries interpreted the disaster through a variety of lenses, finding evidence of recalcitrant rebels, the heroism of Union soldiers, and critiques of Republican emancipationist wartime policy. Steamboat safety advocates deployed the disaster’s memory to successfully press Radical Republicans for the 1871 Steamboat Act, establishing the nation’s first maritime safety code. The disaster’s survivors gathered at reunions and published personal narratives to secure the Sultana, and the …

A Natural Fit For The Natural State: The Emergence Of Black Power Organizations In Arkansas From 1968-1975, Maurice D. Gipson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to explore how Black Arkansans on college campuses in rural towns navigated their local circumstances while embracing tenets of Black Power. By 1968, public PWIs in Arkansas were contending with an influx of Black students due to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. Even though many of the universities had been integrated years and even decades earlier, they were still ill-equipped for the number of Black students that would enroll and descend upon the towns during this period.

Gestures Of Dissent: Self-Fashioning Performance From Southern Women Writers During The Fin De Siécle, Elisa Fuhrken

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores Southern women writers during the latter half of the nineteenth-century who asserted and crafted a modernized identity by turning to various modes of transgressive performance and performance spaces. For women of the nineteenth-century, this meant extricating themselves from a domestic, sentimental identity and apprehending a more fluid, dynamic type of being. The modes of performance, such as spectatorship, orality, and gesture, allowed these women to express and articulate an alternative feminine identity while also engaging with an embodied epistemology. This thesis looks at three Southern women writers: Sherwood Bonner’s novel Like Unto Like and her travel letters …

What Remains: Telling The Story Of Irene Taylor's Murder, Christian Leus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This written thesis serves as a companion piece to What Remains, a six-part audio podcast telling the story of Irene Taylor, a 19-year-old sharecropper’s daughter who was murdered in Altheimer, Arkansas, in 1939. The investigation of the murder, which garnered national press attention, ended with the conviction and execution of Sylvester Williams, a 22-year-old Black man also from Altheimer. This paper expands on the contextual research done in support of the podcast, including close readings of newspaper coverage and fictionalized magazine reports of the case; an examination of the Delta environment’s racialized history and its impact on the lives of …

An American Pilgrimage: The 1968 Poor People's Campaign Mule Train As Prophetic Social Performance, Cheston M. Bush

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In late spring of 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched a nationwide demonstration known as the Poor People’s Campaign in an effort to overcome poverty. Nine caravans representing people from around the country converged in the Capitol to petition Congress for programs that would broaden opportunities for poor Americans. This work examines the Mississippi contingent of the campaign, the Mule Train caravan, that consisted of roughly 150 people who traveled in 15 covered wagons pulled by about 40 mules. The Mule Train left Marks, Mississippi on May 13 and arrived in Washington, D.C. in time for a June …

The Meat Of The Gothic: Animality And Social Justice In United States Fiction And Film Of The Twenty-First Century, Amber Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Meat of the Gothic: Animality and Social Justice in United States Fiction and Film of the Twenty-First Century— situates twenty-first century US gothic narratives in relation to animal studies, even as it illuminates how these narratives interrogate the effects of historic and ongoing global systems of human oppression: slavery, imperialism, and capitalism. Instead of reacting to bias by asserting a claim to a humanity perpetually imbricated in divisions of class, race, and gender, present-day authors and filmmakers create characters who form communities that include nonhuman actors as a means of generating empowerment and critique. My approach to these narratives …

The Black Petromodernism Of Zora Neale Hurston: Energy, Race, And Mobility, Stuart Mullet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis situates Zora Neale Hurston and the folk communities in her oeuvre within the context of modernity’s dependencies on fossil fuels. Such a disciplinary context provides an energy footing for our understandings of African American migrations in the twentieth century—which radically transformed the nation on multiple levels—and it illuminates the communal values that undergird Black approaches to petromodern forms of mobility. Furthermore, by engaging the Black spaces of the South, my argument begins filling a gap in the energy humanities. Few scholars in this field engage deeply those populations and regions that disproportionately experience the underbelly of petromodernity and …

Up In Smoke: Trouble And Tobacco In Yoknapatawpha County, Sharon Desmond Paradiso

Journal X

Reading for Pleasure (Essay Review)

The Last Iron Gate: Negotiating The Incarceral Spaces Of John Edgar Wideman's Brothers And Keepers, Michael P. Moreno

Journal X

No abstract provided.

Bordering The Subjunctive In Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, Adam Lifshey

Journal X

No abstract provided.

This Time. Maybe This Time: Asynchronous Faulknerian Narrative, Confederate Elegies, And The American Iconoclastic Tradition, Timothy Sedore

Journal X

No abstract provided.