American Studies Commons^™

William Archer, W. T. Stead, And The Theatre. Some Unpublished Letters, Joseph O. Baylen

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Stark Young At The Southern Literary Festival, John Pilkington

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Vol. 4 (1963): Full Issue, Journal Editors

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Irwin Russell’S Position In Southern Literature, James W. Webb

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Cooper’S Prairie As Wasteland, Evans Harrington

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

A Crawford Bibliography, John Pilkington Jr.

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

A Novelist And His Public, John Pilkington Jr.

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Irving And His “Favorite Author”, James W. Webb

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Vol. 2 (1961): Full Issue, Journal Editors

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Simms As Biographer, James W. Webb

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

The Genesis Of Mr. Isaacs, John Pilkington

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

F. Marion Crawford’S Lecture Tour, 1897-1898, John Pilkington

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Journal Editors

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Dedication To David Horace Bishop, Journal Editors

Studies in English

Professor Emeritus of English, Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School.

Cover Pages, Journal Editors

Studies in English

No abstract provided.

Hooper Schultz, Hooper Schultz, Andrea Morales

Portraits of Southern Studies Graduates

After getting heavily involved in the LGBTQ community in Oxford, Hooper helped to found OUTGrads, the LGBTQ graduate & professional student organization on campus. His work has focused mainly on LGBTQ oral histories in the South, the Carolina Gay Association, and the Southeastern Gay Conferences of 1976-1978. Thesis project: “The Southern Front: Gay Liberation Activists in the U.S. South and Public History Through Audiovisual Exhibition”

Zaire Love, Zaire Love, Andrea Morales

Portraits of Southern Studies Graduates

Her work is an ode to being black and Southern in America. Many of her works aim to honor and amplify the voices of southern black women because they have always had “cornbread” to share. Zaire is a graduate of Spelman college [B.A. in Theatre] and Houston Baptist University [M. Ed in Curriculum and Education]. Thesis project, “The Black Men I Know”

Hilary Word, Hilary Word, Andrea Morales

Portraits of Southern Studies Graduates

Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, Hilary earned her undergraduate degree in history from Tougaloo College. As a life-long fan of speculative fiction, mythology, and folklore, Word has always been fascinated with the concept of the real versus the “unreal” and the supernatural. Thesis project: “Post-Soul Speculation: An Exploration of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction”

Olivia Terenzio, Olivia Terenzio, Andrea Morales

Portraits of Southern Studies Graduates

A Mississippi native, Olivia returned to her home state to pursue an M.A. in Southern Studies. She previously earned a B.S. from Northwestern's Medill school of journalism and spent a decade in San Francisco, where she worked on the editorial team at Williams-Sonoma and led restaurant content at OpenTable. She has also written about food and travel for national publications covering grape and olive harvests int Tuscany and the Brazilian coffee industry. Thesis project: “Feijoada and Hoppin John: Foodways, Collective Identity and Belonging in Brazil and the American South”

James G. Thomas, James G. Thomas, Andrea Morales

Portraits of Southern Studies Graduates

James began work at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture as managing editor of the twenty-four-volume New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture in 2003, and he has been the Center’s Associate Director for Publications since 2011. Thomas is also the director of the Center’s annual Oxford Conference for the Book and the editor of Study the South the Center’s online journal, and the Southern Register, the Center’s newsmagazine. Thesis project: “The Lebanese in Mississippi: An Oral History”

Toward Freedom: A Reading Of The National Memorial For Peace And Justice, Margaret Pless

Study the South

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama in 2018 to commemorate the black victims of lynching in the United States. The memorial’s monuments are unique because they resist the static, status quo understandings of history that so many of our monuments perpetuate. The memorial invites visitors to face disturbing truths in the hope of fostering reconciliation. Will it help us remember and reconcile as a nation? Montgomery is home to other monuments that undermine the history the memorial presents.

More Pricks Than Kicks: The Southern Economy In The Long Twentieth Century, Peter A. Coclanis

Study the South

Most scholars and journalists working on the South would likely agree that over the past fifty or sixty years southern states on balance benefitted from a diverse, but generally reasonable and reasonably successful portfolio of policies and programs in the “economic development” space. The fact that the region is still the poorest, the unhealthiest, and the least educated in the United States, a half century or more after the beginning of the “Sunbelt boom” says a lot about the difficulty of extricating a region once it is headed down a pernicious economic path.

Country Fun: A Cultural History Of Opryland Usa, Nashville, And The Suburban South, William C. Nieman

Honors Theses

This thesis centers around the history of Opryland USA, a theme park and “musical showplace” that existed from 1972 to 1997 in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee. Using a variety of primary sources including park ephemera, newspaper articles, and songs, I show how, over its twenty-five years, Opryland became a country music theme park after initially presenting a seemingly diverse picture of American popular music. I reveal that, despite local businessowners’ and musicians’ reluctance to embrace Opryland at first, the park was accepted by many Nashvillians to the point where it is now nostalgically mourned. Then, putting those primary materials …

Pecking The Hands That Feed Them: How Society And Government Have Allowed The Poultry Industry To Exploit Labor And The Environment In The American South, Sophie M. Kline

Honors Theses

Americans eat an average of ninety pounds of chicken in one year, but where does that chicken come from? Immigrants and African Americans are the majority of the labor population in poultry processing plants located in the American South. In an effort to highlight the racism, sexism, insecurity, and environmental degradation in the poultry industry, I analyze a variety of ethnographies, articles, and science journals as well as U.S Supreme Court decisions and policies enacted by the U.S federal government in this thesis. Upon examination, I answer why society is pecking the hands that feed them. The analysis concludes that …

“We Got More Yesterday Than Anybody”: Child Ghosts And The National Trauma Of Anti-Black Racism In American Literature, Megan Swartzfager

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the roles of haunting in the context of racial violence in three texts: Beloved by Toni Morrison, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, and Wolf Whistle by Lewis Nordan. In each of these texts, a parent is responsible for the death of a child. In the former two texts, both by Black authors, a Black parent kills a Black child in what they believe to be a protective act in the face of violence by white people. Wolf Whistle, however, written by a white author, is animated by the ghost of a character based on Emmett Till. …

Who Has A Voice: Issues Of Free Speech At The University Of Mississippi From 1955-1970, Neale Grisham

Honors Theses

Amidst the upheaval of American society in the 1960s, the University of Mississippi’s administration found itself in a precarious position. A long-standing institution that prided itself on its ties to the Old South, the university was being challenged by integrationists and liberal notions of equality and social justice. The university was forced to decide between abetting the alumni that padded university pockets and the tides of change that were rippling through the university campus. Their main way of combatting this was through the surveilling of students and the vetting of potential guest speakers who may spread “controversial ideas.” While students …

Finding Aid For The Center For Southern Folklore Home Movie Collection (Mum00709)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

The collection contains 47 collections of home movies created by 47 different families in the American South.

Finding Aid For The Blues Archive Poster Collection (Mum01783)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

These blues posters, broadsides, and oversize printings, collected by various individuals and institutions, document the world of blues advertising.

All Are Welcome? Southern Hospitality And The Politics Of Belonging, Betsie Garner, Andrew Harvard

Study the South

The elective affinity between southern hospitality and Christian hospitality functions as a moral framework for negotiating change and debating identity politics. An ethnographic community study conducted in Rockdale County, Georgia between 2014 and 2017 focused on the discourse and practice of southern hospitality.

Illustrations by Andrew Harvard.

Turner, Ruby: A Living Legacy, Ruby Mckie Turner

Oral Histories

[Turner has] chosen not to write an oral history of African Americans but, rather, one of Colored Americans through images. These images are those who were among the first freeborn generation of the Civil War, thereby placing them in the historical period of the country changing its course to admit freed former slaves.