Student Awards
2023 Award WInners
The Gray Award for outstanding undergraduate work
Lillith Gray
The Coterie Award for outstanding undergraduate work
Will Zook
Rose Cailiff Scholarships
Feagin Hardy and Abigail Stewart
James Timothy Jones Scholarship
Jaden McClutchen
Ann Abadie Prize for the best documentary project in SST
Olivia Whittington
Peter Aschoff Award for the best paper in Southern Music
Sandip Rai
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best paper or project by a 1st year Southern Studies graduate student
free feral
Sue Hart Award for the best project at the intersection of Gender Studies and Southern Studies
Greta Koshenina
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award in Southern Music
Lillian Slaughter
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best MA thesis in Southern Studies
Matthew Streets
Outstanding MFA Thesis
Ellie Campbell
College of Liberal Arts Graduate Student Achievement Award
Jai Williams
2022 Award WInners
Gray Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Walker Bray, “Preservation and Public History in Mound Bayou, Mississippi”
Honors College thesis, directed by Dr. Ted Ownby
Coterie Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Reese Anderson, “Reflections on Heritage Tourism in Mississippi”
final project for SST 556, taught by Dr. Jodi Skipper
Sue Hart Prize for outstanding paper in gender studies:
Mattie Ford, “Women Without Bodies: Embodiment, Autonomy, and Empowerment in Southern Women.” Honors College thesis, directed by Dr. Andy Harper
Peter Aschoff Award for outstanding paper in music:
David Larson, “Blues Is My Business (And Business Is Good?)”
MA thesis, directed by Dr. Adam Gussow
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award for outstanding paper in music:
Casey Giles, “’Take Me To the River’ by Al Green’”
final paper for HST 498, taught by Dr. Darren Grem
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding paper by a first year graduate student:
Greta Koshenina, “Baggage: A Story of Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters”
final project for SST 540, taught by Dr. David Wharton
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding MA thesis:
Danielle Buckingham, “Good Love is Black: Stories on Black Queer Living in the American South” MA thesis directed by Dr. Brian Foster
Ann Abadie Prize for best documentary project:
Annemarie Anderson, “This Garden: Oysters and Place Along Florida’s Forgotten Coast”
MFA thesis directed by Professor John Rash
Outstanding MFA Thesis:
Christina Huff, “The Hollidays in Mississippi”
MFA thesis directed by Dr. Andy Harper
2021 Award WInners
Gray Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Kathryn McCullouch, “Changing Times of Oxford, Mississippi, Spring 2021”
final project for SST 598, “Photographing Place in the American South,” taught by Dr. David Wharton
Coterie Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Mattie Ford, “When Women’s Work Goes Beyond ‘Women’s Work’: The Rich History of Women’s Employment in Mississippi From the Twentieth Century Onwards”
final project for SST 402, taught by Dr. Catarina Passidomo
Sue Hart Prize for outstanding paper in gender studies:
Christina Huff, “Queer Subculture in the Conservative South: A Study of Drag Performers in Mississippi”
MA thesis, directed by Dr. Andy Harper
Peter Aschoff Award for outstanding paper in music:
David Larson, “The Role of Audience in Blues Performing and Recording”
final paper for Independent Study with Dr. Adam Gussow
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award for outstanding paper in music:
Tyler Keith, “North Mississippi Hill Country Blues: How the Last Genre of the Blues Came to Be, Through Family Tradition and Documentation, In a Place Called the ‘Hill Country’”
MFA thesis, directed by Dr. Andy Harper
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding paper by a first year graduate student:
Matthew Streets, “Transgressing Tradition: The UNC-CH Food Workers’ Strikes of 1969”
final paper for SST 555, “Foodways and Southern Culture,” taught by Dr. Catarina Passidomo
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding MA thesis:
Keon Burns, “Black Grocers, Black Activism, and the Spaces in Between: Black Grocery Stores during the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement”
MA thesis directed by Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott
Ann Abadie Prize for best documentary project:
Christian Leus, “What Remains: Telling the Story of Irene Taylor’s Murder”
MA thesis directed by Dr. Andy Harper
Outstanding MFA Thesis:
Andrea Morales, “Roll Down Like Water: Photography, Social Movements, and Surveillance in Memphis, Tennessee”
MFA thesis directed by Professor Ralph Eubanks
2020 Award WInners
Gray Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Claire Bonvillain, “‘Working Men in a Wild Place’: An Environmental History of Houma, Louisiana” written for ENG 458 with Dr. Jay Watson
Coterie Award for outstanding undergraduate paper:
Rachel Winstead, “Basements Below the Sanctuary: A Story of the Church School” Honors thesis, directed by Professor Ralph Eubanks
Sue Hart Prize for outstanding paper in gender studies:
Hilary Word, “Post-Soul Speculation: An Exploration of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction” SST MA thesis, co-directed by Professor Kiese Laymon and Dr. Kathryn McKee
Peter Aschoff Award for outstanding paper in music:
William Nieman, “Country Fun: A Cultural History of Opryland, USA, Nashville, and the Suburban South” Honors thesis, directed by Dr. Ted Ownby
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award for outstanding paper in music:
Addie Paige Pratt, “In honor of Ida B. Wells and her legacy: ‘Colorblind’” (original musical composition and paper) written for SST 101H with Dr. Jodi Skipper
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding paper by a first year graduate student:
Christian Leus, “Reporting and Creating Violence: Press Coverage of a 1930s Murder” written for SST 602 with Dr. Ted Ownby
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for outstanding thesis:
Olivia Terenzio, “Feijoada and Hoppin’ John: Foodways, Collective Identity, and Belonging in Brazil and the American South” MA thesis, directed by Dr. Catarina Passidomo
Ann Abadie Prize for best documentary project:
Zaire Love, “The Black Men I Know” MFA thesis, directed by Ava Lowery
2019 Award WInners
Gray Award for best undergraduate papers:
Katherine Aberle, “To ‘Converse With the Most Excellent Men’: Classical Education, Cultural Capital, and the Formation of a Ruling Class in the Antebellum South, honors thesis completed summer 2018
Coterie Award for one of the best undergraduate papers:
Garland Patterson, “Alien Child: Seeking Solace in the Southern Gothic,” a paper completed in SST 402, spring 2019
Ann Abadie Award for the best documentary project:
Susie Penman, “Juvenile Injustice: Youth, Crime, and Punishment in New Orleans,” MFA thesis film completed summer 2018
Sue Hart Award for the best work in southern gender studies:
Je’Monda Roy, “Getting to the Root,” MFA thesis film completed spring 2019
Peter Aschoff Award for a project in southern music:
Mary Stanton Knight, documentary film, “Singing Out,” fall 2019
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award for a project in southern music:
Samuel Willcoxon, “Highway 61: Good Roads, Great Migrations, and Delta Blues” Honors thesis completed spring 2019
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for the best paper by a Southern Studies graduate student:
Olivia Terenzio, “The South and Brazil,” Southern Studies 601, fall 2018
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for the best SST MA thesis:
Hooper Schultz, “The Carolina Gay Association, The Southeastern Gay Conferences, and Gay Liberations in the 1970s South,” MA thesis completed spring 2019
James Timothy Jones scholarships for SST undergraduates:
Liam Nieman and Mattie Ford
2018 Award WInners
Gray Award for one of the best undergraduate papers:
Caitlin Kennedy, “Vengeance, Violence, and Vigilantism: An Exploration of the 1891 Lynching of Eleven Italian-Americans in New Orleans,” honors thesis in history
Coterie Award for one of the best undergraduate papers:
Liam Nieman, “Image is one Thing: Elvis as an Image of Mississippi”
Ann Abadie Award for the best documentary project
Rachel Childs, for her M.A. radio documentary, “A Body a Day: Constructing Deviance at the Mississippi State Asylum”
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award in the study of southern music
Keerthi Chandrashakar, “Seeing the Blues: Pride and Safety in Dress”
Peter Aschoff Award in the study of southern music
Katherine Howell, “The False Purification of a Hybrid Tradition: A Rhetorical Examination of the Racialized Connotations of Cultural Separation in Blues Authenticity Discourses”
Sue Hart Awards in gender studies
Victoria De Leone, for her thesis film, “Small Batch”
Hooper Schultz, “Family Matters: Amendment 1 and the Fight Over Marriage in North Carolina”
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for the best project by a first-year graduate student in Southern Studies
Frankie Barrett, “‘S-Town:’ Construction of Place in a Serial Narrative Podcast”
Lucille and Motee Daniels Awards for outstanding Southern Studies M.A. theses
Jacqui Sahagian, “That Same Old Blues Crap: Selling the Blues at Fat Possum Records”
Holly Robinson, “Marketing the Myth: The Racial Commodification and Reclaiming of Aunt Jemima”
2017 Award Winners
Gray Prize for one of the two best papers by SST undergraduates:
Kathryn James, “African American Kitchen Workers in a University of Mississippi Greek House”
Coterie Award for one of the two best papers by SST undergraduates:
Michael George Holman, Jr. “All Things Loved and Unlovable’: Discovering Southern Identity in Black Migration Novels”
Peter Aschoff Award for the best paper in Southern Music:
Will Palmer, “‘Sound’ – A Keyword for Southern Studies”
Ann Abadie Prize for the best documentary project in SST:
Abby Huggins, “Before Me, After Me, Through Me: Stories of Food and Community in Eastern Kentucky”
Sue Hart Award for the best project in Gender Studies in the South
Lauren Veline, “Object of Your Rejection: The Symbolic Annihilation and Recuperation of Queer Identities in Country Music”
Sarah Dixon Pegues Award in Southern Music:
Chris Colbeck, “Southern Sound and Space”
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best paper by a 1st year Southern Studies graduate student:
Jacqui Sahagian, for two papers on contemporary blues production
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best MA thesis in Southern Studies:
Abby Huggins and Lauren Veline share the award for best MA thesis
2016 Award Winners
Gray Prize for one of the two best papers by SST undergraduates:
Joel Hayes-Davis for “Local Southern Identity as Defined through Foodways”
Coterie Award for one of the two best papers by SST undergraduates:
Anna McCollum, “What is Today’s South?”
Peter Aschoff Award for the best paper in Southern Music:
Mary High, “Sterling Plumpp’s ‘Mississippi Griot’ and Blues Counter Memory.”
Ann Abadie Prize for the best documentary project in SST:
Lauren Veline, “The Rebirth of Water Valley.”
Sue Hart Award for the best project in Gender Studies in the South (two winners this year):
Alicia Pilar Bacon’s undergraduate honors thesis in History, “This Clinic Stays Open: A Comprehensive History of Reproductive Rights in Mississippi, 1966-2015”
Jessie Hotakainen, “Trans Mississippi,” a documentary film
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best paper by a 1st year Southern Studies graduate student:
Josh Green, “Peace and the Unsealing of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission Files”
Lucille and Motee Daniels award for the best MA thesis in Southern Studies:
Sarah Holder, “Sookie’s Place(s): New Roadways into the South of the Southern Vampire Mysteries.”
2015 Award Winners
The Gray and Coterie Awards for the best undergraduate papers in Southern Studies classes
Gray Award: Emelda Lee Miller, “Makin’ Whoopee with the Devil, A Brief Contextual Analysis of Bessie Smith’s ‘Devil’s Gonna Get You,’ and Lonnie Johnson’s ‘She’s Makin’ Whoopee in Hell Tonight”
Coterie Award: Frank Kossen, “This Train: Railroads and the Blues”
The Peter Aschoff Prize for the best papers on music of the American South
Yaeko Takada, “Ragtime Piano: Beautiful yet Sinful Music in the 1890s and early 1900s”
Chris Colbeck, “Southern Space and Sound”
Ann Abadie Award for Documentary Studies
Lauren Holt’s exhibit in the Gammill Gallery, “At the Habana Hilton, 1958,” Photographs from the Keating Collection”
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for the Best Paper
First Year Winner: Irene Van Riper, “Towards Sustainable Community Development in the Mississippi Delta: A Review, Discussion, and Analysis of Two Public Events”
MA Thesis Winner: Kate Hudson, “‘Fixin’ To Tell’: Cultural Preservation, Multiculturalism, and a Delicate Double Commitment in Appalshop’s ‘Insider’ Activism.”
2014 Award Winners
Lucille and Motee Daniels Award for the best thesis in Southern Studies
Leslie Hassel,“Narrating Jackson State: Mississippi Media Coverage of the 1970s Shootings at Jackson State College”
Lucille and Motee Daniels awards for the best first-year paper
Amelia Brock, “What’s a Southern Studies Scholar? Wait… What’s a Scholar?”
Lauren Holt, “Love Him or Hate Him”: Tyler Perry Productions and the Stereotypical Representation of African Americans”
Peter Aschoff Award for the best paper on southern music
Caroline Randall Williams, “If Jocasta Sang the Blues: Motherlovers, Manbabies, and Blues-ed Family Values”
Ann Abadie Award for the best work in Documentary Media
Anna Hamilton, “Bottling Hell: Myth-Making, Cultural Identity and the Datil Pepper of St. Augustine, Florida”
Gray Award for one of the best undergraduate papers
Neal McMillin, “Developing the Marine Energy Sector in Scotland: A View from the Islands”
Coterie Award for one of the best undergraduate papers
Abby Abide, “Big T-Shirts and Running Shorts: A Female Uniform and Southern Womanhood on the Ole Miss Campus”
Description of Awards
The Gray and Coterie Awards honor the best undergraduate papers in Southern Studies classes. Faculty teaching Southern Studies classes nominate papers for the awards, and a faculty committee selects the winners. The awards include an honorarium.
The Lucille and Motee Daniels Award honors the best papers by Southern Studies graduate students. Faculty nominate and submit papers to the program chair, who appoints a faculty committee to evaluate the papers. The award includes an honorarium.
The Peter Aschoff Prize honors the best papers on music of the American South, especially the blues, by an undergraduate or graduate student at the University of Mississippi. Faculty nominate papers and a committee of faculty members makes the award, which includes an honorarium.