Southern Studies Grad Katie Blount New Director of MDAH

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2014 Southern Register.  Check out the Register online here. Southern Studies Graduate Tapped to Lead MDAH A Southern Studies MA graduate, Katherine Blount, has been named the seventh director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The Board of Trustees made the decision at a special meeting

SST 601 in the Field

Southern Studies 601 is a required course for all SST MA students, and most take it during their first semester.  This fall, Dr. Katie McKee taught the course.  In addition to reading a book a week (including Grace Hale’s Making Whiteness, Randall Kenan’s Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, and Zandria Robinson’s This

New Gammill Gallery Exhibit by Alysia Burton Steele

The Gammill Gallery in Barnard Observatory has a new exhibit by Alysia Burton Steele.  Steele is Assistant Professor in the UM Meek School of Journalism and New Media.  Learn more about her exhibit, “Delta Jewels,” below in her artist’s statement. The exhibit will be up through January 31, 2015. DELTA JEWELS: In Search of My

More about the new Elvis biography by Joel Williamson

In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, Southern historian Joel Williamson, professor emeritus of the humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time.

Ted Ownby, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, wrote the foreword for the book, which is published by Oxford University Press.

Meet Our First Year Graduate Students

One of the most compelling aspects of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture is its eclectic faculty, staff, and students. This fall the Center welcomed 12 new students into its Southern Studies MA program, all of whom contribute to the Center’s notable diversity.

Ted Ownby on Elvis Presley as a Southern Studies Student

Center Director Ted Ownby wrote the introduction for a new book on Elvis Presley by Joel Williamson, Elvis Presley: A Southern Life. Here, his thoughts on whether Southern Studies might’ve saved Presley. Elvis Presley died in 1977. That was the same year the Center for the Study of Southern Culture hosted its first events, and

Save the Date for the 2015 Blues Today Symposium

Mark Camarigg of Living Blues magazine with news of the 2015 Blues Today Symposium, this year focused on North Mississippi Hill Country Blues. Since 2003, Living Blues magazine has sponsored the Blues Today Symposium each spring on the University of Mississippi campus.  The Symposium has featured such keynote speakers as Paul Oliver, Samuel Charters, and Bill Ferris

Grad Student Guest Post: Virginia Anderson on Determining a Thesis Topic

Today, another guest post from a grad student, this time from a second year who is hard at work on her thesis.  Virginia Anderson grew up in Staunton, Virginia and holds an undergraduate degree in English and religious studies from UM and a master’s in religious studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  Her research

The Southern Foodways Symposium in Review

This past weekend, Center institute the Southern Foodways Alliance hosted their 17th annual symposium.  They posed the question “Who is welcome at the welcome table?” and presented three days of lectures, films, conversations, and meals exploring inclusion and exclusion in southern foodways.  We’re proud of the SFA’s ability to generate thoughtful discussion of an experience

Grad Student Guest Post: Sophie Hay on Applying to Grad School

We’ll feature an occasional post by our Southern Studies grad students.  First up, Sophie Hay, who comes to us from the University of Birmingham in the U.K.  She’s a first year in the Southern Studies Master’s program.  Her research interests include the civil rights movement, gender, and African American literature. Thinking of applying to Graduate