Braxton Thomas taps into personal experiences in her pursuit of a graduate degree at the University of Mississippi. Read about her Journey to Commencement.
Journey to Commencement: Braxton Thomas
Category: Students
Journey to Commencement: Mattie Ford
For Mattie Ford, a Tennessee native, using her hands to climb rock walls, dig vegetables & write intricate papers were all a way to grow both academically & professionally at UM’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Read about her Journey- https://bit.ly/3vtE32k
Fall Documentary Showcase set for Dec. 2
The Center for the Study of Southern Culture’s Documentary Showcase will take place at the Powerhouse. Students from various disciplines enrolled in Southern Studies documentary courses and graduate students in both the M.A. and M.F.A. programs will present projects they have worked on this semester. This fall’s event promises to be the biggest one yet, with …
Mississippi Creates: Schaefer Llana
The Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Yoknapatawpha Arts Council have teamed up for Mississippi Creates, an event that pairs musical performance with short documentary films providing a glimpse into the creative life and environments of two local musicians; Tyler Keith and Schaefer Llana. This pair of films are part of a larger …
Kelly Spivey’s The Bake Sale thesis talk
Kelly Spivey presented her Southern Studies M.F.A. in Documentary Expression thesis project “The Bake Sale” at Oxford Community Farmers Market on July 6, 2021. “The Bake Sale” is an audio documentary about the rise in bake sales as a response to recent civil rights violations and police brutality across the United States. To listen to …
Twice as Nice: Martha Grace Mize is first person to earn dual master’s degrees in Southern Studies and anthropology
If earning a graduate degree seems like a daunting task, imagine obtaining two at once. Martha Grace Mize accomplished this, and will be the first person to earn dual master’s degrees in Southern Studies and anthropology from the University of Mississippi. “I think the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and the Department of …
Keon Burns researches Black Grocers and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle
When the archives closed due to COVID-19, Keon Burns had to change his original idea for his thesis and focus on something closer to home. So he chose a paper he wrote for Catarina Passidomo’s SST 555: Foodways course about his great-grandparents’ grocery store in Bolton, Mississippi. That paper morphed into “Black Grocers, Black Activism, …
Andrea Morales captures images of race and history with “Roll Down Like Water”
Andrea Morales used her photographic lens to focus on Memphis, Tennessee as a place of resistance. While working on her M.F.A. in Documentary Expression, she captured images regarding representation, race, history, and memory titled “Roll Down Like Water.” She successfully defended this thesis project April 19, with her committee W. Ralph Eubanks, visiting professor of …
Christian Leus brings true crime to life with thesis project
While doing historical research on her hometown of Altheimer, Arkansas, Southern Studies graduate student Christian Leus stumbled across an article about a 19-year-old girl named Irene Taylor. The girl was murdered in 1939, with her body dumped into the bayou that runs through town. “It turns out, she was a distant cousin of mine!” Leus …
Christina Huff documents “Queer Subculture in the Conservative South”
An assignment for a documentary class ended up expanding into a thesis for Christina Huff. In 2019, Huff enrolled in John Rash’s class and had to document a small community. She decided to attend a drag show in Tupelo, Mississippi and reach out to the group of performers. “I had gauged the interest of two …