Meet the House of Humanities Editors

Welcome to the Spring 2022 issue of the House of Humanities newsletter! As one of the graduate student editors of this emerging newsletter, I’m proud to help spotlight students, faculty, and alumni from the School of Humanities who are pressing the boundaries of their fields.

When I was originally asked to serve on this project, I had no idea how much the newsletter would influence me. After hours of sifting through spreadsheets of alumni, learning where you all went and the things you accomplished after graduating from our programs, I realized more than ever how meaningful an education in the humanities can be. In a time marked by distance and seclusion, I have had the unique opportunity to work with a committed team to cultivate a widespread community of aspiring, current, and former humanities scholars.

My time at Southern Miss is coming to a close, and I am better for the relationships, challenges, and questions that have arisen here. Thanks to the skills and wisdom that I gained in the School of Humanities, I will be starting my “alt-ac” career as the new LGBTQ Health Coordinator at the Western North Carolina Community Health Service. I will apply my research, analysis, and communication skills to navigate LGBTQ patients through a complex medical and legal system while helping to expand access to affordable care for underserved North Carolinians through community engagement, cultural competency training, and grant writing and administration. As I say my goodbyes, I’m confident that the newsletter will continue to grow, never running out of outstanding scholars and practitioners to highlight, and I hope that we all continue to use this and other spaces to connect, share resources and opportunities, and celebrate each other.

-Jack Hoda

MA in English Literature

As my fellow editor Jack said, I had no idea how meaningful working on the House of Humanities newsletter would be. My first thought after being asked to help out was something like “oh no, I left Communications to focus on poetry and scholarship. Just when I’m out, they pull me right back in!” Thankfully, I was in for a surprise. 

I spent years working in an office prior to entering academia. The community in an office is a strange thing. It’s real, and extremely important and nourishing at times, but still manages to feel somewhat forced. My experience as a member of various academic communities has been the polar opposite. I’ve found myself welcomed into vibrant creative circles, probing critical discussions, and the thrilling intersection of both. I’ve found mentors, readers, editors, supporters, students, and above all else friends.

Which is all a long way to make a short point – working on the House of Humanities has given me the privilege of getting to know USM’s academic community. All of you, past and present, are scholars, artists, and thinkers of the highest order. Perhaps more importantly, working on the newsletter has given me a chance to spotlight some of your remarkable achievements. From books published to awards won to degrees earned and far beyond, I’ve had the chance to spend the last year learning about what you all have accomplished. To say I’m honored is an understatement.

I can’t wait to continue next year and see what thrilling new heights we soar to. Until then, I hope you enjoy this spring edition of the newsletter! I was particularly excited to learn about the overseas program and how USM students and faculty are blazing trails across the globe. 

-David Greenspan

PhD in Creative Writing

In fall 2022, Dr. Amy Slagle (Associate Professor of Religion) will offer a new course, “Magic and the Occult,” (REL 345), which invites students to explore the beliefs and practices of magical practitioners from a variety of cultural contexts. Witchcraft (both historically and today), astrology, divinatory practices, methods of spirit contact and possession (from mediumship to Ouija boards), and African-American folk magic among other topics will be discussed along with the development of occult movements such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. Often derided, feared and dismissed as “superstition,” magical modes of expression exert a powerful influence on contemporary popular and political imaginations worldwide and continue to develop in tandem with emergent technologies. From deployments of Internet meme magic to affect election outcomes to the pervasiveness of esoteric symbology in films, television, and video games, magical and occult references are vital aspects of the lived experience of many Americans today. In addition to providing historical and ethnographic context for making sense of these diverse phenomena, the course also focuses on the problematic history of “magic” as a category in religious studies and the ways that magic intersects with race, gender, and class.

This course is an outgrowth of Dr. Slagle’s own research on strands of modern occultism. She has published on the reincarnationist theories of the Roman Catholic occultist, Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973), and is currently researching the visual/material culture of contemporary sigil magic.

Daniel is exceedingly fond of the time he spent studying philosophy at USM. All of the professors he worked with helped to provide extraordinary depth and breadth in the understanding of important philosophical texts as well as assistance in developing clarity and rigor in his writing and argumentation. Professors in grad school are looking for high-caliber research skills and the ability to synthesize large swaths of information into a cohesive unity, and working closely with Dr. Smithka in the senior capstone class significantly helped Daniel achieve the kinds of skills that are necessary for this. The capstone allowed him to dig into a lot of literature that he wanted to learn more about, and the research skills that he learned during this process helped him to fit right in with topnotch graduate students. Since leaving USM, Daniel has been on a bit of a journey! He took a gap year in 2020 and worked as a service agent for an unemployment assistance program to save money for grad school. He then took a trek all the way up to York University in Toronto to work on a master's degree in philosophy, focusing on philosophical intersections with primatology and philosophy of science. Daniel’s hobby time is often just reading more philosophy, but aside from that, it's usually spent in the form of exploring the city of Toronto with his girlfriend and hanging out with the other grad students. He also plays in the snow like a child … frequently.

Daniel Ward is a second-year PhD student with the University of Southern Mississippi’s history program. Daniel received his BA in History and Political Science from SUNY Fredonia in 2015, and his MA in History from the University at Buffalo in 2019. Daniel’s master’s thesis considered the 1949 National Defense Unification Hearings and civil-military relations in the early Cold War. Working under the advisement of Dr. Heather Stur, Daniel studies war and society in the twentieth century United States with a focus on the Vietnam War. His dissertation research explores marriages between American soldiers and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War. His project analyzes the development of the U.S. Army’s marital policies in the Vietnam era and their impact on the experiences of Vietnamese military brides. Daniel has recently written two book reviews for the Journal of Advanced Military Studies. He has also organized a panel for 2022’s Society for Military History Conference which will discuss gender and sexuality in twentieth century American war and society. The paper that Daniel will be presenting investigates Americans who were left in Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam while trying to evacuate their families. Outside of school, Daniel has several hobbies. He enjoys board gaming, fantasy football, and reading science fiction and fantasy. Daniel thoroughly enjoys his experiences as a doctoral student at USM and is thrilled to be a part of the school’s intellectual community. 

Eden Duley (she/they) is a Junior English Major from New Albany Mississippi, a Presidential Honors Scholar, the President of the Honors College Leadership Council, Founder and Co-President of the Creative Writing Club, and Vice President of the Speech and Debate Society. Having entered the English program as a Junior in the Fall of 2021, she considers herself to be a bit of a latecomer. She has quickly found herself, however, to be more engaged by her coursework, professors, and peers than ever before, and Eden knows that she is exactly where she is meant to be. Outside of the classroom, they enjoy working on their own creative writing projects and collaborating with friends on artistic endeavors of any kind. Under the direction of Dr. Leah Parker, they are currently working on transforming their creative essay on gender transition that was featured in this year’s USM Race Gender and Sexuality Symposium into their Senior Thesis. It is incredibly exciting for Eden as a transgender writer to combine her academic goals with her personal interests, and the early stages of her thesis development have already been a deeply fulfilling experience. The English program has allowed Eden to develop a more critical and intimate relationship with the world, herself, and the systems that connect the two. That relationship is something that they know will benefit them as they pursue further opportunities in education, writing, and community work after graduation.