Books published by University Press of Mississippi

Every year on the Friday before Labor Day, Guyanese from all over the world convene in Brooklyn, New York, to celebrate the accidental tradition of Come to My Kwe-Kwe. Gillian Richards-Greaves examines the role of Come to My Kwe-Kwe in the construction of a secondary African Guyanese diaspora (a rediasporization) in New York City.

In recent years, Hollywood cinema has forwarded a growing number of images of the Cold War and entertained a return to memories of conflicts between the USSR and the US, Russians and Americans, and communism and capitalism. Cold War II explores the reasons for this sudden renewed interest in the Cold War.

Explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba and the United States during the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, who eased the musical embargo of the island and restored relations with Cuba.

For decades after the Second World War, Senator James O. Eastland (1904-1986) was one of the more intransigent leaders of the Deep South's resistance to what he called "e;the Second Reconstruction."e; And yet he developed, late in his life, a very real friendship with state NAACP chair Aaron Henry. Big Jim Eastland provides the life story of this savvy, unpredictable powerhouse.From 1947 to 1978, Eastland wore that image of resistance proudly, even while recognizing from the beginning his was the losing side. Biographer J. Lee Annis Jr. chronicles such complexities extensively and also delves into many facets lesser known to the general public.Born in the Mississippi Delta as part of the elite planter class, Eastland was appointed to the US Senate in 1941 by Democratic Governor Paul B. Johnson Sr. Eastland ran for and won the Senate seat outright in 1942 and served in the Senate from 1943 until his retirement in 1978.A blunt man of few words but many contradictions, Eastland was an important player in Washington, from his initial stint in 1941 where he rapidly salvaged several key local projects from bungling intervention, to the 1970s when he shepherded the Supreme Court nominees of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to Senate confirmation. Annis paints a full picture of the man, describing the objections Eastland raised to civil rights proposals and the eventual accommodations he needed to accept after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Examines the career of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, focusing on his work from 1896 to 1915. Drawing on Turner's speeches, editorials, and letters, Andre Johnson tells a story of how Turner provided rhetorical leadership during a period in which America defaulted on many of the rights gained for African Americans during Reconstruction.

Offers both scholars and the general public an overview of how rich and diverse the French language in Louisiana is, and serves as a key reminder that Louisiana serves as a prime repository for Native and heritage languages, ranking among the strongest preservation regions in the southern and eastern US.

Presents an innovative history of funk music focused on the performers, regarding them as intellectuals who fashioned a new aesthetic. Utilizing musicology, literary studies, performance studies, and African American intellectual history, Tony Bolden explores what it means for music, or any cultural artifact, to be funky.

Examines the phenomenon the ""fanboy auteur"". The volume discusses both popular fanboys, such as J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon, and fangirls like J.K. Rowling and E.L. James, and dissects how the fanboy-fangirl auteur dichotomy is constructed and defended, and how this discourse has played in maintaining the exclusionary status quo of geek culture.

While literary critics associate authors of the 1930s and '40s with leftist political and economic thought, they often ignore concern in the period's literary and cultural works with major environmental crises. Matthew Lambert argues that depression-era authors contributed to the development of modern environmentalist thought.

The Friday the 13th franchise is one of the most successful horror film franchises in history. In SEE! HEAR! CUT! KILL!, Wickham Clayton explores several aspects of the films including how the technical aspects relate to the audience, their influence on filmmaking, and the cultural impact of the franchise

Takes the topic of budgeting and makes it exciting, and not just for political junkies. Instead of focusing on numbers, this book looks at the policymakers responsible for the budget. Brian Pugh provides a historical perspective on the decisions and actions of legislators and governors going back more than a century.

K-pop (Korean popular music) reigns as one of the most popular music genres in the world today, a phenomenon that appeals to listeners of all ages and nationalities. In Soul in Seoul, Crystal Anderson examines the most important and often overlooked aspect of K-pop: the music itself.

Offers the first full-length study of key autobiographies of white jazz musicians. Outside and Inside features insights into the development of jazz styles and culture in the urban meccas of twentieth-century jazz in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

Many works of American film history only skim the surface of the 1941 investigation of Hollywood. In Hollywood Hates Hitler!, Chris Yogerst examines the years leading up to and through the Senate Investigation into Motion Picture War Propaganda, detailing isolationist senators' relationship with the America First movement.

While property ownership is a cornerstone of the American dream, the status of enslaved people supplies a contrasting American nightmare. Sarah Gilbreath Ford considers how writers in works from nineteenth-century slave narratives to twenty-first-century poetry employ gothic tools to portray the horrors of this nightmare.

In this edited collection, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine comics by addressing materiality and form as well as the wider economic and political contexts of comics' creation and reception.

Spanning from the debut of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959 to her early death from cancer in January 1965, Lorraine Hansberry's short stint in the public eye changed the landscape of American theatre. Conversations with Lorraine Hansberry is the first volume to collect all of her substantive interviews in one place.

The superhero permeates popular culture from comic books to film and television to internet memes, merchandise, and street art. Toxic Masculinityasks what kind of men these heroes are and if they are worthy of the unbalanced amount of attention.

In this edited collection, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine comics by addressing materiality and form as well as the wider economic and political contexts of comics' creation and reception.