The Martha Swain Speaker Series brings a distinguished person to campus each spring to address issues important to women’s interests, lives, and experiences. The series is funded with a gift made in honor of Dr. Martha Swain, a scholar of Southern women’s history.
This year, we are delighted to welcome Dr. Kemeshia Randle Swanson to campus for a presentation of her research exploring the ways in which African American authors—from Zora Neale Hurston to Jesmyn Ward—challenge respectability politics and advance what Swanson characterizes as a "maverick" style of feminism in their work. Dr. Swanson is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at Mississippi State University and focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century African American literature, southern literature, gender and sexualities studies, and hip-hop and popular culture. She is the award-winning author of Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability, published by University Press of Mississippi in 2024. Kemeshia coined the term maverick feminist and especially enjoys reading, writing about, and teaching the works of resilient African American authors, Black women in particular, who reject respectability politics and practice their humanity unapologetically. As such, her upcoming projects turn a careful eye towards race, sexuality, class, intimacy, and activism in the works of two-time National Book Award winner and Mississippi native Jesmyn Ward. Kemeshia recently sat down with Jesmyn to discuss the restorative power of literature and the need to develop community, both personal and artistic, in order to grow and succeed in the writing world. Her edited collection, Conversations with Jesmyn Ward, will be published in September 2025, and a manuscript of literary criticism tentatively titled Love and War: Intimacy and Activism in the Works of Jesmyn Ward, is expected 2026."
Nissan Auditorium, Parkinson Hall
Mississippi University for Women
March 06, 2025
6:00 p.m.
Martha Swain is a graduate of Starkville High as well as Mississippi State College. She gained a M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Vanderbilt University. She is the author of two books, Pat Harrison: The New Deal; Years (1978) and Ellen Woodward: New Deal Advocate for Women (1995). She was a co-author of Lucy Somerville Howorth: New Deal Lawyer, Politician and Feminist from the South (2003). She is a co-editor of two volumes of essays, Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives (2003, 2009). She was the winner of the 1994 Eudora Welty Book Prize at Mississippi University for Women, the 2002 Dunbar Rowland Award from the Mississippi Historical Society for lifetime contributions to Mississippi History, as well as the 2004 Mississippi Humanities Council's Chair's Award for contributions to public humanities programs. She was president of the Mississippi Historical Society 2005-2006 as well as being a former member of the board of review of the Journal of Southern History, and a long-time member of the review board of the Journal of Mississippi History.