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MSUā€™s Swanson earns statewide humanities award for leadership, scholarship

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

STARKVILLE, Miss.ā€”Mississippi State Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies Kemeshia Randle Swanson is the universityā€™s 2026 Mississippi Humanities Council Teacher of the Year, a statewide honor celebrating her exceptional teaching, visionary scholarship and deep commitment to advancing the humanities across the Magnolia State.

Sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council, the award includes an honorarium and recognition at the annual Public Humanities Awards ceremony this March in Jackson. As part of the award, Swanson will deliver a public lecture at MSUā€™s Mitchell Memorial Library on Feb. 3 at 3:30 p.m. in the John Grisham Room.

Her talk, ā€œMississippi as Memory: Landscape, Loss and Legacy,ā€ will explore how Mississippiā€™s history, rich culture and complicated legacy remain imprinted on the landscape and continue to shape both progress and pride. The presentation draws on Swansonā€™s current research on the work of two-time national book award winner and Mississippi native Jesmyn Ward.

ā€œWe have such a wonderful crop of students here at MSUā€”so much so that in my short time here, I have already been pushed and extended in the best ways,ā€ said Swanson, an Ļć½¶Ö±²„faculty member since 2024. ā€œUniversitywideā€”especially among English majorsā€”students come to me well-read, hungry to learn more and full of empathy and compassion for the world. As a result, I always feel compelled to research, prep and be more so I can offer them the best possible learning experience. Iā€™m grateful my students value that effort, my colleagues see and appreciate my dedication and the state has now acknowledged it as well. It is truly an honor.ā€

Ļć½¶Ö±²„College of Arts and Sciences Dean Rick Travis congratulated Swanson on the award and said her teaching and scholarship ā€œstrengthen communities and open doors to deeper understanding.ā€

A Mississippi Delta native, Swanson holds a joint appointment in English and African American Studies. Her research and teaching focus on 20th and 21st century African American literature, Southern literature, gender and sexuality studies, and hip hop and popular culture. She is the author of the book ā€œMaverick Feminist: To Be Black and Female in a Country Founded Upon Violence and Respectability,ā€ a 2024 University Press of Mississippi publication. It received that yearā€™s Eudora Welty Prize and earned a nomination for the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award.

Her forthcoming monograph ā€œLove and War: Intimacy and Activism in the Works of Jesmyn Wardā€ is under contract with the University Press of Mississippi and expected in 2027. She also is editor of the 2025 UPM publication ā€œConversations with Jesmyn Wardā€ and coeditor of ā€œThe Oxford Handbook on American Street Literature,ā€ expected in 2026.

She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Alabama in 2014, masterā€™s degree from the University of Mississippi in 2009 and bachelorā€™s degree from Tougaloo College in 2007.

The Mississippi Humanities Council is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information about MSUā€™s College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English, visit and .

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