Mississippi University for Women (MUW), in partnership with the University Press of Mississippi, has awarded the 2024 Eudora Welty Prize to Kemeshia Swanson in honor of her new book, Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded Upon Violence and Respectability (University Press of Mississippi, 2024).
Named in honor of MUW alumna Eudora Welty, the annual award was established in 1990 to promote scholarship in the fields of women’s studies, Southern studies, and literature.
Dr. Swanson currently serves as an assistant professor of English and African American studies at Mississippi State University. Prior to assuming her new role this summer, she served as an associate professor of English at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.
As a scholar, Dr. Swanson’s work focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century African American literature, Southern literature, gender and sexuality studies, and Hip Hop and popular culture. She is currently working on her second book, Love and War: Intimacy and Activism in the Works of Jesmyn Ward, which is expected to be released in 2026.
Dr. Swanson received her bachelor’s degree from Tougaloo College in Mississippi, a master’s degree from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama.
