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MSU garners second consecutive award for best Southern history dissertation

MSU garners second consecutive award for best Southern history dissertation

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

Portrait of Owen James Hyman wearing glasses and a sport coat.
Owen James Hyman (Photo submitted)

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擜 2018 幺力视频 doctoral graduate is the recipient of the 2019 Southern Historical Association鈥檚 C. Vann Woodward Award for the best dissertation in Southern history, providing back-to-back wins for the university鈥檚 Department of History.

Owen James Hyman was recognized this month at the annual SHA meeting in Louisville, Kentucky for his dissertation, 鈥淭he Cut and The Color Line: An Environmental History of Jim Crow in the Deep South鈥檚 Forests,鈥 which examines how the South鈥檚 culture of white supremacy both shaped鈥攁nd was shaped by鈥攖he natural world.

鈥淭he fact that MSU history students have won the award two years running is almost unprecedented,鈥 said Alan I. Marcus, history professor and department head. 鈥淚n the long history of the award, only one other school has had back-to-back winners. 幺力视频鈥檚 success in this competition is a tribute to the students and also the professors who taught and advised them.鈥澛犅犅犅犅犅

Marcus added that this recognition firmly cements 幺力视频 as 鈥渢he place to be for the study of Southern history and environmental history.鈥

Hyman, a native of Talisheek, Louisiana, credits his success to 鈥渢he superb instruction鈥 he received from his MSU mentors, including James C. Giesen, an associate professor of history and Grisham Master Teacher who helped direct Hyman鈥檚 research.

鈥淚 pursued a Ph.D. at MSU because I specifically wanted to study environmental history and the history of science and technology together,鈥 Hyman said. 鈥淭he perspective I gained from both of these disciplines informed one of the core arguments of my project鈥攖hat forestry and the dramatic changes in southern land-use that took shape in the South after World War II inscribed white supremacy into the landscape in ways that persist today.鈥

Hyman鈥檚 dissertation explores the history of segregation and resistance in the Deep South through a focused examination of the Piney Woods region of the southern Gulf Coast. His work suggests segregation was not only a problem of psychology and prejudice, but also a system of oppression that originated in the economic exploitation of a particular landscape, 鈥渨here human action and natural forces worked in tandem to shape and reshape the power structures of Jim Crow.鈥

Giesen said Hyman used tools of聽environmental history鈥攕cientific and historical understandings of the forests and waterways of the Gulf South鈥攖o uncover details about Jim Crow segregation and聽African-American resistance.

鈥淚n other words, it鈥檚 a political history told through the lens of nature. That鈥檚 something few people have tried and even fewer have accomplished,鈥 Giesen said of Hyman鈥檚 work. 鈥淗e visited archives as far away as Harlem and Berkeley, and found documents in remote Mississippi courthouses and in modern ecology journals. It really is a remarkable accomplishment.鈥

Giesen said winning back-to-back Woodward awards is a 鈥渢ribute鈥 to the effort that College of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School, and history聽department faculty members have put forth to improve research and teaching. 鈥淲e鈥檙e now graduating Ph.D. students like Hyman who are as good as any in the country, and it鈥檚 nice to see an organization like the聽Southern Historical Association recognize that,鈥 Giesen said.聽

MSU 2017 graduate Jason Hauser received the 2018 Woodward Award. Other previous Woodward winners have come from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, and Yale universities, as well as the聽universities of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Established in 2000, the Woodward Award is given annually to recognize the best dissertation in Southern history defended in the previous calendar year. The prize consists of a $3,000 stipend provided by the Woodward Fund, financially supported by Comer Vann Woodward. Regarded as one of the most influential historians of his generation, Woodward won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for history. The award is presented by the SHA, an association formed in 1934 for the collection and preservation of the South鈥檚 historical records.

Currently employed at the University of Mississippi, Hyman is an instructional assistant professor of African American Studies in the African American Studies program. He received his bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in history from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2007 and 2012.

Part of MSU鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of History can be found online at .

MSU is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at聽.