James “Jim” Giesen

Jim Giesen has been researching and teaching American history at Mississippi State University for twenty years. His interests are in the agricultural, rural, and environmental histories of the America South, and he has written about everything from the boll weevil and the blues to tourism and civil rights. His books and articles have won awards from the Southern Historical Association and in 2018 he was named a John Grisham Master Teacher, MSU’s highest teaching honor.

Presentations

• No One Writes Songs about Polyester: Re-making Cotton’s Image in the Late Twentieth Century
• Water Ways: Ebbs and Flows of Mississippi History
• Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton and Myth in Mississippi
• Ain’t That America? History and Culture in the Country