Research Projects & Publications

The MSSU History faculty along with community partners are beginning a research project that will culminate in an interactive online archive and digital museum of material related to the 2011 Joplin tornado and its aftermath. Bringing together textual, audio, and visual material, as well as retrospective accounts and oral histories, this project aims to be a resource for researchers in history, sociology, and government policy, as well as for those who simply want to know more about one of Joplin’s defining events. Thanks to the generous collaboration of Jane Cage, this project will be ongoing for multiple years and will provide opportunities for student research and internships.

The Jiwere-Baxoje Language Project is an ongoing research study dedicated to documenting the heritage language of the Otoe-Missouria and Ioway Tribes. The language is part of the larger Siouan language family, which includes tribes quite near to our campus, such as the Quapaw and the Osage, but also the Lakota, Crow, and many more. The current project is the continuation of an earlier effort begun in the late 1980s, at the University of Missouri-Columbia, under the direction of Professor N. Louanna Furbee (now professor emeritus). Through the two National Science Foundation grants awarded to Furbee and her team of graduate students (including Jill), they were able to conduct fieldwork with some of the last L1 speakers of these two dialects of Jiwere over the course of seven years.

While those elders are no longer here, those recordings are their gift to their children and grandchildren, and the generations to come, as well as the science of linguistics and anthropology. Those voices give us a small but priceless window on their unique language, culture, and verbal art.

The work to fully transcribe and gloss these recordings is ongoing. Professor Jill Greer has been working with a new generation of tribal members regularly in support of their language revitalization efforts in their communities since 2010. MSSU students could apply for an internship with her related to language documentation and other relevant topics. For more information, contact Dr. Greer at greer-j@mssu.edu or (417) 625-9795.

Students within the Social Sciences department have been conducting interviews with alumni of our programs. As part of Introduction to Public History (HIST 202) or a Research Internship (HIST 492), students gain experience reaching out to alumni, crafting interview questions, scheduling and conducting the interviews, and transcribing the interviews so they can be filed. This project has received support from Virginia Laas, Professor Emerita of History. Students who are interested in working on this project should contact Dr. Megan Bever, Associate Professor of History, at bever-m@mssu.edu.

This project is an outgrowth of Dr. Megan Bever’s study of liquor during the Civil War. Student researchers collaborate with Dr. Bever, going through military supply records, newspapers, government documents, diaries, and letters, tracking references to liquor in order to understand how the supply and use of liquor ebbed and flowered during the Civil War. Student researchers gain experience building datasets in Microsoft Excel. Interested students may also use this project to hone their ArcGIS skills that they have worked to develop in BIO/EH/GEOG 304 and 404. Students who are interested in working on this project should contact Dr. Megan Bever, Associate Professor of History, at bever-m@mssu.edu.

The purpose of the project is to bridge KCU Student Doctors and MSSU Social Work Students in a research study measuring cortisol levels of MSSU female athletes. Each Student Doctor is paired with a Social Work Student to assess participants throughout the 8 week research study. Participants of the study are split into two cohorts and undergo clinical yoga in 4 week rotations.

The KCU Team provides biological assessments of female athletes/participants and salivates to directly measure cortisol levels. Our MSSU Social Work Team provides the Biopsychosocial assessments to evaluate the female athletes/participants biological, psychological, and social wellness and overall mental health through a series of assessments (including the PHQ9 and the GAD7) that is evaluated by Social Work Students, scored and analyzed to assist in better understanding the female athletes/participants overall mental health.

This provides our students an opportunity to work as research assistants collecting data from participants/clients in real time. Ultimately, findings will contribute to our work as Licensed Mental Health Professionals, as we gather new information regarding cortisol (stress hormone) levels and are able to view possible biochemical correlations between Clinical Assessments/Biopsychosocials and actual Cortisol levels.

With regard to clinical yoga, participant findings will likely shed new light on whether clinical yoga reduces stress in clients/participants and will assist us in better understanding the ways that clients respond to stress.

At War with King Alcohol: Debating Drinking and Masculinity in the Civil War. University of North Carolina Press, 2022. 

American Discord: The Republic and Its People in the Civil War Era, co-edited with Lesley J. Gordon and Laura Mammina. Louisiana State University Press, 2020. 

The Historian behind the History: Conversations with Southern Historians, edited with Scott A. Suarez. University of Alabama Press, 2014. 

“Reflection on the Groceries to Graduate Scholarship Program at Midwestern Southern State University”, co-authored with A. Carr, A. Cullers, K. Colburn, and J. Rutledge, Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (September 2023). 

“Prohibition, Sacrifice, and Morality in the Confederacy, 1861-1865,” Journal of Southern History 55 (May 2019): 251-284. 

“Paths to Reconciliation: Intersectional Romances in Northern Civil War Fiction,”Civil War History 60.1 (March 2014): 32-57. 

“Fuzzy Memories: College Mascots and the Struggle to Find Appropriate Legacies of the Civil War,” Journal of Sport History 38.3 (Fall 2011): 447-463. 

“Shamanism as a Strategy of Domination: Brujería in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the Middle of the 20th Century” The Latin Americanist Vol. 65, No. 3, September 2021. 

“Constructing and Celebrating a National Object of Desire: The Amazonian Oriente Frontier and Ecuadorian Society, 1900-1946.” In Transnational Frontiers of Asia and Latin American Since 1800, eds. Jaime Moreno Tejada and Bradley Tatar. Routledge, 2017. 

“More Jiwere-Baxoje fantastic creatures from the Dark Side,” Proceedings of the 39th Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference. 

“Hook-swinging giants and other fantastic themes in Jiwere-Baxoje folktales,” Proceedings of the 38th Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference. 

“Baxoje-Jiwere grammar sketch.” In Catherine Rudin & Bryan J. Gordon (eds.), Advances in the study of Siouan languages and linguistics, 183–229. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2016. 

“The Otoe-Missouria Flag Song,” Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 30 (2008), pp. 98-105. 

“Reflections on Linguistic Fieldwork in Two Native American Communities” (as Jill Davidson), Practicing Anthropology, 21(2) (Spring 1999), pp. 28-33. 

“Indirectness in the Interview” Jill D. Hopkins and Louanna Furbee, co-authors, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1(1) (June 1991), pp. 63-77. 

“Spatial Deixis in Chiwere” (as Jill D. Hopkins) 1990 Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 15(2), Studies in Native American Languages VI, p. 60-72. 

2017. “Fads.” in Lynn Gaetz and Suneeti Phadke. The

          Writer’s World: Sentences and Paragraphs, 5th Edition. New York: Pearson.

          (international)

2016. “Types of Rioters.” In Lee Brandon and Kelly Brandon Paragraphs and

           Essays with Integrated Readings, 13th Edition. New York: Cengage Learning.

2015. “Types of Rioters.” In Lynn Gaetz and Suneeti Phadke (eds.) The

2011. “Types of Rioters.” In Lynn Gaetz and Suneeti Phadke (eds.) The

           Writer’s World: The Essays, 2nd Edition. New York: Allyn & Bacon. (international)

2007. “Types of Rioters.” In Lynn Gaetz and Suneeti Phadke (eds.) The

           Writer’s World: The Essays. New York: Allyn & Bacon. (international)

2006. “Fads.” In Lynn Gaetz and Suneeti Phadke (eds.) The Writer’s World:

          Reading Strategies and Suggestions. New York: Allyn & Bacon. (international)

2005. “Chapter Essays as a Teaching Tool.” The Teaching Professor. 19(9):1

          (national)

2005. “Leaving Cuba: Pay your $25 ransom.” The Joplin Globe. 109(239):11A. (regional)

2005. “How Oppression Works.” The Joplin Globe. 109(231):9A. (regional)

2004 “When Teaching Less is More” The Teaching Professor. 18(9):2. (national)

2002. “Teaching Swimming or Coaching Swimmers?” The Teaching

          Professor. 16(9):8. (national)

2002. Collective Behavior. Prentice-Hall: New York. (international)

2001. “‘Poor Quality Students’ Reveal Teaching Skill.” The Teaching

          Professor. 15(7):1-3 (national)

1999. “Unacknowledged Roots and Blatant Imitation: Postmodernism and the

          Dada Movement.” Electronic Journal of Sociology. 4(1). (international)

1998. "The Industrial Identity Crisis: The Failure of an Emerging Subculture

          to Identify Itself." Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World. Jonathan S. Epstein.

          Malden: Blackwell. (international)

1997. "Art, Obscenity, and Interpretation: Sexual Beliefs in the United States." Focaal: The                  Journal for Anthropology. 1997(29): 67-80. (international)

1996. "The Industrial Identity Crisis: The Failure of an Emerging Subculture to Identify Itself."                Subdivisions: Youth, Youth Culture, and Identity. Jonathan S. Epstein (ed.). NY: Garland.            (international)

“Le genre et l’Union paneuropéenne entre les deux guerres.” In L’Europe, Une Chance Pour Les Femmes? Le Genre de la Construction Européene, edited by Anne-Laure Briatte, Éliane Gubin, et Françoise Thébaud. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2019. 

"Féministe et pacifiste à l’époque de Weimar: la remise en question du pouvoir politique dans la nouvelle République” Parlement(s). revue d'histoire politique, no. 26 (2017). 

“Women, Pacifism, and the Pan-European Union: Searching for Support in Weimar Political Culture.” In Pela Paz! Pour la Paix! For Peace! Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014. 

Eisenhower for Our Time. Northern Illinois University Press, 2024. 

Eisenhower Republicanism: Pursuing the Middle Way. University of Northern Illinois Press, 2006. 

“Eisenhower Republicanism,” in A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Chester J. Pach, ed. Wiley, 2017, 152-168.