School of Humanities
EGO: The English Graduate Organization
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EGO will offer a series of seminars ranging from paper writing to pedagogy, as well as its annual graduate student conference. Through these activities, EGO strives to help its members build curriculum vitae and develop significant academic and professional skills.
While maintaining its commitment to academic excellence and career enhancement, EGO also values graduate student social life. Events such as a Silent Auction, bowling nights, pizza parties, pot lucks, and pub crawls encourage EGO members to form a community.
Membership is open to all graduate students in the USM English Department. Members pay dues in the amount of $20.00 during their first semester in the organization and $5.00 for each subsequent semester. These fees go into travel grant and award funds and provide food and membership privileges. Dues-paying members will receive incentive prizes. Catered meetings are held on the last Thursday of each month during the fall and spring semesters, and officer elections are held in April of each year.
2025-2026 Officers
Madison Hankins is a first year Ph.D. student in the Creative Writing Fiction Program. She received her B.A. in English - Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women in 2023, where she was the Editor-in-Chief for Merge Literary Journal and The Dilettanti Creative Journal. She recently received her M.A. in Creative Writing Fiction from USM, where her thesis, “Demon Horse: The Functions of Family”, explored the impact of family dynamics in fiction. Her creative interests include magical realism, portrayal of family, experimentation with narrative styles, and the use of detail in fiction.
Vice President: B Beasley
B Beasley (they/them/theirs) is a PhD Candidate in Literature at the University of
Southern Mississippi. They are a Graduate Student Instructor of Composition and the
English Graduate Organization Vice President and Graduate Student Liaison. They focus
their writing and research on Disability Studies, particularly within British Romanticism
and Southern Literature. However, they equally concern their studies with Composition
and Rhetoric, with an emphasis on critical and anti-racist pedagogy, classroom accessibility,
and pedagogies of play. They have presented their work at CCCC and the International
Conference on Romanticism.
Secretary: Marnie Hageman
Marnie Hageman is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in English and the assistant director
of composition at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she teaches composition
and world literature. Her research examines representations of disability and race
in nineteenth-century American and British Gothic literature. Marnie’s research interests
include animal studies, gender studies, and environmentalism, which have informed
her conference presentations and academic publications.
Treasurer: Britt Page
Britt Page is a third year PhD student focused on literature. Her interests are children’s
literature, Romantic era literature, and Disability Studies. She is currently working
on her comps and with dissertation focus being The Romantic Child. She serves as the
Treasure for the English Graduate Organization and previously served as the secretary.
EGO Conference Coordinator: Katie Rhodes
Katie is a writer and poet from Colorado. Her interests lie in the intersectionality
of the femme, the occult, and the pastoral.
Grace Borcherding holds a BA and MA in English from Southeastern Louisiana University and is currently a third year PhD literature student. Her research interests are primarily 20th century literature and pop culture studies.
Creative Writing Day Coordinator: Rheagan Case Rheagan Case is a second-year Ph. D. student in the Creative Writing Poetry program. She received her B.A. in English in 2022 and her M.A. in English in 2024, both from Mississippi State University. At Mississippi State, she was an editor for the Jabberwock Review and The Streetcar. Since being at USM, she has been the editor-in-chief for Product's 39th issue. She has interned with the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University. She enjoys studying gender studies, race and ethnic studies, digital humanities, and Victorian poetry.
Social Media/ Social Events: Mary Murphy
Mary Murphy is a second-year graduate student in The University of Southern Mississippi's
English Literature MA program. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she earned
her BA in English from Southern Miss in December 2022. Her primary fields of study
include twentieth and twenty-first century fiction, structural theory, and queer theory.
Graphics: Kayleigh Capers
Kayleigh Capers is a second-year English Literature MA student at The University of
Southern Mississippi. She is from Ocean Springs, MS and received her associate's degree
in the Arts from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in 2021 and her bachelor's
degree in English with a Teaching Licensure from The University of Southern Mississippi
in 2023. Her undergraduate thesis entitled "Emerging to Elsewhere: The Giver and The
Concept of “Elsewhere” in Secondary Curricula" is available on USM's Aquila online
database. Currently, she is working on her MA thesis “Sugar-Baited Words”: Diabetic
Themes in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” which will be defended in October.
Her critical interests include disability studies particularly in Romantic and Victorian
literature.
Almost Underground (AUG) Coordinator: Brooke Morrison
Brooke Morrison (she/her) graduated Summa Cum Laude from Southern New Hampshire University
with a B.A. In English in 2022 and is now studying English Literature in the hybrid
MA/PhD degree program at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her research interests
include Local Color and Realism literature, Queer Theory, disability studies, and
dismantling social constructs via literary analysis.
Officer Representative: Sarah Runnels
Sarah Runnels holds a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies with triple emphases
in English, Technology, and Biology from Mississippi State University. She also recently
obtained her master's degree in English literature from the University of Southern
Mississippi, where she is now pursuing her PhD. Her interests include 19th-century and
contemporary children and young adult literature, as well as disability, feminist,
and queer theory.
Officer Representative: Caryn Dreibelbis
Caryn Dreibelbis is a writer from Duluth, Georgia. Her MFA is from the University
of Nevada Reno and she is pursuing her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi
where she obsesses over poems of dailiness and how poets relate to time. She links
these obsessions to her love of horror when she can. Her poems have been published
by Cul-de-sac of Blood.