Southern Miss Names Gillespie as Moorman Distinguished Professor in the Humanities

Tue, 09/30/2025 - 09:58am | By: Dr. David Tisdale

An expert in Native American and Spanish narratives of the earliest encounters, explorations and conquests of Mexico and the northern Gulf Coast will hold The University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities.

Dr. Jeanne Gillespie, a member of the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Social Science and Global Studies, has been named to the professorship for the 2025-27 term. The honor is named for the late Dr. Charles Moorman, a professor of English and former vice president for academic affairs at Southern Miss, and is supported by the USM Foundation and a grant from the Phil Hardin Foundation.

Awarded biennially for a two-year term, the Moorman Professorship recognizes a senior professor in English, history, foreign languages, or philosophy to support research. At the conclusion of the appointment, the recipient presents the Moorman Lecture to share their work.

“I’m honored and delighted to serve as the Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Professor of the Humanities,” Gillespie said. “With the support of the professorship, I’m even more excited now to pursue my research on the Gulf of Mexico as a contact zone for Amerindian, African, Asian and European cultures for more than 500 years.”

Gillespie has taught courses in Spanish language and cultures, American Indian studies, women’s and gender studies, and interdisciplinary studies. She is the author of Saints and Warriors: Tlaxcalan Perspectives on the Conquest of Tenochtitlan (2004), which examines Tlaxcalan rhetorical constructions of their alliance with Europeans in the conquest of Tenochtitlan.

Her recent research focuses on Indigenous women’s voices in Spanish colonial archives and the use of medicinal plants in Nahuatl narratives. She has published studies on scorpions in Central Mexican folklore, Aztec gardens as symbols of power, and the roles of Native American and Hispanic women as powerbrokers and cultural transmitters.

Gillespie’s current project will produce materials highlighting the importance of the Gulf of Mexico and its relationships with the Caribbean. The resources will examine how Indigenous coastal communities, immigrants, and forcibly displaced people shaped exchanges of trade, culture, and identity.

“This [project] will allow a more nuanced perspective about how those who were here before us shaped the region and influenced our world, for better or worse, from music and food to military and economic endeavors,” Gillespie explained. “I hope to stimulate eye-opening conversations between scholars, students, and interested members of the public, and encourage in-depth explorations of the incredible mosaic of cultures in the Gulf and Caribbean Basin. These efforts, especially when they empower teachers at all levels, are some of the most important things that humanities scholars do, and it is more important now than ever before.”

Gillespie said she looks forward to sharing her research in a variety of venues and publications. At the end of her Moorman Professorship, she will organize an interdisciplinary symposium highlighting studies from around the world on Gulf Basin cultures and communities.

“I am especially fascinated by how Spanish-language documents represented the Native Americans that they encountered from their earliest explorations,” Gillespie said of her research. “This interest and my work with the Isleños in St Bernard Parish led to an examination of interactions between Mexico, Cuba and New Orleans as part of my classes.”

She has been building a network of scholars across the humanities researching Gulf of Mexico cultures and their contacts with the Caribbean Basin. Her first goal for the Moorman Professorship is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and sustained conversations about cultures in contact in the region.

“This working group will practice collaborative scholarship and produce research projects for national and international conferences, and some of its members will participate in the culminating colloquium and educational materials workshop at USM,” Gillespie explained.

Funding from the professorship will also support Gillespie’s travels to archives with extensive collections on Gulf of Mexico communities, including the Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Hunterian Library in Glasgow, Scotland. She will develop digital resources to share these materials with scholars, teachers and students.

“Our understanding of how immigrant, enslaved and Indigenous people interacted with one another—and how these histories continue to shape the world we live in today—is a fascinating area of study for our students,” said Dr. Chris Winstead, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “We’re very pleased to have a scholar of Dr. Gillespie’s standing leading this project through the Moorman Professorship.”

Along with teaching and research at Southern Miss, Gillespie served as senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters from 2011-15 and associate dean from 2006-11. She has co-directed the Center for American Indian Research and Studies since 2015. Her academic accomplishments include serving as a visiting scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute 2022 at Adelphi University, and principal investigator for an NEH Digitization and Preservation Grant on civil rights history in Mississippi.

She also co-led the Mississippi Humanities Council Program Grant “Yakni Achukma Olka Achukma [Healthy Land, Healthy People]” and co-created “Tiger-Eagle Talks” for the Hattiesburg Public School District, a program that brought Southern Miss faculty to Hattiesburg High to offer simulated college lectures and learning experiences. Gillespie serves on the editorial board of Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, Michigan State University Press (2024-present) and has guest-edited Southern Miss’s The Southern Quarterly.

Former student Veronica Tempone studied under Gillespie in the university’s Mexico Summer Study Abroad program for Spanish teachers. “I felt compelled to continue developing my cultural, linguistic and pedagogical knowledge,” Tempone said.

“Dr. Gillespie is an exceptional teacher,” said Tempone, associate professor of Spanish at Indian River State College in Florida. “She has unparalleled subject matter knowledge in Hispanic culture and language and the Indigenous tribes of Mexico. She has an excellent rapport with her students, and her enthusiasm for teaching and research is palpable.”

Tempone recalls the program blended classroom learning with immersive experiences at Indigenous sites, churches, markets and festivals. “Dr. Gillespie shared her passion for the Indigenous populations with us, and it was humbling to learn from a true scholar and researcher,” she said. “I learned so much that summer that, even today, I still use some of the content in my college classes.”

A painting Tempone bought in Oaxaca depicts a street carnival she attended with Gillespie. “When I look at the bright colors and the uniqueness of this art piece, it reminds me of Dr. Gillespie in terms of her being a shining star in education and an inspiration to Spanish teachers,” Tempone said.

“I admire her so much and am grateful we are still in touch. She is humble, authentic, and dedicated, and deserves this honor. I’m excited to follow her project for this endowment and have no doubt it will be fantastic.”