Associate Professor
Email Maria Lowe
Dr. Lowe graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio with a B.A. in Sociology, and she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her book, Women of Steel: Female Bodybuilders and the Struggle for Self-Definition, a development of her dissertation research, was published in 1998 by New York University Press. For her work on Women of Steel, Dr. Lowe was named New York University Press's "author of the month" in April 1998. Since the publication of her book, Dr. Lowe's area of research has changed considerably. She is currently working on a multi-year research project examining the role of Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi as a pivotal free space in the development of the Mississippi civil rights movement. For this work, Dr. Lowe has received a Funds for the Advancement of the Discipline Award (FAD) from The American Sociological Association and The National Science Foundation as well as a Sam Taylor Award funded by The United Methodist Board of Higher Education & Ministry. In summer 2003, Dr. Lowe participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute entitled "African American Freedom and Civil Rights Struggles" at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Lowe recently had a Brown Senior Fellowship from Southwestern University to continue work on the Mississippi movement project. Her most recent publications include “An ‘Oasis of Freedom’ in a 'Closed Society': The Development of Tougaloo College as a Free Space in Mississippi’s Civil Rights Movement, 1960 to 1964” in the Journal of Historical Sociology and “Civil Rights Advocates in the Academy: White Pro-integrationist Faculty at Millsaps College” forthcoming in the Journal of Mississippi History.
Courses taught: Social Patterns and Processes; Gender and Sexuality; Race and Ethnicity; and the Senior Research Seminar: Social Movements and Activism.
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