Book Release Celebration Held For MUW Professor

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)- It was a celebratory evening on the campus of Mississippi University for Women Wednesday evening as a book release celebration was held for one of the school’s professors.

Dr. Erin Kempker released her first book titled “Big Sister Feminism, Conservatism, and Conspiracy in the Heartland.”

The book highlights women’s politics in Indiana.

Dr. Kempker looks at the second-wave feminist movement and how conspiracy theories affected the political possibility of feminism in the state.

After over a decade of work, Kempker said she’s thrilled to release the book to the public.

“I wanted to know what happened to feminism in a Midwestern state like Indiana,” said Dr. Kempker. “I wanted to see what feminism looks like in a place outside of the east or the west coast, and when I started studying that, I encountered all of these conservative women who were opposed to feminism and their stories seemed really compelling too so I wanted to understand more about them as well. The book started out being about just the feminist side, but grew to be about conservatives and feminists, and the contested nature of women’s politics, so I didn’t start out to write this book. I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t studying conspiracy but that’s where that original research question about feminism led me.”

Dr. Kempker teaches history at MUW and is the chair of the Department of History, Political Science, and Geography.

In 2017, she was named Faculty Member of the Year.