STARKVILLE, Miss.—Just in time for Mississippi State’s season opener in football—September 2’s MSU vs. Southeast Louisiana game—a veteran journalist at MSU is releasing an audio documentary looking in depth at the influence of the iconic university tradition, the cowbell.

Rose MacLean, associate professor of classics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, will be the featured speaker in Mississippi State’s Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures Distinguished Lecturer Series this week.

Joseph M. Thompson, a Mississippi State University assistant professor in the Department of History, shares the backstory of “Good Old Rebel”—a song written by Confederate veteran Innes Randolph—in his latest work featured in Project Muse, an online collaboration between libraries, publishers and worldwide scholars. Thompson’s article, “The ‘Good Old Rebel’ at the Heart of the Radical Right,” outlines the ironic popularity and circulation of the folk song by ex-Confederates and their supporters.

Julia S. Soares, a Mississippi State University assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, co-authored a 2021 report, Memory in the Digital Age, on the positive and negative aspects of technology’s implications on human memory, highlighting the decline of “muscle memory” because of over-reliance on technology.

Jesse Goliath, a Mississippi State University assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, shares his experiences in the field and how he learned to cope with gruesome scenes in his line of work on an episode of “Archaeology after Dark,” Alabama’s Archaeological Society’s podcast. The podcast episode is available on YouTube—“Ask a Forensic Anthropologist.”

Mississippi State’s Theatre MSU is hosting former student and Shakespearean and commedia clown actor Jarrod Bates on campus April 18-22 for a week of performances, acting lessons and lectures as actor-in-residence. Bates will present a hybrid lecture/comedy show—“Shaking Up Shakespeare: a comedic, radically irreverent resuscitation of the bard”—on Wednesday [April 20] at 5 p.m. on McComas Hall’s main stage. The event is free and open to the public.

A Mississippi State associate professor of history who specializes in Soviet/Russian history will give a lecture Tuesday [March 29], which is accessible as an in-person event—free and open to all—and as a simultaneous live-stream for online viewers.

Mississippi State’s Department of Biological Sciences is managing the largest amount of competitive federal funding at any time in its history and celebrating multiple major awards which are elevating research productivity and prestige.

A dozen faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences are receiving funds this year from the college’s Strategic Research Initiative programs -- SRIs -- designed to foster research productivity and achievement throughout the college.

The public is once again invited to Mississippi State to enjoy Science Night at the Museums on Saturday, Feb. 19. Hosted by the Museums and Galleries Committee, the free 5-8 p.m. event takes place in Hilbun Hall and the Cobb Institute of Archaeology. Masks are required in all campus buildings.