Staff and Fellows
Staff
April Holm
- Associate Professor of History
Robert Colby
- Assistant Professor of History
Founder and Director, 2009-2020
John R. Neff
John R. Neff created the Center for Civil War Research in 2009 and served as its director until his death in 2020. He joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in 1999. With a research focus in Civil War memory, he was delighted to be invited to participate in the placing of a monument to the Eleventh Mississippi Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg National Military Park in 2000. His first book, Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation , appeared in 2005 from the University Press of Kansas. That year, he was also named the College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year, and in 2009 he received the Elsie B. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award. At the time of his death, he was researching the legacy of the Civil War in Chicago, a project he had tentatively titled City of Memory.
McMinn Fellows
The McMinn Fellowship was inaugurated in 2010 in honor of William A. McMinn. He was a lifelong philanthropist with roots in Mississippi. A businessman and community leader with a diverse array of interests, Bill McMinn consistently championed the importance of education and history. His generous spirit has benefited universities across the South.
The McMinn Fellowship enables doctoral candidates at the University of Mississippi to advance their dissertation research and encourages new scholarship on the Civil War.
2024-2025 McMinn Fellow: Matthew Lempke
PhD candidate Matthew Lempke holds the McMinn Fellowship for the 2024-2025 academic year. He is currently at work on a dissertation entitled “‘This may not be war, but rather Statesmanship’: Sherman’s March through Griswoldville, Milledgeville, and Greater Savannah.” First inspired by traveling through numerous towns in Georgia that Sherman did not destroy and by the general’s own animated rhetoric, Mr. Lempke’s research stands at the crossroads of current and emerging fields of scholarly interest. His writing emphasizes the centrality of Griswoldville and Milledgeville, as events in both communities set the trajectory for the entirety of the campaign.
