Faculty Profile
Willa Johnson
Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
Phone Number:
Email: wjohnson@olemiss.edu
http://socanth.olemiss.edu/2011/12/willa-m-johnson/
Key Words: Hebrew Bible, Judaism, Holocaust, Holocaust art, Religion and Holocaust, Holocaust in France
Research Description: Willa Johnson is a Hebrew Bible scholar who has expanded her scholarly work to include other aspects of Jewish history, most notably the Holocaust. She has published a book titled, The Holy Seed Has Been Defiled: The Interethnic Marriage Dilemma in Ezra 9-10 (Sheffield-Phoenix Press, 2012), introduced the book of Esther in The People’s Choice Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Fortress Press) and contributed chapters to The Africana Bible (Fortress Press, 2010). She has received two grants from the Association for Jewish Studies for campus and community programing. Her current research is on Karl Schwesig’s Holocaust art, the Holocaust in Southern France and the Holocaust and religion in France. She was the 2013 Cummings Foundation Fellow at Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for the Advanced Study of the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and the 2010 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the International Institute for the Advanced Study of the Holocaust at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. She is tenured in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and teaches courses titled: Judaism and Religious Ethnic Identity, Social Contexts of Holocaust Art, Genocide and Women and the Sociology of Disability.
Honors Theses:
Watson, Michaela Maria Gouge (2020) "We Missed Our Youth": The Identity Formation of Child Migrants, Refugees, and Jewish Children in France From 1940 to 1942 (full text)
Poiroux, Stephanie (2019) More than Altruism: An Examination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Involvement in the Chicago Campaign and Protest of the Vietnam War (full text)
Coon, Allen (2018) A Past Never Past: An Analysis of Slavery and Reparation at the University of Mississippi (full text)
Available Research Projects:
Holocaust art as history: A visual sociological analysis of Karl Schwesig's artworks
Project Description: The study has two objectives: 1.) To analyze a body of artworks created by Düsseldorf artist,Karl Schwesig,to understand what these works teach us about life in three French concentration camps (St. Cyprien, Gurs and Noé); and prewar Düsseldorf; 2.)To assess the value of visual works as empirical, historical data.
Desired Student Qualifications: Interest in 20th century art, the Holocaust in Germany and France
Project Timeline: Completion April 2015
Duties of Student Researcher: Examine historical documents from the period which requires an ability to read and translate documents in French and German
Last Updated on 2014-09-05 13:35:14