Dr. Joseph Peterson
Associate Professor
Bio
Joseph Peterson is a historian of Modern France and its empire, with an interest in the themes of religion, race, and incarceration. At USM, he teaches courses in World and European history. He is also the founder and director of the Mississippi Prison Arts and Education Project and has spent hundreds of hours visiting and teaching inside Mississippi correctional facilities.
Book: Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France and Algeria (Oxford UP, 2022) Open Access version: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/103173
Selected Publications:
"Reading The Road in South Mississippi," (Rooted Magazine, May 2025). https://rooted.substack.com/p/reading-the-road-in-south-mississippi
鈥淗onor, Excrement, Ethnography: Colonial Knowledge Between Missionary and Militaire in French Algeria,鈥� (Journal of Modern History, March 2021).
- PHD - Yale University (2017)
- MA - Clemson University (2010)
- BA - Bob Jones University (2007)