The Eudora Welty Book Prize Is Awarded to Casey Kayser of the University of Arkansas

Casey Kayser, assistant professor of English and director of the medical humanities program at the University of Arkansas, has been awarded the prestigious Eudora Welty Prize for her new book Marginalized: Southern Women Playwrights Confront Race, Region, and Gender (University Press of Mississippi, 2021).

Each year, the Mississippi University for Women and the University Press of Mississippi collaborate to award the Welty Prize for an outstanding work of literary scholarship on women’s studies, Southern studies, or modern letters in honor of MUW’s most famous alumna, writer Eudora Welty.

In contrast to other literary genres, drama has received little attention in Southern studies, and women playwrights in general receive less recognition than their male counterparts. In Marginalized: Southern Women Playwrights Confront Race, Region, and Gender, Kayser addresses these gaps by examining the work of Southern women playwrights, making the argument that representations of the American South on stage are complicated by difficulties of identity, genre, and region.

Dr. Kayser joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas in 2012. She teaches courses in literature and medical humanities. She also co-leads the Theatre in London Study Abroad program.

Dr. Kayser is a graduate of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Missouri and a Ph.D. in English from Louisiana State University