Kate Matheny
Kate Matheny

Hi! I’m the Outreach Archivist at Kennesaw State University, in the Museums, Archives and Rare Books department.

I am also currently the Editor of Provenance, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists, which is always looking for submissions. Reach us there at provenance@soga.org.

In addition to an MLIS, I hold a PhD in English. Before transitioning to librarianship, I was instructor of record for writing and literature courses, tutor of writing across the curriculum, and copy editor of online course content. I remain a scholar of literary and cultural history, particularly of the American South, and I’m also interested in public and popular history.

From 2012 to 2022, I worked in Special Collections at the University of Alabama Libraries, first in the digitization unit, then as outreach and instruction librarian.

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 Contact Me

Email: mathenykate [at] gmail.com

Bluesky: @katematheny.bsky.social

Teaching

Library/Archives Instruction

  • Archives and information literacy sessions for courses conducting primary research or using archival sources, including digitized items; this includes courses at all levels, in multiple departments across the humanities and social sciences

  • Internal sessions for archives staff and instruction librarians on using our digital archives explorer and public-facing archives database

Research Guides

Classroom Instruction — Composition & Literature

  • Kennesaw State University (2024-) — Honors Discovery (HON 2400) — topics thus far: Weird Medical History, Gothic and Horror Literature

  • University of Alabama (2005-2011) — Composition I and II (EN 101 and 102), American Literature II (EN 210) & Honors American Literature II (EN 220), British Literature II (EN 206)

  • Western Kentucky University (2004-2005) — College Writing (EN 100)

Tutoring

  • SOAR Institute, Shelton State Community College (2011-2012) — writing, grammar, study skills, literature, speech

  • Writing Center, Western Kentucky University (2003-2004) — writing, grammar

Research Activity

Information Studies/Archives

Publications

“No Mere Culinary Curiosities: Using Historical Cookbooks in the Library Classroom.” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 21, no. 1 (2020): 79-97. https://doi.org/10.5860/rbm.21.2.79.

“Instruction Consultation for Archives Visits: Why No One Talks About It, and Why They Should.” American Archivist 82, no. (2019): 484-507. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc-82-02-03.

"What Do Researchers Need: Feedback on Use of Primary Source Materials." D-Lib 20, no. 7/8 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1045/july2014-deridder. (With Jody L. DeRidder.) 

Presentations (Selected)

"The Manly Diaries and the 'College Servants' at the University of Alabama," paper presented at the Southern Archivists Conference, Montgomery, Alabama, 2018. 

"Can I Write from the Cat’s Perspective?: Lessons from an Archives-Based Narrative Writing Assignment," paper presented at Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference, Iowa City, Iowa, 2017.

"The Alabama Women's Lives Project: Mapping as a Discovery Tool," Digitorium, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 2016.

"Digital Exhibits Demystified," presentation to the Society of Alabama Archivists Annual Conference, Foley, Alabama, 2016.

Posters

"'College Servants' & the University of Alabama: A Case Study in Identifying Records of Enslavement in University Archives,” poster presented at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference, online, 2021.

“Listening to ‘Unlikely Voices’: Using Archival Documents to Teach the Constructed and Contextual Nature of Authority,” digital poster presented at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, 2019.

"Re-Framing Information Literacy for the Special Collections Classroom," poster presented at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 2017. (With Sara Maurice Whitver.)

"Go Local! Using Digital Archives as Alternative Textbooks in First-Year Writing," poster presented at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2013. (With Sara Maurice Whitver and Jennie L. Vaughn.)

Literature/Culture/History

Publications

“How Do Edutainment Podcasts Balance Learning and Diversion?: Case Studies on Medical History Topics.” Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 20, no. 2 (2022): 191-208. https://doi.org/10.1386/rjao_00059_1

“We All Cook by Ear: Plantation Cookbooks and the Paradox of the Written Recipe.” Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South 82, no. 1 (2021): 35-67.

“Cookbooks.” In The World of Jim Crow America: A Daily Life Encyclopedia, edited by Stephen A. Reich (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO/Greenwood, 2019), 294-296.

The Short Story Composite and the Roots of Modernist Narrative. (PhD diss., University of Alabama, 2012). https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/1392

Presentations (Selected)

“Humor in the Civil Rights-Era South: The Inexcusable Lightness of Elise Sanguinetti's The Last of the Whitfields,” paper presentation at the Southern Studies Conference, Auburn University - Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, 2019.

"The Complex Rhetoric of 'Soul Food' As Found in African-American Cookbooks of the 1960s through 1980s," paper presented at the Southern Studies Conference, Auburn University - Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, 2017.

"The Jazz Age in Parallax: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Thornton Wilder's The Cabala," paper presented at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, Louisville, Kentucky, 2016.

"Captain Confederacy and the Cultural Legacy of the 'Lost Cause,'" paper presented at the Southern Studies Conference, Auburn University - Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, 2016.

Special Projects

“The Elise Ayers Sanguinetti Digital Collection” (content curation, content digitization and description, literary context and analysis, digital arrangement and design).

Scholarly Exhibits

Major Artifact or Panel Displays

“Building a Legacy: Celebrating Black History at KSU,” Spring 2024, Kennesaw State University (curator; co-curated by Catherine Lewis and JoyEllen Williams, and designed by Mad Dworschak)

"Scientific Illustration in the Age of the Naturalist," Spring 2022, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“African American Foodways: A History in Cookbooks,” Spring 2021, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“Woman Suffrage in Dixie,” Spring 2020, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

"Emancipation, Reconstruction, and 'Redemption': Alabama, 1863-1877,” Fall 2019, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“Black Belt Alabama,” Fall 2018, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

"Of This Goodly Land: Celebrating Alabama's Bicentennial,” Fall 2018, University of Alabama (curator; co-curated and designed by Martha Bace)

“Trash or Treasure: When Southern Gothic Met the Pulp Novel,” Spring 2018, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“The Family You Choose: Documenting 30+ Years of LGBTQ+ Life at the Capstone,” Spring 2017, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“Over Here & Over There: Exploring the Music Scores of WWI,” Spring 2017, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“The First 150 Years: Student Life at the Capstone, 1831-1981,” Fall 2016, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“African-American Foodways: At the Heart of Southern Cooking,” Spring 2016, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“Saving the Universe One Panel at a Time: Heroes & Superheroes of the Bronze Age of Comics and Beyond,” Fall 2015, University of Alabama (curator; designed by Martha Bace).

Smaller or Temporary Displays

“Miss Lucy and the Mob: The First Desegregation of the University of Alabama,” January 2020, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

"Black Voting Rights, 1865-1965,” February 2020, University of Alabama (curator and designer).

“The Protestant Reformation 1517-2017: 500 Years of Faith, History, and the Arts,” October 30, 2017, University of Alabama (designer; curated by Lorraine Madway, Tricia McElroy, and Kirk Summers).

Collaborative Displays

“Natives and Newcomers: A Hidden History,” Fall 2017, University of Alabama (curator and designer; co-curated by Mairin Odle and the students of her American Studies course “Natives and Newcomers” (AMS 495/595).

“The Day in the Life of a Miner,” Summer 2017, University of Alabama (designer;, directing curators Ashley Tickle and Lewis Whilden of the Public History program, History Department).

“Breaking out of the Briar Patch: Joel Chandler Harris in Perspective,” Summer 2016, University of Alabama (designer; directing curators Meagan Morris and Rebecca Theus of the Public History program, History Department).

Digital

“The Huntsville Gazette, 1893: A Year in the Life of Black America,” Spring 2021 (curator and designer).

"Unrest: Two Weeks of Protest at the University of Alabama, 1970,” Summer 2020 (curator and designer).

“Woman Suffrage in Dixie” (digital version of physical exhibit, with added content), Spring 2020 (curator and designer).

"Emancipation, Reconstruction, and 'Redemption': Alabama, 1863-1877” (digital version of physical exhibit), Fall 2019 (curator and designer).

About Me

Biography

Once upon a time, I studied and taught English writing and literature, and I liked it a lot. I wrote a doctoral dissertation, which I’m pretty proud of, but I didn't feel like being a teaching professor and focused researcher was the right career path. Then I discovered the world of librarianship, where I could engage in a broader range of instruction and support activities, from reference and research consultation to instruction and outreach, and broaden my research horizons.

I have worked with students and instructors in a variety of disciplines, so that I'm still teaching but constantly learning about new aspects of history and culture. As an archives outreach librarian, I also work with researchers one-on-one and create learning tools and publicity materials for a variety of audiences. I strive to make materials accessible, especially to novice researchers, through instruction and outreach initiatives like exhibits. I'm passionate about opening up dialogues on even (especially!) the stickier aspects of American history.

I'm a Kentuckian (which makes me part Yankee and part Southerner), but I lived in Alabama for almost 20 years, and I now live north of Atlanta. In my spare time, I enjoy writing, listening to podcasts, playing video games, and knitting. 

Scholarly Background

I have a humanities background, with a PhD in English (UA, 2012). My areas of specialization were Anglo-American Modernism, genre theory, and narrative theory. But I have always been interested in Southern literature and culture, and that has been the direction my research has taken in the last half a dozen years, especially how Lost Cause ideology and racism manifest in popular culture like cookbooks, comic books, and tin pan alley-era music scores. I am also interested in the role of public and popular history in informal education, particularly podcasts.

I have eight years of classroom teaching experience, including courses in freshman composition, American literature, and British literature, as well as two years experience as a writing tutor, including work with ESL students and students in remedial English. 

I also hold an MLIS (UA, 2015), with coursework focused on public services, instruction, and technology. I have worked in academic libraries for a decade as faculty or professional staff, in addition to three years as a student employee.