Southern Studies graduate students all look forward to the day they emerge triumphant from the little blue room in Barnard Observatory after defending a thesis or internship. The blue room is now named in honor of Dr. Charles Reagan Wilson, professor emeritus of Southern Studies and history and committee member on at least as many …
Category: Faculty
Dr. Jessie Wilkerson Wins Award for Best Dissertation
We’re excited to congratulate faculty member Dr. Jessie Wilkerson, who just won an award for her UNC dissertation, “Where Movements Meet: Women’s Activism in the Appalachian South, 1965–1980.” The Lerner-Scott Prize from the Organization of American Historians is awarded for the best dissertation in US women’s history. She accepted the award this weekend at the …
Director’s Column: Studying Peace and the South
In the Fall of 2015, there will be a Southern Studies special topics course on Peace and Southern Culture taught by Dr. Ted Ownby. Learn more about it here. The following post is taken from Dr. Ownby’s Director’s Column from the Winter 2015 Southern Register, where he discusses the origins of his idea for the …
SST and Sociology Professor Barbara Combs Explores Legacy of Selma
Many, including several of our Southern Studies students and alumni, traveled to Selma, Alabama earlier this month to be part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march. We hope to share their stories and photos on the blog soon. In the meantime,we recommend From Selma to Montgomery: The Long …
Listen to Dr. Jessie Wilkerson’s Brown Bag
In case you missed Dr. Jessie Wilkerson’s Brown Bag lecture last Wednesday, take a listen here. In her lecture titled “I’m a Southern, Farm Girl, Union, Democrat Feminist: Finding Feminism in the American South” she drew on oral history work done at the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. SouthDocs will be sharing more sound …
Wharton Photography Exhibit at the Ford Center
David Wharton, Assistant Professor of Southern Studies and director of Documentary Studies at the Center, has an exhibit of photographs up in the beautiful gallery space at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts. The photographs are taken from The Power of Belief: Spiritual Landscapes from the Rural South, forthcoming in late 2015. …
Porter Fortune Symposium to Examine Southern Religion, Honor Wilson
New Article by Dr. Combs Explores Race, Space, and Voter Suppression
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Southern Studies Dr. Barbara Harris Combs has a new article in Critical Sociology exploring the construct of place and its role in race relations, specifically recent changes in voting rights laws. Dr. Combs will teach a cross-listed African American Studies / Southern Studies course on Race, Place, and Space this …
Wintersession Course Explores Southern Music
More about the new Elvis biography by Joel Williamson
In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, Southern historian Joel Williamson, professor emeritus of the humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time.
Ted Ownby, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, wrote the foreword for the book, which is published by Oxford University Press.