Call for Papers: Southern Cultures Special 25th Anniversary Issue (Left/Right)

Southern Cultures, the award-winning quarterly of the UNC Center for the Study of the American South, is planning four special issues in 2019 to mark its 25^th year of publication. The four themes— Backward/Forward, Inside/Outside, Left/Right, and Here/Away—will highlight where the South is coming from and where it’s going, who’s included and who’s left out, how it’s changing and how it’s not, what’s near and what’s far. We’d like contributors to interpret these themes broadly and creatively, mixing serious interpretations of the South’s history, future, space, and politics with reimagined takes on what these tropes should mean going forward.

We invite submissions from scholars, writers, and visual artists for our Fall 2019 issue, Left/Right, through December 31, 2018, at https://southerncultures.submittable.com/submit .

Timed for the election season, Left/Right will explore and document the many undercurrents, challenges, and paradoxes of southern political life. Is southern politics changing? Is there still a “Solid South” and what does it look like? What are electoral politics in this era? Who is making themselves heard and how are they doing it? What will the politics of the future look like, and in what sense will it be southern? We’re looking for solidly grounded studies on major themes, speculations about what’s coming, reflections on the distant past or future, and snapshots of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We aim to break out of old frameworks and see the past and the future in new ways.

Submissions can cover any topic or theme related to southern politics, history, and culture. We seek pieces that examine the South across time, explore new understandings of the region and its peoples, identify current communities and concerns, and address ongoing struggles for justice and expression going forward. We welcome explorations of the region in the forms Southern Cultures publishes: scholarly articles, memoir, interviews, surveys, photo essays, and shorter feature essays.

Possible topics and questions to explore might include (but are certainly not limited to):

• Inequality
• Identity politics
• Gender and race relations
• Southern exceptionalism
• Grassroots, populist, extremist, and social justice movements
• Cultures of conservativism, progressivism, and moderation
• Religious politics/politicized religion
• Political art, media, and popular culture
• Gerrymandering and voter suppression
• The impacts of Citizens United
• Propaganda and “Fake News”
• Forerunners and legacies of the Trump Era

As Southern Cultures publishes digital content, we encourage creativity in coordinating print and digital materials in submissions and ask that authors submit any potential video, audio, and interactive visual content with their essay or introduction/artist’s statement.

We encourage authors to gain familiarity with the tone, scope, and style of our journal before submitting. Those with access to Project Muse can read past issues for free. To read our current issue and our submission guidelines, or browse our content, please visit www.southerncultu