BOO KS

‘From the very
beginning,
it wasn’t
supposed to be
just an academic
journal. We
wanted it to be
an academic
journal that
attracted general
readers.There
really wasn’t
anything else
like it
out there.’

Harry L. Watson
Southern Cultures’
co-editor and director,
Center for the Study
of the American South

The South’s Past, and Present,Tense

Take a bunch of academics and let the concept of “redneck,” professional them loose on the South, scrutiniz- wrestling and sorority rushes. (“As a labo-ing and opining on the region’s ratory of Southern womanhood, sorority foods, manner of speech, music, sporting rush is perhaps unsurpassed.”) preferences — its very identity, even. Such Along the way, Southern Cultures has an opportunity for ponderous throat-clear- grown not only in terms of subscribers — ing recalls E.B. White’s famous observation from several hundred in the mid-’90s to about another elusive topic: “Analyzing about 3,000 today — but also in stature. “I humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people think it’s played a pivotal role in producing are interested and the frog dies of it.” readable, thoughtful articles about the

Yet Southern Cultures, the quarterly South, a region that has shaped the culture journal of UNC’s Center for the Study of of the nation in so many powerful ways,” the American South, has been dissecting says William Ferris, history professor and the South since 1992, and so far the subject associate director of the Southern studies hasn’t died on the operating table. The center. “It fills a niche. The magazine for-journal brings a lively, sometimes contrar- mat doesn’t allow for longer, more ian take to its area of study, combining aca- thoughtful pieces, which Southern Cultures demic rigor and a welcome accessibility. is able to do. The University of North Car-Consider two recent articles. A piece by olina has really pioneered the study of the a visiting professor to Vietnam relates his South for more than a century, and our experience teaching Gone With the Wind to center, along with the journal, is the most students who “understood intimately the recent chapter in that history.” experience of survival in the cauldron of The Center for the Study of the Ameri-defeat.” The cover story from the summer can South and Southern Cultures have grown 2006 issue examined how tobacco compa- up together. The UNC System Board of nies in the 1930s and 1940s promoted Governors established the center in 1992, beauty contests as a way of reviving tobacco with John Shelton Reed, the noted UNC farming and the industry as a whole. sociology professor and longtime scholar of Accompanying photos from state archives the South, as its first director. Watson says show that, despite this occurring in a cul- Reed came up with the idea of a journal turally and religiously conservative region, dedicated to the study of the region. the contests featured quite scantily clad “After the center came into existence, I contestants; one photo shows a demure think he got a flier in the mail — soliciting young woman who appears nude except the idea of doing a journal on the South,” for tobacco leaves placed in strategic areas. said Watson, a history professor at Chapel

DAN SEARS ’ 74

“From the very beginning, it wasn’t Hill since 1976. “So he called some of us supposed to be just an academic journal,” together and asked if we were interested, said Harry L. Watson, Southern Cultures’ and we were, but we wanted to publish it co-editor and director of the center, in an ourselves. We wanted it to be an academic interview in the center’s new digs, the quarterly that would be peer-reviewed, so refurbished Victorian-era Love House on that scholars would publish their materials East Franklin Street. “We wanted it to be there. We really didn’t have any money, so an academic journal that attracted general we had to get people who would write for readers. There really wasn’t anything else free. Scholars will write for free if you can like it out there.” guarantee them that the venue is respect-

Southern Cultures: The 15th Anniversary able enough that they can put the article Reader, being published in April by UNC on their c.v. Press, illustrates this point. The topics in 27 “We didn’t want it to be just a magazine, articles range from kudzu, horses as “equine like the Oxford American. We basically called relics” of the Civil War, the Southern all our friends and basically said, ‘This is what accent, the role of the hog, the history of we’re doing. Can you send us an article?’We

Harry Watson in the elegant new home of UNC’s Southern studies programs, the refurbished Love House on East Franklin. Southern Cultures started slowly but stuck to its original idea of taking the region seriously but not stodgily.