Special Issue of Southern Cultures: Southern Things (Material Cultures)

Katherine Roberts Discussion
Type: 
Call for Papers
Date: 
April 10, 2017
Location: 
United States
Subject Fields: 
African American History / Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Indigenous Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies

Southern Cultures, the award-winning, peer-reviewed quarterly from UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, encourages submissions from scholars, writers, and artists for a material culture issue that we are calling “Southern Things,” to be published Fall 2017. We will be accepting submissions for this special issue through April 10, 2017, at https://southerncultures.submittable.com/Submit.

 

We seek 1,500–2,500 word essays related to a specific object that speaks to the many voices and experiences of southern lives. Those “Southern things” might possess the power of the canonical, in the form of objects that range from a Charleston single house to a beignet in New Orleans to a Catawba pot. Southern things, though, might also be unexpected and revelatory in the sense of a sun-warmed strawberry or a river-smooth rock or a frayed cardboard church fan. The heart of our enterprise is that southern identities are tethered to things, some fleeting, some enduring. Southern things can be affirming or subversive—but most of all they speak through their very materiality to the intimacy of southern identities.

 

We are especially interested in submissions that give voice to southern things in ways that are creatively adventurous and critically insightful. Voice is important. Submissions can be celebratory, raucous, or elegiac. We are looking for submissions that find big questions of small things. And we seek essays that ground their southern things in the universe of the senses. We welcome explorations of the region’s material cultures in the forms Southern Cultures publishes: scholarly articles, memoir, interviews, photo essays, and shorter feature essays.

 

Possible points of departure include archaeological artifacts, built environment, signage and public display, family objects, and craft and craftwork. The possibilities are endless, but the core element is that each submission proceed from the particulars of a specific Southern thing (for example, a drowned muscle car under a ruined piano on the street in McClellanville, SC, in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo).

 

As we also publish digital features, we are able to supplement essays with video, audio, and interactive visual content. We encourage creativity in coordinating print and digital materials in submissions and ask that authors submit any potential digital materials with their essay or introduction/artist’s statement.

 

We suggest authors gain familiarity with the tone, scope, and style of our journal before submitting. Those whose institutions subscribe to Project Muse can read past issues for free via http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/southern_cultures/ . To read our current issue, access our submission guidelines, or browse our content, please visit us online at www.SouthernCultures.org.

Contact Info: 

We suggest authors gain familiarity with the tone, scope, and style of our journal before submitting. Those whose institutions subscribe to Project Muse can read past issues for free via http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/southern_cultures/ . To read our current issue, access our submission guidelines, or browse our content, please visit us online at www.SouthernCultures.org.