2022-2023 has been a year of POSSIBILITY and RENEWAL at CSAS as the Love House was enlivened again by the voices and collaborative projects of students, faculty, and community. 

Thank you to our CSAS-affiliated students and faculty, spring 2023!

• Dr. Antonia Randolph, Black Feminisms Course, American Studies
• Dr. Jordan Lovejoy, Emerging Voices Scholar & ACLS Mellon Scholar, visiting professor 2022-2024, and the students of FOLK/ENGL 487: Environmental Storytelling in Appalachia and the American South.
• Dr. Anna Krome-Lukens and the Southern Futures First-Year Fellows
• The 2022-2023 class of Southern Futures Townsend Fellows 

Watch CSAS/Southern Cultures socials for these forthcoming issues of Southern Cultures  

• Summer 23 Black Geographies, coming in June (Guest Editor, Danielle Purifoy, UNC)
• Fall 23 Snapshot: Climate (Introductory Essay, Angel Hsu, UNC)
• Winter 23 Gothic South (Guest Editor, Kinitra Brooks, Michigan State)
• Spring 24 The Vote (Guest Editor, Errin Haines, The 19th)
• Summer 24 Sojourning (Guest Editor, Michelle Lanier, UNC; with Johnica Rivers and Alexis Pauline Gumbs)

This summer Blair L.M. Kelley, a noted scholar of Black history and the African American experience, joins CSAS as its new director. At UNC-Chapel Hill, Kelley is the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies in the American Studies Department. Look for Dr.Kelley’s latest book, Black Folk: The Promise of the Black Working Class, forthcoming from W.W. Norton.

It has been my honor and privilege to serve as CSAS’ interim director this past year.  I love CSAS  and its people more than I can express. Many thanks to the great students, faculty, and talented staff of CSAS:  Claire Beiter, Corban Davis, Ayse Erginer, Melody Hunter-Pillion, Seth Kotch, Jordan Lovejoy, Terri Yarbrough Lorant, Annie Lubinsky, Irene Newman, Susie Penman, Tony Royle, Hooper Schultz, Emily Wallace, and our former SOHP program manager, Sarah Wood and her dog Lila. I thank you for your passion, dedication, resilience, determination, and most of all, for your many kindnesses towards MCF.  Blair L.M. Kelley is a STAR!!! 

Marcie Cohen Ferris

The Center for the Study of the American South is a hub for interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and teaching about Carolina’s complex home region. We are committed to honest reckoning with the past and deep engagement with an evolving South. CSAS connects campus and community through public programs, an award-winning publication, regional outreach, oral history, grants, and fellowships. Our work is driven by innovation and inquiry. We thrive on creativity and collaboration.

Building upon a century of scholarship, the Center for the Study of the American South fosters southern vision and leadership to advance a better future for all. 

We connect communities to the most important conversations, resources, and movements across the South.