The 8th Annual Global American South Conference

Cities, Rivers, and Cultures of Change: Rethinking and Restoring the Environments of the Global American South (Register for free)

The 2014 Global American South Conference is presented by The Center for Global Initiatives, The Center for the Study of the American South, and The Institute for the Environment.

Profound shifts in the way we think, use and protect water, rapid immigration and demographic change (the ‘graying’ and ‘browning’ of the United States), and immense urbanization have made the American South a bellwether of environmental change for both America and the world at large.

Cities, Rivers, and Cultures of Change: Rethinking and Restoring the Environments of the Global American South aims to bring together graduate students, faculty, independent scholars, and a broader public audience to share current research that explore these themes from the point of view of 1) southern culture, history, and ethics, 2) efforts to restore natural and built environments, and 3) the implications and connections between changes to the American South and the inter-connected global environment in which we live.

This two-day conference is part of the ongoing exploration of the globalization of the southern United States that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been pursuing for over a decade. Each year this interdisciplinary conference focuses on a different theme to reveal the interplay of the global and the local, both the impacts of globalization on our region and the often surprising ways that local culture and experience influence distant communities and regions.

Margaret Palmer, director of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center at the University of Maryland, will deliver the Chandler Lecture in Southern Business History.