Center for the Study of Southern Culture
The mission of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture is to investigate, document, interpret, and teach about the American South. The Center emphasizes the interdisciplinary investigation and documentation of the South as a culturally, historically, geographically, and demographically complex region. At the heart of the Center’s mission is the academic program. Its undergraduate and graduate curricula incorporate traditional disciplines of the arts, humanities, and social sciences to form an interdisciplinary framework for studying the South. The Center promotes research on the South’s varied cultures by supporting the work of its faculty, staff, students, and visiting scholars. It offers to the public, as well as to the academic community, opportunities for increasing knowledge of Southern culture through publications, conferences, lectures, and archives. Because of its location, the Center focuses much of its work on Mississippi and the Deep South, while at the same time exploring the region as a whole, both in its American and global contexts.
Over the last quarter century the Center has become a focal point for innovative education and research on the American South, strengthening the University’s instructional program in the humanities, promoting scholarship on many aspects of Southern culture, and encouraging public understanding of the South.
