#southernsyllabus
south: a scholarly journal invites submissions for a special issue on southern studies, pedagogy, and activism, guest edited by David A. Davis, to be published in Fall 2018.
Many scholars have responded to recent crises in the South through public pedagogy. After Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri, the hashtag #fergusonsyllabus began to circulate as scholars worked to contextualize and situate the events unfolding near St. Louis.
A year later, after Dylann Roof brutally shot and killed nine people at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the hashtag #charlestonsyllabus emerged, eventually leading to a book of readings about the roots of racial antipathy in the South. After the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this summer, #charlottesvillesyllabus appeared as scholars traced the histories of the “lost cause” ideology underlying contemporary white supremacy and its 21st-century iteration.
This special issue will address how scholars teach about the South as a site of social unrest. We seek position papers that describe pedagogical techniques and methodologies, consider our obligations to our students, and interrogate our scholarly contributions to social justice discourse. The papers in this issue will explore teaching as activism and activism as teaching.
Some topics for discussion might include:
- Strategies for historicizing and contextualizing the culture and histories of white supremacy and its effects on current events
- Approaches to teaching controversial topics, such as lost cause iconography, racial unrest, or fascism
- Methods for creating space for open discussion of necessarily difficult topics
- Ideas for public pedagogy, social outreach, or media contributions to teach beyond the classroom
- Ways to empower students to understand the South and to advocate for social change
- Techniques for experiential learning that engage students in service programs, internships, or research projects related to southern social justice issues
- Suggestions for incorporating political activism into the academic space and the ways scholars/teachers might be able to tie such activism with historical precedent
- Considerations of free speech and public dissent inside and outside the classroom in the Trump presidency
Please submit 2,500 to 3,000 word (10-12 pp.) position papers by May 1st, 2018 to our online submissions manager. See our guidelines for submissions for our editorial preferences.