Conference to Study Southern Culture, Identity

The conference, "Creating the Transnational South," was organized by the University Center for International Studies and is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The events, which began Thursday and will run until Saturday in Dey Hall's Toy Lounge, will include speeches and panel discussions by experts on Southern studies.

Rockefeller resident fellow David Camp, who helped organize the conference, said the conference is intended to address changes occurring in the South and the region's connections to the world.

Camp said it is targeted at people who are interested in the South, international studies or global relations.

"We want to bring together a diverse body of people that have something to say about the world we live in," he said.

The conference began Thursday with a keynote address by James Peacock, center director and Kenan professor of anthropology.

In his speech, titled "The South in a Global World," Peacock addressed issues including the definition of the Southern identity and how the region interacts with the rest of the world.

Peacock said the South's main identifying characteristic is, and has historically been, opposition.

"The South famously sees itself as opposed to the rest of the world," he said. "Southern identity may not even exist until it is opposed."

Despite this definition of Southern culture, Peacock said the region is becoming much more integrated in a global sense.

"The South is moving from an oppositional position nationally to an integrative one with a global framework," he said.

Graduate student Michal Osterweil, who attended Peacock's speech, said she has attended similar programs before because she is interested in globalization.

"Globalization is too abstract a concept unless we look at our region and how it fits into the world," she said.

But Camp said the topics to be addressed in the conference are pertinent to everyone, not just people interested in the South and international studies.

"We want to start a public discourse about the South and the changes we see in it," he said.

A listing of conference events is available at http://www.unc.edu/ucis.

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.