Reflecting the dramatic changes in southern society in the last twenty years, the South’s culture has been transformed. The increasing social diversity is leading to a multicultural society in which African Americans, Latinos, Asians, the white working classes, LGBT people, and others are claiming a new, dramatically different southern identity. In this SouthTalk, Charles Reagan Wilson explores how popular magazines have become a surprising carrier of this new identity to broad regional and national audiences.

Wilson is professor emeritus of history and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. He served as the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture (1998–2007) and the Kelly Gene Cook Sr. Chair of History (2007–15). He is the series editor of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, the coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and the coeditor of The Mississippi Encyclopedia (2017). Frequently interviewed by such media outlets as CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and southern newspapers and magazines, he has been an essayist and reviewer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Raleigh News-Observer. Most recently, he served as an Obama Fellow at the Obama Institute of Transnational American Studies at the University of Mainz, Germany.

SouthTalks is a series of events (including lectures, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions) that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public. This SouthTalk will take place in the back Courtyard of Barnard Observatory.