Sideways, Backwards, and Queer: Toward a New Southern Studies

In this reflection I make two observations about the field of southern/American studies and one suggestion for further research.  I give some of my own background as a historian who works with interdisciplinary sources and methodologies, and discuss the ways in which historians and literary critics are suspicious of one another.  I also explore the ways in which the tasks of the cultural historian and the literary critic are similar, and how collaboration might lead to new kinds of scholarship.  I then offer a short critique of the field of American Studies, and the ways in which interdisciplinarity might have its own shortcomings. Finally, I use several recent examples of work in the history of sexuality in the American South to explore the limitations of historical methodologies, as well as the possibilities created by cross-disciplinary engagement.