English Faculty Begin Journal's Third Year Responding to Literary, Cultural Globalization
Written by Edwin Smith
09/15/2009
http://news.olemiss.edu/index.php/Ole-Miss-News/News-Releases/The-Global-South.html
OXFORD, Miss. - A scholarly movement addressing the impact of globalization on Southern societies around the world continues at the University of Mississippi with the research journal The Global South beginning its third year of publication. The interdisciplinary journal, started in 2007 by faculty in UM's Department of English, is published once each semester by Indiana University Press. It focuses on how world literatures and cultures respond to globalization.
The journal's editor, Adetayo Alabi, UM associate professor of English who teaches courses in Caribbean, African and African-American literatures, said the university is the ideal locale for the journal's headquarters.
"Being a major university in the South, we're located where the action is," Alabi said. "Also, having the Center for the Study of Southern Culture here on campus fits very well with what we do. The two entities complement each other well."
"Having The Global South (journal) here has helped put the university at the center of an important scholarly movement that studies the American South from multiple and transitional perspectives," said Ted Ownby, CSSC director. "Taking a global perspective is part of a movement that involves new conferences, new courses and new ways of teaching, along with some inspired and exciting recent scholarship."
Addressing such themes as the environment, poverty, immigration, gender, race, hybridity, cultural formation and transformation, colonialism and post-colonialism, and transatlantic encounters, the journal has experienced rapid readership growth. Each peer-reviewed volume logs approximately 1,700 subscribers to either its online or print version.
"Since assuming sole editorship of The Global South, Professor Alabi has kept the journal on the cutting edge of academic scholarship," said Ivo Kamps, UM chair and professor of English.
Other members of the journal's staff include Assistant Professor of English Sarah Lincoln, who serves as assistant editor, and graduate assistant James Christopher O'Brien of Memphis, who works as an editorial assistant.
Advisory editorial board members include faculty at the University of New South Wales, University of London, University of Macau, University of Nottingham, Delhi University, University of Wollongong and University of Western Australia, as well as those at several state and private universities in the United States.
Alabi said that from the North American South to the European South, Latin and Central America, Africa, Asia and Australia, the various Souths share comparable experiences that differentiate them from mainstream cultures.
"Findings indicate that while expansion and trade are generally beneficial for those living outside the South, those in the South don't always get the best of the pie," he said.
For example, globalization directs mass production of items manufactured by various industries, a change that usually causes the production of materials indigenous to the local citizenry to significantly dwindle, Alabi said. In another instance, the influx of textiles from China into Nigeria has adversely affected that country's own textile industry.
"The research shows that many of the Souths have not had a completely positive experience of globalization," Alabi said. "While they may not necessarily share a common wealth, they do intersect over various issues of marginalization and inadequate access to means of production and amenities under globalization.
For more information, call Alabi at 662-915-6948 or visit http://inscribe.iupress.org/loi/gso/
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