The Society for the Study of Southern Literature Newsletter

SSSL has discontinued its digital newsletter. We are in the process of transitioning to a new tech committee format that will allow us to communicate with members across various platforms. If you’re interested in serving on this new initiative, please contact President Sherita Johnson. 

Past issues of the newsletter are archived here.

Volume 38, Issue 2, May 2005

From the Editor: Greetings from the Ozarks, one of those borderlands that postmodern thinking has made so popular to talk about. Fayetteville is not too postmodern but it is a city where South meets Midwest, where you find a columned mansion straight out of the Old...

Volume 38, Issue 1, December 2004

From the Editor: As we’re all well aware, one of the recent critical trends involves contextualizing Southern literature internationally, particularly with eyes looking southward toward Central and South America, including the Caribbean. To my thinking, such...

Volume 37, Issue 2, May 2004

From the Editor: Oh, how the South is changing. A few weeks ago I went to Milledgeville, Georgia to give a lecture on Flannery O’Connor at Georgia College and State University. During a very enjoyable weekend, I visited the O’Connor farm, Andalusia, which when...

Volume 37, Issue 1, November 2003

From the Editor: Well, we did it. The Society has gone digital. I think our new system, with the Newsletter being received electronically, represents a big step forward for us, giving us much more flexibility in terms of getting information out and about and in terms...

Volume 36, Issue 1, November 2002

From the Editor: Winter looms in the Ozarks, as we send along a new issue of the Newsletter. I want first to announce that we now have two new assistant editors, Lori Bailey and Renée Farmer, both of whom are outstanding graduate students here at the University of...

Volume 36, Issue 2, April 2002

From the Editor: Summer is now upon us, the heat and humidity rolling in. I love it. I mean, how you could be interested in Southern literature and culture and not appreciate one of the region’s defining characteristics? Climate matters. I lived in Finland for a year....

Past Newsletter PDF’s

Here is an archive of past newsletters in PDF format. Click on a link to download the Newsletter. Spring 2009 Fall 2008 Spring 2008 Fall2007 Spring 2007 Fall 2006 Spring 2006 Fall 2005 Spring 2005 Fall 2004 Spring 2004 Fall 2003 Spring 2003 Fall 2002...

Volume 56, Issue 1 June 2022

Volume 56, Issue 1June 2022 Note from the Editor Amy King We’ve been planning this issue of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature’s newsletter for some time! Please read below for important updates about the Society’s 2022 conference, rescheduled for June...

Covid-19

Volume 55, Issue 1 August 2021

This issue of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature’s biannual newsletter has two intertwined goals: first, to voice the ethical priorities of the Society’s 2022 conference; and, second, to inform members about conference logistics. Please read updates from SSSL President Gina Caison and Conference Program Coordinator Stephanie Rountree below. 

Volume 54, Issue 2 March 2021

How do we move forward when institutions relentlessly cause harm? While the contributions to this newsletter cannot offer a salve for all intersecting, ongoing harms, they do extend a chance to reimagine our personal and collective actions.

Volume 54, Issue 1 July 2020

These are not issues divorced from what we do in SSSL. As scholars who study the South — both the U.S. and the Global and all the iterations between and beyond — we know all too well the histories of disease, labor, disenfranchisement, policing, and racism are neither in the past (to come perilously close to quoting Faulkner in my first newsletter as President) nor mutually exclusive. Rather, they are mutually constitutive. Studying the literature and other cultural productions of the region requires a deft understanding of how to hold these things, along with many others, in view and make these issues legible for students and the larger public.