{"id":6922,"date":"2013-11-22T00:27:05","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T05:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=6922"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:27:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:27:28","slug":"erginer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=6922","title":{"rendered":"As \u2018Southern Cultures\u2019 editor, Erginer reflects on milestone and looks to the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"erginer_450\"<\/a>As the journal \u201cSouthern Cultures\u201d celebrates 20 years in print at UNC, Executive Editor Ayse Erginer wants to meet the growing readership wherever they are.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been her experience that they don\u2019t all come from the same place.<\/p>\n

Erginer is a proud Southerner. Born in Rhode Island, she has deep family ties there on her mother\u2019s side. She also has family in Istanbul \u2013 her Turkish father came to America for postgraduate study. The family moved to the North Carolina Piedmont when she was 8.<\/p>\n

To some, she said, that doesn\u2019t sound Southern. But it does to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Turkish-American Yankee raised in North Carolina and consider myself Southern even though I have very different cultural influences,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t paint the South with a broad brush.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthern Cultures\u201d<\/a>\u00a0is Carolina\u2019s peer-reviewed quarterly magazine about the history and cultures of the American South. Each issue includes scholarly articles, memoirs, interviews, reviews, photography, poetry and more. Anchored at the Center for the Study of the American South (CSAS) and published by UNC Press, it serves classrooms, scholars, students, faculty and readers from all over the world who are interested in issues of the South.<\/p>\n

Erginer came to Carolina in 1987 and earned degrees in psychology and anthropology. She then headed to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., where she earned a master\u2019s degree in history with a concentration in American women\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, Chapel Hill was home. If people asked me where I was from, that\u2019s what I\u2019d say. I felt like I grew up here, and it took leaving North Carolina to realize how much I loved it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After New York, Erginer lived in Los Angeles, working for writers in television and film. She returned to Chapel Hill in 2002 to work on \u201cThis House Is Home,\u201d an art project and public-housing initiative at CSAS. When the funding ended, the center wanted her to stay. Since then, she\u2019s done every job there is to do at \u201cSouthern Cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like all my life and job experiences have led me here. I have a history degree, I have research experience, I\u2019m an editor,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I love the South. I\u2019m proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erginer and Deputy Editor Emily Wallace produce \u201cSouthern Cultures\u201d four times a year. Harry Watson, a history professor and founding co-editor of the magazine, and Jocelyn Neal, director of CSAS, serve as faculty editors.<\/p>\n

At its 20th birthday, the journal is thriving in a time when many journals struggle to stay afloat. As interest in studying the South grows, so has the journal\u2019s readership, which includes tens of thousands of online readers through Project Muse in addition to nearly 1,500 print subscribers. Readers can also download individual issues on most tablet readers.<\/p>\n

Loose Leaf, a new multimedia arm of the magazine\u2019s website, provides enhanced online content that reflects and comments on what is in print.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is intended to celebrate our new forward direction in our 20th year, when we\u2019re exploring more ways to meet people where they are,\u201d Erginer said. \u201cWe know readers like these short pieces that encapsulate topics of interest, and we want to extend and expand on content that\u2019s in print while ideally bringing in new readers who have found us through this readily shareable medium.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was for this new initiative that Erginer, Wallace, and their colleague Ashley Melzer recently joined journal co-founder and retired sociology professor John Shelton Reed as he set out to barbecue a goat as research for his next book. They brought a video camera and spent the day with Reed \u2013 and tasted the finished product.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is \u2018Southern Cultures\u2019 in a nutshell: On the day we receive an essay about Gulf Coast devastation, a very important issue for the South, we also have John Shelton Reed barbecuing a goat prepared for him by a halal butcher,\u201d Erginer said. \u201cAnd anything and everything in between.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contributing to Carolina\u2019s culture<\/h3>\n

All academic disciplines can be connected to the South, said Erginer. Everything from urban planning to anthropology, from history to marine sciences \u2013 they all can be studied through a Southern lens.<\/p>\n

The magazine\u2019s most recent issue commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. It included essays on topics like the birth of photojournalism at the Battle of Antietam and the struggle over history and memory in the pages of \u201cConfederate Veteran\u201d magazine, poetry from U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and Civil War remembrances from UNC\u2019s Southern Oral History Program.<\/p>\n

Erginer is currently preparing for the magazine\u2019s seventh music issue, which will be published in Winter 2014. Historically, it\u2019s a popular issue, Erginer said, and like all the theme issues, it is likely to be a gateway to a broader audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn outside readership finds us through special issues, like we\u2019ve done on music, photography, food and civil rights, important theme clusters that resonate with how people all over the world experience the South,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re always trying to reach more, to foster new scholarship, to feature young scholars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those young scholars are a big part of Erginer\u2019s mission at \u201cSouthern Cultures.\u201d The magazine\u2019s content is used in classrooms across the country, and the academic work of graduate students often makes it into the pages of the magazine. Erginer employs a group of work-study students as editorial assistants, with their names included in the masthead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take that mentoring aspect of the magazine very seriously,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is part of the way we give back to the University \u2013 we work hard to foster undergraduate work and prepare them for their careers ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolina faculty review essays, contribute their own scholarship and serve on the editorial board along with professors from across the nation. The magazine\u2019s proximity to such a variety of faculty has enriched its content. Erginer said she is still amazed to have such content as interviews with author Eudora Welty by Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History William Ferris.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a rich resource we have here!\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have world-class scholars who are also wonderful supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next 20 years<\/h3>\n

Looking ahead, Erginer can\u2019t envision a time when the magazine will run out of ways to explore and celebrate the South \u2013 even to complicate how we see it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot every magazine about the South wants to invite a complicated view. But, \u2018Southern Cultures\u2019 is tasked with uncovering, discovering and rediscovering what the South is and what Southern is,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re constantly asking those questions: Where is the South, what is the South, who is Southern and what makes somebody Southern?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to Erginer that \u201cSouthern Cultures\u201d continues to represent the way people live, and that means everybody who is a part of the South.<\/p>\n

It includes the American Indians who are native to the South and the Vietnamese who work on Gulf Coast shrimp boats, the Lebanese who settled in Mississippi in the 1800s and those who can trace their Southern heritage to the Revolutionary War, and cultures that experienced slavery.<\/p>\n

It includes Erginer, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us a while to define \u2018everybody,\u2019 and Southerners still don\u2019t necessarily agree on that,\u201d she said. \u201cIn exploring these questions about the South, we\u2019ve pushed those boundaries, and we\u2019ll continue to push them.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Courtney Mitchell, University Gazette<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the journal \u201cSouthern Cultures\u201d celebrates 20 years in print at UNC, Executive Editor Ayse Erginer wants to meet the growing readership wherever they are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3004,24,3005,36,39],"class_list":["post-6922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-south","tag-carolina","tag-southern-cultures","tag-unc","tag-unc-chapel-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46325,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions\/46325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}