Housed in Barnard Observatory on the University of Mississippi campus, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture is the first regional studies center in the nation.  The Center pursues its mission to investigate, document, interpret, and teach about the American South through its undergraduate and graduate programs in Southern Studies, publishing, documentary work, and outreach events. Publishing endeavors include The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture , the recently published  New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and Living Blues magazine. Students pursue documentary work in the form of film, photography, and oral history, and the Center has photography exhibits year-round in Barnard Observatory.  Outreach programs include the Gilder-Jordan Lecture in Southern Cultural History, the Music of the South Concert Series and Symposium, the Future of the South Symposium, and the Oxford Conference for the Book. The CSSC houses two institutes and has one partner publication. Now in its 15th year, the Southern Foodways Alliance is a pioneer in the study of food as a document of people and place. The Southern Documentary Project (SouthDocs) tells the stories of the South through film, with students working alongside professional filmmakers in both classroom and independent study settings. Documentary studies are central to the Center’s work, with courses in photography, film and oral history. Center publication Living Blues Magazine, the nations’s premier blues magazine, has documented the ongoing story of the blues for 43 years.

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