In Keywords for Southern Studies, editors Scott Romine and Jennifer Rae Greeson have compiled an eclectic collection of new essays that address the fluidity of southern studies by adopting a transnational, interdisciplinary focus. The essays are structured around critical terms pertinent both to the field and to modern life in general.

The nonbinary, nontraditional approach of Keywords unmasks and refutes standard binary thinking—First World/Third World, self/other, for instance—that postcolonial studies revealed as a flawed rhetorical structure for analyzing empire. Instead, Keywords promotes a holistic way of thinking that begins with southern studies but extends beyond.

Contributions by: Erich Nunn, Keith Cartwright, Thomas F. Haddox, Leigh Anne Duck, Eric G. Anderson, Melanie Benson Taylor, Deborah Cohn, Martyn Bone, Coleman Hutchinson, Houston A. Baker, Steven Knepper, John T. Matthews, Michael Bibler, Sylvia Shin-Huey Chong, Briallen Hopper, Claudia Milian, Wanda Rushing, Anna Brickhouse, Eric Lott, Harilaos Stecopoulos, Jayna Brown, Matthew Guterl, Ted Atkinson, Natalie J. Ring, Suzanne Jones, Shirley Elizabeth Thompson