A minor in southern studies immerses Coastal Carolina students in diverse perspectives on the American south. Not only is the south a complicated and rewarding field of inquiry, but it is also a key subject of regional interest considering CCU’s unique location and resources. The southern studies minor represents an excellent opportunity for students from across Coastal Carolina’s major and academic programs—from history, politics, and education to sociology, literature, and religion—to immerse themselves in the American south, and gain a better understanding of the region’s continuing centrality to understandings of “Americanness.”
While the minor is housed in CCU’s History Department, students have the opportunity to enjoy a truly interdisciplinary experience. The minor incorporates a range of approaches that respond to the region’s notably complex history: Native settlements and European “discovery” and colonization, a plantation economy supported by chattel slavery, the upheavals of the civil war and reconstruction, the imposition of “Jim Crow” and the rise of the civil rights movement, modernization, urban-industrial development and suburbanization. It also encourages students to investigate the richness of southern cultures—its literary, cinematic, political, religious, sociological, and even culinary traditions. To support this broad, interdisciplinary approach, students in the minor select their coursework from a range of faculty and courses across the university catalog. They are also encouraged to engage with related centers associated with the university and its surrounding communities, including the Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies.
The minor requires students to complete 18 credit hours of coursework. This work builds upon HIST 200: Introduction to Southern Studies, which serves as the minor’s mandatory foundation course. All other coursework is chosen at the student’s discretion. However, at least twelve (12) credit hours must be taken at the 300-level or above. Special topics courses deemed appropriate by the minor adviser can also satisfy minor requirements.
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