Initial public presentations will be held at The Huntington Library in Los Angeles, California in the Summer of 2008, to be followed in Spring 2009 by a public symposium at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Ultimately a university press will publish the papers as a volume edited by conference organizers Michelle Nickerson, Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at Dallas and Darren Dochuk, Assistant Professor of History, Purdue University.

            During the two meetings held in anticipation of this publication historians will bring contemporary scholarship to bear on a geo-political entity first identified by political pundits forty years ago. Coined in the late 1960s by Republican strategist Kevin Phillips to describe the new alloy of conservatism that united voters across the southern rim of the country and held great promise for the GOP in national politics, the term “Sunbelt” has cemented itself into the American popular lexicon, even as some continue to challenge its use as an effective descriptor. Though sensitive to its potential misusage and aware of its contested currency in present-day politics, this symposium will challenge participants to think of the Sunbelt in historical terms as a region shaped subtly but appreciably by the exigencies of the post-World War II era. In this context the question of whether or not the Sunbelt exists will be eclipsed by questions of how and why it is assumed to exist, and toward what end for American politics and society.

        In this vein, contributors will be encouraged to showcase some of the latest methods and theories that help us understand the Sunbelt as a product of broader social, cultural, and political transformations. Indeed, the symposium’s intention will be to draw from exciting new histories and historiographies that explore geographies of power, growth ideology, corporatism and the state, migration flows, political and religious culture, race relations, energy and environment, law and order, tourism and leisure, and other forces that reshaped the nation’s southern crescent. Such a rich and diverse approach to the history of the Sunbelt will not only lead to a fuller explanation of how the values and priorities, institutions and interests of this region moved from the margins to the center of national power, but will also provide a venue for fruitful scholarly exchange across sub-disciplinary boundaries, those, for example, currently separating southern from western history.  

        Straddling the 2008 Presidential election and marking the fortieth anniversary of Phillips’ The Emerging Republican Majority, the Summer and Spring gatherings of “Sunbelt Rising”, as well as the published volume to follow, will surely garner widespread attention, both from inside and outside the academy.

     Participants include: