We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge.

Today’s guest is Imani Perry, discussing her latest book South To America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line. Perry is a scholar of law, literary and cultural studies, and an author of creative nonfiction. She is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a faculty associate with the Programs in Law and Public Affairs, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Jazz Studies.

In South To America Imani Perry shows that the meaning of ‘American’ is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole. South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Follow Imani Perry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/imaniperry

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