Political Science Professor to Appear on MSNBC's 'The Cycle'

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Angie Maxwell

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Angie Maxwell, the Diane D. Blair professor of southern studies and assistant professor of political science in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, will be a guest on MSNBC’s The Cycle Monday, April 28.

Maxwell will discuss her book, The Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority, and the Politics of Whiteness (New Directions in Southern Studies), which examines and connects three key 20th-century moments in which the South was exposed to intense public criticism, identifying in white southerners’ responses a pattern of defensiveness that shaped the region’s political and cultural conservatism.

MSNBC’s The Cycle airs at 2 p.m. (CDT) on weekdays. With topics as varied as politics, the economy, the media and sports, it is billed as a “topical, interesting and smart show hosted by an ensemble of MSNBC contributors.”

Maxwell will also be a featured author at the Arkansas Literary Festival. Her session is hosted by the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and will be held at the school at noon Friday, April 25. The 2014 festival began Thursday, April 24, and will run until Sunday, April 27. The Little Rock event is a project of the Central Arkansas Library System focusing on the development of a more literate populace.

Maxwell’s scholarship in The Indicted South exposes the way the perception of regional inferiority confronted all types of southerners, focusing on the 1925 Scopes trial, the birth of the anti-evolution movement; the publication of I'll Take My Stand and the turn to New Criticism by the Southern Agrarians; and Virginia's campaign of Massive Resistance and Interposition in response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Tracing the effects of media scrutiny and the ridicule that characterized national discourse in each of these cases, Maxwell reveals the reactionary responses that linked modern southern whiteness with anti-elitism, states' rights, fundamentalism and majoritarianism.

She is a co-founder of the Blair Center-Clinton School Poll, an election year survey that reveals national and regional voting behavior and preferences. She is the editor of the new edition of Ralph McGill’s A Church, A School and serves as co-chair of the Politics and Policy Caucus of the American Studies Association. Maxwell received a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of Arkansas and a Doctorate in American studies from the University of Texas.