Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics & Society

Defining the South in the 21st Century

People

Angie Maxwell, Ph.D.

Director of the Diane D. Blair Center for Southern Politics and Society, Professor of Political Science

Dr. Angie Maxwell is the Director of the Diane Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society and is the Diane D. Blair Associate Professor of Southern Studies in the Political Science Department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas, Austin, and is the co-chair of the Politics and Policy Caucus of the American Studies Association.

 

She has authored The Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority, and the Politics of Whiteness (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) which won the V. O. Key Award for Best Book in Southern Politics and co-authored The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019). She is also the co-editor of Unlocking V. O. Key, Jr.: Southern Politics for the Twenty-first Century (University of Arkansas Press, 2011) and The Ongoing Burden of Southern History: Politics and Identity in the Twenty-first Century South (Louisiana State University Press, 2012), and the editor of the new edition of Ralph McGill’s A Church, A School (University of South Carolina Press, 2012). Her articles have appeared in Southern Cultures, Presidential Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Black Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Race and Social Problems, Politics, Groups, and Identities, Social Science Quarterly, and The Southern Quarterly.

Najja K. Baptist, Ph.D.

Diane D. Blair Professor of African & African American Studies, Assistant Professor of Political Science

 

Dr. Najja K. Baptist is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville. He earned his doctorate in political science from Howard University and his work has appeared in numerous journals, such as National Political Science Review; Journal of Race and Ethnicity; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and other outlets. Dr. Baptist’s work is primarily focused on Black politics, social movements, culture, political behavior, public opinion, and mass media in the United States. My project examines how the current president engages with Congress members, specifically southern Congressional Black Caucus women of color. He is also a two-time NSF grant awardee.

 

 

 

Alejandra Campos, Ph.D.

Diane D. Blair Professor of Latino Studies, Assistant Professor of Political Science

 

Dr. Alejandra Campos completed her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and has returned to the University of Arkansas where she earned her MA in Political Science and BA in Political Science and Spanish. Dr. Campos’s research interests include American politics, Latinx/o/a politics, elections and participation, legislators and behavior, immigration and politics, and experimental design, measurement, and scaling. Her research focuses on voting costs and democracy, particularly examining their effects on minority candidate emergence and the consequences of the 2013 Shelby County decision.