His chief scholarly interests involve the study of the U.S. South from global, cultural-studies, and postcolonial perspectives to interrogate both American exceptionalism in American Studies and careless divisions between global north and global south in postcolonial theory. Smith is the coeditor of Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies and several special journal issues on the South. His work has appeared in American Literature, American Literary History, and other scholarly publications. He is currently working on a study titled (tentatively} "Alabama and the Future of American Cultural Studies."