N.C.: A past mastered only by past masters?

As a nonacademic I’m unsure how to frame this question, but let me bumble ahead: Who these days is studying North Carolina as North Carolina?

Of the 23 U.S. History faculty at UNC Chapel Hill only Harry Watson and James Leloudis include North Carolina as a special interest apart from broader topics such as the South, civil rights and the Civil War.

Are there contemporary historians who still see the study of North Carolina as a calling in itself? Or have  Bill Powell and H. G. Jones retired that trophy?