Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic, Gone with the Wind. The book and its characters are being celebrated and discussed around the world. From Atlanta to Calcutta, people have weighed in on why they like the book, how many times… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: GONE WITH THE WIND as Southern History
The problem with postracialism is that it doesn’t jibe with reality and, despite the best intentions of its advocates, it obscures and constricts the multifaceted nature of identity. Continue Reading Brian D. Behnken: Vanquishing Race by Banishing Words?: Ethno-racial Designations and the Problem of Postracialism
UNC Press author Kenneth M. Price recently uncovered a cache of 3,000 documents written and signed by American poet Walt Whitman at the National Archives. Continue Reading Whitman Scholar Kenneth Price Uncovers New Trove of Poet’s Documents
With April comes spring flowers, events marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and, in states across the South, celebrations of Confederate History Month. But if you’re serious about your commemorations, why not buy some Confederate hair? Continue Reading Remembering the Civil War with Confederate Hair
As we mark Loretta Lynn’s 50th anniversary in country music, I think it’s important to recognize her not only for her contributions to country music, but also for her role in women’s history as a troubadour for working-class women everywhere. Continue Reading When You’re Lookin’ at Her, You’re Lookin’ at History
When we read about Beyoncé‘s recent photo shoot in blackface, we asked for some historical insight from W. Fitzhugh Brundage, editor of the forthcoming book Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930 (July 2011). The book includes essays from sixteen scholars who depict popular culture as a crucial arena in which African Americans struggled to… Continue Reading W. Fitzhugh Brundage: Beyoncé, Bert Williams, and the History of Blackface in America
My students, and probably some friends and relatives, would be surprised to learn that I am a fan of southern hip hop. What, pray tell, would a 40-something white woman know and enjoy about music from the Dirty South? Well, to answer that I’d have to go back to the days of my youth. Way back. I’ve long been a… Continue Reading The Dirty South: Why It’s on MY Pop Culture Radar
We welcome a guest post today from David Stowe, author of the forthcoming book No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. In his cultural history of evangelical Christianity and popular music, Stowe demonstrates how mainstream rock of the 1960s and 1970s has influenced conservative evangelical Christianity through the development of Christian pop music.… Continue Reading David Stowe: Larry Norman, the Bad Boy of Christian Rock
As you know by now, Charlotte, North Carolina was selected to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and between Michelle Obama’s email announcing the decision and the national media’s comments on said decision, there’s a lesson or two in how the South continues to elicit both positive and negative statements about its character that are drawn from the same tired… Continue Reading The DNC and the National Media—Bringing Southern Stereotypes to a City Near You
The free market in housing works for many people, especially those with access to a good education, a stable job, adequate compensation, and decent health care. But not everyone has those things, and the Depression made us understand that it was not always because of personal failings. Continue Reading James Wolfinger: Home Sweet Home: Race and Public Housing in Philadelphia
We welcome a guest post today from Gregory Downs, author of Declarations of Dependence: The Long Reconstruction of Popular Politics in the South, 1861-1908, which we will publish next month. In the book, Downs argues that the Civil War created a seemingly un-American popular politics rooted not in independence but in voluntary claims of dependence. Faced with anarchy during the… Continue Reading Gregory Downs: Jared Lee Loughner, the Personal, and the Political
No sooner had I written the last blog post about representations of the South on reality television than another show made it to the air—TLC’s Bama Belles. It seems unlikely that “belle” is an appellation anyone would apply to women who don camouflage to hunt or are ready to start a bar fight. Still, the conscious decision by the show’s… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: For Whom the Belle Tolls
UNC Press author Karen L. Cox draws from some of my favorite not-so-guilty pleasures in a guest post about representations of the South in reality television and popular culture. Her forthcoming book, Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture, examines how entertainment, advertising, and the media construct a romanticized view of Southern culture that, until… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: The South…In Reality
Malinda Maynor Lowery, author of Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South, shares a personal Thanksgiving story over at FemCentral, the Virtual Institute for Women: “Ooh, I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with the Indians!,” joked a co-worker of mine one autumn afternoon in the late 1990s. He and I were crewmates on one of my short documentary films which discussed… Continue Reading Malinda Lowery on Giving Thanks in a Native Way
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