The Past Is Not Dead

by Chambers, Douglas B.; Watson, Kenneth; Prenshaw, Peggy Whitman

• ISBN13: 9781617033049
• ISBN10: 1617033049
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

The Past Is Not Deadis a collection of twenty-one literary and historical essays that will mark the 50th anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. Like its companion volume, Personal Souths, The Past Is Not Deadfeatures the best of the work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s. Topics covered range from historical essays on the French and Indian War, the New Deal, and Emmett Till's influence on the Black Panther Party to literary figures including William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers. Important regional subjects like the Natchez Trace, the Yazoo Basin, the Choctaw Indians, and Mississippi blues are given special attention. Contributors range from noted literary critics such as Margaret Walker Alexander, Virginia Spencer Carr, Susan V. Donaldson, James Justus, and Willie Morris to scholars of African-American studies such as Robert L. Hall and Manning Marble and historians including John Ray Skates, Martha Swain, and Randy Sparks. Collectively, the essays in this volume enrich and illuminate our understanding of southern history, literature, and culture.

Author Biography

Douglas B. Chambers is the former editor of the Southern Quarterly (2005-2011) and associate professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is also the author of Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia. Kenneth Watson is the former associate editor of the Southern Quarterly (2005-2011) and associate professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw is a former editor of the Southern Quarterly (1974-1991), Millsaps College Humanities Scholar-in-Residence, and Fred C. Frey Professor Emerita, Louisiana State University, and is the series editor for the University Press of Mississippi's Literary Conversations Series.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: The Southern Quarterly and Southern Studies The Voice of Humane Learning	p. xv
1960s
Levee Building and the Settlement of the Yazoo Basin	p. 3
From Enchantment to Disillusionment A Southern Editor Views the New Deal	p. 22
Some Mississippi Views of American Federalism, 1817-1900	p. 37
1970s
"Harmony with the Dead" James Dickeys Descent into the Underworld	p. 61
Pat Harrison and the Social Security Act of 1935	p. 75
The Southern Belle as an Antebellum Ideal	p. 87
A Sense of Place and the Americanization of Mississippi	p. 100
1980s
Cable's The Grandissimes
A Literary Pioneer Confronts the Southern Tradition	p. 113
Southern Writers
Notes Toward a Definition of Terms	p. 123
"Tough Times" Downhome Blues Recordings as Folk History	p. 129
The Black Faith of W. E. B. Du Bois Sociocultural and Political Dimensions of Black Religion	p. 149
Subverting History Women, Narrative, and Patriarchy in Absalom, Absalom!	p. 167
1990s
On Welly's Use of Allusion
Expectations and Their Revision in "The Wide Net," The Robber Bridegroom, and "At The Landing."	p. 183
Natchez and Richard Wright in Southern American Literature	p. 208
The Mississippi Frontier in Faulkner's Fiction and in Fact	p. 212
Unlinking Race and Gender The Awakening as a Southern Novel	p. 227
2000s
"When Is an Ocean not an Ocean?" Geographies of the Atlantic World	p. 241
The Southern Way of Death The Meaning of Death in Antebellum White Evangelical Culture	p. 272
Africa and the American South Culinary Connections	p. 291
Harriet Jacobs at Home in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl	p. 324
James Agee, Walker Evans, and the Dialectic of Documentary Representation in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men	p. 342
List of Contributors	p. 361
Index	p. 363
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