Personal. Public. Historical. The next issue of Southern Cultures is devoted entirely to Memory. . . . . . Why We Argue So Much About Robert E. Lee . . . Alice Walker, Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Spencer, Randall Kenan, and More Great Writers on our Favorite Films and What They Make Us Remember . . . Catfish Hunter: Baseball Legend, Small-town God . . . Life and Times: World War II–Era Appalachia . . . Growing Up in Hot Springs, Arkansas . . . New Poetry from Robert Morgan . . . What To Do About the Thomas Ruffin Statue . . . The Interview: "The Grandmother of Appalachian Studies" on the Long Women's Movement

This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture addresses the cultural, social, and intellectual terrain of myth, manners, and historical memory in the American South. Evaluating how a distinct southern identity has been created, recreated, and performed through memories that blur the line between fact and fiction, this volume paints a broad, multihued picture of the region seen through the lenses of belief and cultural practice. The 95 entries here represent a substantial revision and expansion of the material on historical memory and manners in the original edition. They address such matters as myths and memories surrounding the Old South and the Civil War; stereotypes and traditions related to the body, sexuality, gender, and family (such as debutante balls and beauty pageants); institutions and places associated with historical memory (such as cemeteries, monuments, and museums); and specific subjects and objects of myths, including the Confederate flag and Graceland. Together, they offer a compelling portrait of the "southern way of life" as it has been imagined, lived, and contested.

In the Winter 2012 issue of Southern Cultures… The Great Debate: NASCAR vs. College Football Undercover: Inside the World of the Debutante On the Backroads: Country Stores and the Days of Yore A Look at the Numbers: Race and Region in the American South and Beyond Autobiography: Cotton Milling in Alabama and Understanding Personal Identity in the South . . . and more. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

Southern Cultures: The Help Special Issue Volume 20: Number 1 – Spring 2014 Table of Contents Front Porch, by Harry L. Watson "Lauded for her endless gifts and selfless generosity, Mammy is summoned from the kitchen to refute the critics of southern race relations; cruelly circumscribed and taken for granted, she silently confirms them all." The Divided Reception of The Help by Suzanne W. Jones The more one examines the reception of The Help, the less one is able to categorize the reception as divided between blacks and whites or academics and general readers or those who have worked as domestics and those who haven't. Black Women's Memories and The Help by Valerie Smith "Cultural products—literary texts, television series, films, music, theatre, etc.—that look back on the Movement tell us at least as much about how contemporary culture views its own racial politics as they do about the past they purport to represent, often conveying the fantasy that the United States has triumphed over and transcended its racial past." "A Stake in the Story": Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Ellen Douglas's Can't Quit You, Baby, and the Politics of Southern Storytelling by Susan V. Donaldson "Like The Help, Can't Quit You, Baby focuses on the layers of habit, antipathy, resentment, suspicion, attachment, and silence linking white employer and black employee, but in ways that are far more unsettling." "We Ain't Doin' Civil Rights": The Life and Times of a Genre, as Told in The Help by Allison Graham "Perhaps because the modern Civil Rights Movement and television news came of age together, the younger medium was destined to become an iconographic feature of the civil rights genre." Every Child Left Behind: Minny's Many Invisible Children in The Help by Kimberly Wallace-Sanders "The question arises: wouldn't the mammy characters be rendered more believable in their altruism if it extended beyond white children to all children?" Kathryn Stockett's Postmodern First Novel by Pearl McHaney "Pleasure and anger are dependent on one another for heightened authenticity. Discussing The Help with delight and outrage seems just the right action." Not Forgotten: Twenty-Five Years Out from Telling Memories Conversations Between Mary Yelling and Susan Tucker compiled and introduced by Susan Tucker "I am glad she used what the women told us and made something different from it. She made people listen. I know it is fiction, and I know not everyone liked it, but she made people not forget. What more can you want?" Mason-Dixon Lines Prayer for My Children poetry by Kate Daniels About the Contributors Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 1: Religion

The Cruel Radiance of the Obvious, The 2011 Photography Issue Tom Rankin, Guest Editor Our second Photography issue features full-color photographs by William Eggleston, William Christenberry, and much more. CONTENTS Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "It requires very special talent to make great photographs, and those who have it are among our finest artists." The Cruel Radiance of the Obvious by Tom Rankin "Photography in its finest and most decisive moments is about those tired or ignored or unseen parts of our lives, the mundane and worn paths that sit before us so firmly that we cease to notice. It is, we might say, about rebuilding our sight in the face of blindness, of recovering our collective vision." American Studies by Michael Carlebach "Many years ago I concluded that for me truth and beauty, and perhaps wit and wisdom as well, are more likely to reside in what is ordinary and seemingly insignificant. This is, perhaps, a sideways look at America and American culture, but it is one that can produce moments that describe us all, but without makeup and bereft of a spokesperson." Mapping The Democratic Forest The Postsouthern Spaces of William Eggleston by Ben Child "When the color photographs of William Eggleston first appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, the boldness of Eggleston's palette and his disregard for the conventions of black-and-white photography were shocking; nearly all the major critics were scornful, and Ansel Adams wrote a scathing letter of protest." Stereo Propaganda by Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier "In this examination, magic and myth-two of my favorite vehicles-act as buffers to the dominant power structure. It brings together two bodies of collectibles, one personal and one commercial, with the intent of shifting stereotypes about race and southern culture." Interview "Those little color snapshots": William Christenberry interviewed by William R. Ferris "Santa Claus had brought me and my sister a small Brownie camera in the late 1940s, and I just loaded it with color film and went out to that Alabama landscape and began to photograph what caught my eye." Heroes of Hell Hole Swamp Photographs of South Carolina Midwives by Hansel Mieth and W. Eugene Smith by Dolores Flamiano "Mieth and Smith shared a belief that photography could bring social change. They viewed Pat Clark and Maude Callen as heroic healers whose stories would inspire racial understanding. Both photographers shot powerful images of the most visceral human experiences: birth, death, sexuality, and disease." Women Working by Susan Harbage Page "'Rough. It is rough being a female.'" Not Forgotten The Day Is Past and Gone Family Photographs from Eastern North Carolina By Scott Matthews "'It is in fact hard to get the camera to tell the truth; yet it can be made to, in many ways and on many levels. Some of the best photographs we are ever likely to see are innocent domestic snapshots.'" All eight articles from this issue of Southern Cultures are also available individually as stand-alone ebooks.