Overview

This provocative collection draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to shed light on the role that public ceremonies play in affirming or debunking cultural identities associated with the South. W.J. Cash's 1941 observation that """"there are many Souths and many cultural traditions among them"""" is certainly validated by this book. Although the Civil War and its """"lost cause"""" tradition continues to serve as a cultural root paradigm in celebrations, both uniting and dividing loyalties, southerners also embrace a panoply of public tituals - parades, cook-offs, kinship homecomings, church assemblies, music spectacles, and material culture exhibitions - that affirm other identities. From the Appalachian uplands to the Mississippi Delta, from Kentucky bluegrass to Carolina piedmont, southerners celebrate in festivals that showcase their diverse cultural backgrounds and their mythic beliefs about themselves. The ten essays of this cohesive, interdisciplinary collection present event-centered research from various fields of study - anthropology, geography, history, and literature - to establish a rich, complex picture of the stereotypically """"Solid South."""" Topics include the Mardi Gras Indian song cycle as a means of expressing African-American identity in New Orleans; powwow performances and Native American traditions in southeast North Carolina; religious healings in southern Appalachian communities; Mexican Independence Day festivals in central Florida; and, in eastern Tennessee, bonding ceremonies of melungeons who share Indian, Scots Irish, Mediterranean, and African ancestry. Seen together, these public heritage displays reveal a rich """"creole"""" of cultures that have always been a part of southern life and that continue to affirm a flourishing regionalism. This book will be valuable to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, American studies, and southern history; academic and public libraries; and general readers interested in the American South. It contributes a vibrant, colorful layer of understanding to the continuously emerging picture of complexity in this region historically depicted by simple stereotypes.

Full Product Details

9780817312275

Table of Contents

Reviews

A collection of articles articulating a stunningly intelligent comprehension of southern culture, this book models what true cultural studies should do: understand a culture according to how its people express it. . . .Essential. Â Choice

A collection of articles articulating a stunningly intelligent comprehension of southern culture, this book models what true cultural studies should do: understand a culture according to how its people express it. . . .Essential. &#151 Choice

A collection of articles articulating a stunningly intelligent comprehension of southern culture, this book models what true cultural studies should do: understand a culture according to how its people express it. . . .Essential. Choice An important contribution to scholarship. . . . One of the freshest and most stimulating interpretations I have recently seen of the American South.&#151Charles Reagan Wilson, author of Judgment and Grace in Dixie and Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture

Author Information

Celeste Ray is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and author of Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South.

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