Negative Space: southern culture
- The Abolitionists
- This is a fascinating look at how a tiny minority came to affect the course of a nation. The abolitionist movement was vocal, idealistic, principled, and their arguments irrefutable. But ultimately, nobody cared.
- The Civil War in Popular Culture
- Shelby Foote called the Civil War “The crossroads of our being” as Americans. Cullen writes that “officially, the Civil War ended in 1865, but culturally, it was just beginning.” The war’s meaning was at stake; if history can be said to be written by the victor, outside observers might find it hard to understand that the South lost the war.
- Sartoris
- Faulkner is the anti-Mitchell. While his books can easily be said to romanticize the old South, they can only be said to do so in the manner in which Algren romanticizes Chicago, or Fante romanticizes Los Angeles: the romanticism of lost souls and flawed humanity.
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- I don’t think you can fully enjoy any Southern civil rights work without having read “To Kill a Mockingbird.” All such works are written in the shadow of Harper Lee.
