Episode Twelve: Environmental Tell-All

Gina Caison October 12, 2018

This week, we’re back in Boone — well, Banner Elk — North Carolina. We sat down with Zackary Vernon, an assistant professor in the Department of English at Appalachian State University. Zack has lived in Boone for three years and chronicled his early days in the high country in the essay, “Adventures of a Bad Environmentalist.” The piece was published in the North Carolina Literary Review and won the first Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize. We talked with Zack about what it means to be an environmentalist and the problematic nature of environmentalism.

Banner Elk, Boone, West Jefferson, and Blowing Rock, all nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, comprise the “high country” of southern Appalachia. Each town in the high country has a different population and a different feel, from wealthy second homers and retirees to ski resorts and financially challenged college students.

When Zack moved to Boone, he was excited to live among nature, have a small farm, raise chickens, and the like. Environmentalism sounded good, but it turned out to be much messier and far less idyllic than Zack had imagined. In environmental circles, Zack says, there’s a tendency to romanticize oneness with nature. That all wore off when he found himself playing judge, jury, and executioner of the creatures around him.

Zack Vernon, admitted “bad environmentalist”

Zack reads from his piece, “Boone Summer: Adventures of a Bad Environmentalist.” He ruminates on his somewhat eccentric neighbor, Larry, and the feces-filled realities of being a good environmental steward.

After the reading, Gina and Zack discuss his forthcoming environmental tell-all book, in which Zack pulls the curtain back on how messy and uncomfortable environmentalism is. “Sometimes it feels like you’re violating your most basic principles in order to live this principled life you envisioned for yourself,” he says.

Sound Note: There is a small sound glitch around minute 20:45 of this episode. We apologize for this hiccup in the original recording. Sometimes computers fail us. Zack says, “We see no tracks in the garden, but there is a pile of shit out in the garden.”

Episode Eleven: ᏙᎯᏧ

Gina Caison October 5, 2018

In this episode, Gina visits Dr. Ben Frey, a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and a professor in the American Studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ben talks about the current state of the Cherokee language and revitalization efforts in North Carolina. As Cherokee is the only surviving language in the Southern Iroquoian language family, it is remarkably unique. The Cherokee language is only about as similar to its nearest linguistic relative as English is to Russian. Ben discusses the importance of the language not only linguistically, but also as a tool to view his peoples’ knowledge about how to live in harmony with one another and the world.

Ben Frey started a Cherokee language coffee hour at UNC.

The language is spoken by the three federally recognized nations of the Cherokee people: the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in present-day North Carolina, the Cherokee Nation in present-day Oklahoma, and the United Keetoowah Band also in present-day Oklahoma. Because of historical bias against Indigenous languages, the Cherokee language is endangered with approximately only 12,000 Cherokee speakers remaining across over 300,000 Cherokee citizens. Only 230 members of the Eastern Band speak the language. Many of the speakers are over the age of 65, and the language has not been passed on to younger generations. Although the language is publicly visible on street signs, store signs, and pottery, it is rarely spoken in public life.

Ben emphasizes the connection between the Cherokee language and the Cherokee people. He describes how his Cherokee elders posit that all things are endowed by the Creator with a particular vibration, and the Cherokee language is the vibration given to the Cherokee people as the sound with which they are supposed to vibrate. To him, that sound feels particularly southern, and it is tied to a specific place: the southern Appalachians, which are meant to echo with the sound of the Cherokee language.

Street Sign in Cherokee, NC | Photo by Billy Hathorn via Wikimedia Commons

Ben then turns to a discussion of current revitalization efforts. In both current-day Oklahoma and North Carolina, Cherokee people have created language immersion schools with the goal of exposing infants as young as six months old to the Cherokee language eight hours a day, five days a week. It began as a childcare program and developed into New Kituwah Academy in North Carolina. As the children have grown, the schools have added grades, teaching students all of their academic subjects in the Cherokee language. The immersion school in North Carolina recently graduated its first class of sixth graders, and the school in Oklahoma recently graduated its first class of high schoolers. Ben would like to encourage those high schoolers to come study with him at UNC Chapel Hill, offering “ᏙᏳᏛ ᎠᎭᏂ ᏤᏓᏍᏗ ᎠᏆᏚᎵ.”

Ben notes that although the language is endangered today, it wasn’t always that way. It was spoken regularly for over 14,000 years. As late as 1955 half of the community in Big Cove spoke the Cherokee language at home. He wonders how we might move beyond Anglo-centric bias to create a world where understanding Cherokee is meaningful and useful.

Ben urges both Cherokee people and non-Native speakers who would like to learn Cherokee to consider their motivations. Particularly because the language is endangered, studying it can be depressing or feel like an obligation, and for Indigenous people, it may bring up negative feelings about contemporary and historical traumas, but Ben encourages language learners to find their joy. And he suggests that non-Cherokee learners ask themselves what they can bring to the community as a language learner. He also urges those learning the language to set a small goal and develop a habit — to learn a few phrases and try to order a cup of coffee knowing that they will make mistakes, but understanding that they can laugh at these mistakes.

Ben Frey who will be translating Drake’s latest album into ᏣᎳᎩ.

We close this episode with a discussion of what Ben loves about the language and why he thinks the Cherokee language is important. He uses the phrase ᏙᎯᏧ to illustrate how the language creates and shapes relationships between people. Although this phrase might be translated into English as “how’s it going?,” the word ᏙᎯ means peace, slowness, and restfulness. The shift in emphasis in the Cherokee phrase marks a different kind of relationship between people.

Ben asserts that learning the Cherokee language is important because it gives us “a tool to view how our ancestors knew that they were supposed to live in the world.” He emphasizes that Indigenous cultures worldwide lasted for as long as they have and are still here because they were doing something right. That knowledge is encapsulated in Indigenous languages, and by caring for these languages, we care for this knowledge. In an era of climate change, hurricanes, deforestation, and violence against one another, Ben suggests that the whole world might benefit from learning Indigenous ways.

We would like to thank Ben for his time, and Mr. Ed Fields for all of his wonderful language work and his “Cherokee glasses.”

** During this episode, Ben discusses briefly the problematic term “Cherokee Princess,” noting that the term “Cherokee Princess” should set off alarm bells when we hear it because the Cherokee people do not have royal families. Furthermore, the etymology of the term might very well emerge from a time when Cherokee women were kidnapped and sold into sex slavery by people who “marketed” them as “Cherokee Princesses.” The term implies that one might have been forced into sex slavery, part of a history of violence against indigenous women which persists today, as indigenous women are disproportionately reported missing or murdered in both the United States and Canada.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Database: https://www.mmiwdatabase.com

Episode Ten: Theater Everywhere

Gina Caison September 28, 2018

We made the decision as an editorial team to remove the episode “Theater Everywhere" from our feed given the disturbing accounts of a culture of disrespect for Black and Indigenous theater workers at Serenbe theater and associated productions. While none of our team witnessed this behavior, we will not promote this work on our platform. Gina is especially upset given that she had offered advice about the potential challenges of staging a respectful interpretation of a Pocahontas story months ahead of production. In lieu of this episode, we suggest you listen to any number of About South’s episodes featuring Indigenous and Black guests.

Episode Nine: Plan B(oone), Meat Camp

Gina Caison September 21, 2018

This week Gina, Kelly, and Adjoa took a trip to Boone, North Carolina, a city in the southern Appalachian Mountains with its fair share of mythology and nostalgia from its namesake, Daniel Boone, to its contemporary tourist economy. Although Boone and Watauga County were largely spared from the ravages of mining and mountaintop removal, it is nevertheless a complicated space mired in controversies about gentrification that eerily echo Watauga County’s colonial history. As your About South team travels through the county, they visit the famous Mast General Store and end up in Meat Camp. All the while they try to pin down what’s real about southern Appalachia and the tourist economy and speculate about the future of a place with an apocryphal past.

Mast General Store, a real place. Sort of.

On the way to Boone, the team talks about the history of the city and the history of Daniel Boone, the city’s namesake. Gina helps to clear up some of the confusion and differentiate Daniel Boone from other famous and infamous “frontiersman” such as Johnny Appleseed and Davy Crockett. Using the line “more room, Daniel Boone” from a poem, Gina explains how Daniel Boone took white settlers beyond the Yadkin Valley and across the Cumberland Gap, trespassing into Cherokee territory and then into Shawnee territory and violating treaties between the British and Native nations. Eventually, as Gina explains, Daniel Boone’s “exploration” and the land speculation that followed him became a factor in the American Revolution.

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap by George Caleb Bingham, 1851-1852 — *Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap* by George Caleb Bingham, 1851-1852

After arriving in Boone, the local hosts, Jessica Martell and Zackary Vernon, recommend taking a trip to Plan B in Meat Camp. Gina, Kelly and Adjoa are intrigued by the name of the place, so they decided to go. On the way, they stop at the Lucky Pickle in Valle Crucis for lunch and run into Cody Miller who tells them a little more about Meat Camp. Cody confirms that it was a place to hunt and process or dress meat, but he calls into question its affiliation with Daniel Boone.

Before arriving at Meat Camp, the team — accompanied by Zach — takes a quick detour to walk through the Mast General Store, a general store and post office built in 1882 and later purchased by the Mast family. On the road to Meat Camp, they discuss how the store trades in nostalgia for a time that never actually existed.

At Meat Camp, the About South team spends some time sitting on the stoop and talking with locals. They meet Samantha Bradshaw, a cashier at Plan B, who tells them about the history of the store and Meat Camp in general. They then meet up with Zackary’s coworkers, Jessie Blackburn and Billy Schumann who are kind enough to invite them into their yard to visit with their sheep and to learn more about Meat Camp. Billy, who is the Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University, describes how gentrification has become a problem in Watauga County as houses in the county are purchased by vacationers looking for second homes, which, in turn, prices long-term residents out of the housing market. In parting, Billy offers some sage wisdom about Hillbilly Elegy, the recent controversial New York Times bestseller about the region:“Everyone is entitled to talk about their truth and their experience, but it’s never a good idea to extrapolate the whole of a region of 205,000 square miles and 25 million people out of that.”

We would like to thank Zack Vernon and Jessica Martell for their exceptional hospitality. We would also like to thank Cory Miller, Samantha Bradshaw, Wayne Pennington, Jessie Blackburn, and Billy Schumann for their contributions to this episode.

Hurricane Florence Relief:

Red Cross

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina

Gleaning for the World

The North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund

Episode Eight: Upstairs, 1973

Gina Caison August 31, 2018

On June 24, 1973, an arsonist set fire to the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Dozens of people lost their lives that night, but the event isn’t widely-known about. This week, we sit down with Ryan Prechter, a visiting lecturer in Georgia State University’s History Department. Ryan studies queer history in the south, particularly in New Orleans. We revisit the tragedy with Ryan to better understand why it happened and how it relates to where we are now.

The memorial plaque located at the site of the fire. Photo: Courtesy of Ryan Prechter — The memorial plaque located at the site of the fire. Photo: Courtesy of Ryan Prechter

The Upstairs Lounge was situated in the heart of the French quarter in an unassuming spot, as gay-friendly bars were at the time. June 24, 1973, a Sunday, the Upstairs Lounge hosted an all-day drinking event. The bar got crowded and the crowd got intoxicated. Patrons reported a man in the restroom for “bothering” people, declining to go into specifics, and he was removed from the bar. A while later, someone incessantly rang the bar’s doorbell, usually a signal that a patron’s ride had arrived to escort them home. But that night, there wasn’t a car waiting. On the other side of the bar’s main entrance were flames.

A bartender was able to get some people to safety through the emergency exit in the back, but the bar itself was a fire hazard. As the fire department tried to quell the flames, it became apparent that there were still several people inside the building, trapped behind bar-covered windows. Those on the street could only watch. Thirty-two people died. In the aftermath, the Times-Picayune likened the scene to Hitler’s incinerators on its front page. Nobody in the city could figure out if that many people had died from fire in New Orleans before. No one was ever arrested or charged for the fire, but the man who was booted from the Upstairs Lounge is widely believed to be the arsonist.

The Upstairs Lounge is now unassuming office space. Photo: Courtesy of Ryan Prechter

The fire at the Upstairs Lounge is an important moment in gay history, but many people, gay or not, don’t know about it. Ryan heard about it for the first time shortly after the 40th anniversary in 2013. He wondered how he’d never known about the incident even though he’d spent a good amount of time in gay spaces and around gay people in the French Quarter. “The fact that I didn’t know about this, I knew other people must not know about this as well,” he says.

The Stonewall protests in New York City galvanized gay people and gay rights’ activism. The fire at the Upstairs Lounge did neither of those things for New Orleans. Gay liberation groups and safe spaces existed, but “radical politicization had not found its way to New Orleans,” Ryan says. Additionally, the anti-gay sentiments that caused Stonewall weren’t to blame for the events at the Upstairs Lounge — the person who set the fire was likely a gay man — and the shame of homosexuality persisted. Many people didn’t claim their gay relatives’ remains to lay them to rest.

Ryan attributes the more recent revisiting of the Upstairs Lounge by historians and scholars to a collective desire to bring justice to the situation after the 40th anniversary in 2013. He cites Skylar Fein's work, "Remember the Upstairs Lounge" as an important node in the memorialization. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, son of the mayor at the time of the event, memorialized the fire at the Upstairs Lounge almost as if to make good since his father decided not to return from vacation after the tragedy in 1973. The Archdiocese of New Orleans, which largely ignored the fire at the Upstairs Lounge, released an apology. Today, the door that led to the Upstairs Lounge remains. The plaque that commemorates the fire is as unassuming as the bar once was, a bit of history hidden in plain sight that largely goes unnoticed.

The door today. Photo Courtesy of Ryan Precter

We'd like to thank Ryan for sitting down with us to talk about this event. The Huffington Post collected images of the Upstairs Lounge before the fire. You can see them here. The View Upstairs (an off-broadway musical about the Upstairs Lounge) by Max Vernon just closed in May. Learn more about the show here.

Episode Seven: Birds in the City

Gina Caison August 25, 2018

This week, we talk with well-known birder Jason Ward in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. Carolina Wrens, Red-Tailed Hawks, Varied Thrushes, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers abound as Gina and Jason discuss the misconception about urban spaces and nature, the whitewashing of outdoor hobbies, and the lack of representation for people of color in the birding world.

It may seem obvious, but Jason reiterates that birds care little for our sense of cartographic regionalism. They are, however, influenced greatly by eco-regionalism. Depending on the needs of the species, some birds can live as easily in the North Georgia mountains as they can in parts of Canada. Urban development, although certainly devastating to some ecosystems, may provide new shelters for generalist/opportunistic birds like the “Sky Lamborghini,” the Peregrine Falcon, who is able to substitute skyscrapers for cliff faces. Other species build their nests in the nooks and crannies of modern architecture and find easily-replenished food sources in our daily city life.

Sky Lamborghini via Wikimedia Commons (Photo: Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso) — Sky Lamborghini via Wikimedia Commons (Photo: Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso)

Because the southeast has so much old growth forest, there is a great variety of species. Atlanta is commonly referred to as “the city within the forest,” and Jason says it is because of this that Atlanta allows for such diverse birding. Piedmont Park alone has over 200 species over the course of the year -- enough to make even novice birders excited. With so much bird life in and around the city, almost everyone has a bird story to tell, a moment in their daily lives where actual dinosaurs did something amazing.

Why make birds political? Well, because everything is political. In his article “The Woods are My Safe Haven-- But That’s Not True For Everyone” on Audubon, Jason writes, “we celebrate [nature’s] majesty and encourage others to go out and experience it. And yet, the targets of this encouragement seem to be calculated. Whether it’s on ads for outdoor gear and apparel or in mainstream media, you typically don’t see depictions of black people enjoying the outdoors.”

Screen Shot 2018-08-23 at 7.02.19 PM.png

This lack of representation limits access to a space that should be available for everyone. We naturally gravitate towards images that look like us and allow those images to outline our own interests. A space that is defined by its openness, nature is guarded by depictions of who should enjoy its “majesty.” This issue becomes more complicated when we understand that nature is not exclusive to rural, secluded spaces -- that nature is, in fact, everywhere we go.

Through his work in the education department at the Atlanta Zoo, Jason visits schools around Atlanta to teach kids about animals and encourage them to pursue their scientific interests. As birding becomes more popular -- both in Atlanta and at large -- Jason is optimistic that the birding space will grow to be more inclusive, diverse, and accessible.

Visit Jason on Twitter, and play #TrickyBirdID with him every week!

Episode Six: Puppets!

Gina Caison August 17, 2018

This week, we went down the road to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the only center of its kind in the country. When we think of puppets, Jim Henson -- Father of the Muppets and Mississippian -- usually comes to mind. The Center is home to the largest collection of Jim Henson puppets and props, but it’s also much more than that. Gina spoke with Museum Director Jill Nash Malool and Producer Kristin Haverty about the importance of the Center’s location in Georgia, what it means to support the arts in local communities and internationally, and what we still have to learn from puppets.

The Center for Puppetry Arts showcases contemporary puppetry, a rich global historical collection, and your old friend Kermit.

But first, what exactly is a puppet? Puppets are things that you can pick up and manipulate and turn into a character. Jill admits that definition is … pretty vague, but that’s on purpose. People who visit the museum usually don’t realize just how connected their lives are to puppetry. Puppets can be made from clay, wood, or textiles. They can be stop-motion and for one-time use. The museum’s founder, Vincent Anthony, decided he wanted to put together a center where you could have puppetry live, puppetry as a static fine art, and puppetry as a craft for the public. Larger cities usually have a ballet, an opera, or both, but very few have a dedicated place to experience puppetry.

The Center for Puppetry Arts has two permanent galleries: the Global Collection Gallery and Jim Henson Collection Gallery. The Global Gallery teaches visitors about puppetry as a global tradition. The puppets in this collection include ones from The Lion King on Broadway, marionettes from China, a leather shadow puppet from Cambodia, and more.

Puppets are displayed as fine art throughout the Center, which means, like at most museums, you can’t play with them. This also means they have to cared for and conserved like pieces of fine art. In 2007, when Jim Henson’s family decided the Center would be home to the world’s largest collection of Jim Henson puppets (including the Fraggles, the Muppets, and your friends from Sesame Street!), props, and costumes, the center had to renovate its storage area to include things like climate control to meet museum standards — and keep the puppets around as long as possible for future generations. At the the Center, there’s always something new to see: most items are only put on display once every two years.

People usually don’t think of the arts as having a home in the south, Gina notes. But the Center is very well known in the international puppetry scene, and in domestic traditional arts scenes. “There’s definitely a sense of Atlanta and the center having a very prominent role in puppetry,” Kristin says. Kristin loves that the center has a long history of inviting guest artists to share ideas and techniques and create an exchange of ideas and introduce people to the south once they choose to venture outside of the world’s busiest airport.

Even though it’s off the beaten path for traditional art purveyors, the the Center is a destination for puppeteers from around the world. Kristen doesn’t think Georgia’s low per capita spending for arts means audiences aren’t interested in experiencing new and innovative art. Kristen says audience interest and appreciation despite low arts budgeting makes it even more important that the Center is in Atlanta. The center instills a sense of excitement about the arts into children and features adult programming and shows people of all ages how to incorporate the arts into their own lives.

War Horse, a puppet worn by two puppeteers and sturdy enough for a human actor to ride.

In 1983, the Center created Experimental Puppet Theater (XPT) as a way for puppeteers doing shows at the Center to have fun together, branch out, and try new things. Before long, the Center added more people and structure to the program. Now, every January, applicants (mostly local) submit their XPT ideas. Selected candidates, visual artists, performers, and other interested parties come together to develop a group show and individual pieces. It all hits the stage every May. XPT participants have taken the unique puppet-centric platform and formed art collectives and ventured into film and television work after the program.

One of the annual highlights of the Center's programming is The Ghastly Dreadfuls. Kristin calls it a synthesis of great aspects of puppetry because it showcases great storytelling and uses different styles of puppetry, creating an all-around fun evening of theater. But that show is only around Halloween, so we recommend marking your calendar now.

And on August 30th, the Center hosts the Dark Crystal Ball to celebrate the opening of the exhibit for one of Henson's most beloved non-Muppet masterpieces.

From Instagram #puppets:

Gallery Block

This is an example. To display your Instagram posts, double-click here to add an account or select an existing connected account. Learn more

Episode Five: Hospitality

Gina Caison August 10, 2018

In this episode, we talk about the myth of southern hospitality with Tony Szczesiul, Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and author of The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory. Tony traces the long history of the myth and explores how it is embedded with the region’s other non-hospitable traits including enslavement and segregation. Tracing the history of southern hospitality throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reveals its importance to contemporary debates about immigration, tourism, and the culture industry.

The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory from UGA Press — *The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory* from UGA Press

Southern hospitality is one of the most pervasive and persistent myths about the U.S. South, and it is used to convey a lot of values and ideals and send certain messages about the region. We think of hospitality as a positive value associated with welcoming, manners, kindness, and generosity. However, hospitality is also about exclusion: defining who belongs and who does not. Stories told about southern hospitality were appealing to white people and welcoming to white people. However, as Tony argues, enslaved people made southern hospitality possible: wealthy white planters could not extend the hospitality without a contingent of forced laborers. When the phrase “southern hospitality” emerges in the 1820s, it debuts in debates about slavery, where it is clearly linked to the slave economy and made possible through slave labor, becoming a shorthand for the justification of southern plantation life as the pinnacle of manners, tradition, and ritual. The myth becomes a compelling propaganda tool, and stories about southern hospitality become an important part of the defense of slavery.

While we think of hospitality as either taking place in a domestic space between individuals, Tony invites us to also think about how hospitality involves relationships across borders and countries. In his book, he explores how hospitality factors into how Americans responded to the Fugitive Slave Law and Negro Seaman Acts. The Fugitive Slave Law made it illegal to exercise hospitality to runaway slaves. Because many Christians saw hospitality as a biblical imperative, they viewed the law as an infringement on their right to practice their Christian beliefs and to control the threshold of their own homes. Some Americans who were on the fence about slavery became active abolitionists, and the law spurred a national debate about how we defined citizenship. Interestingly, both sides of the debate cited St. Paul’s Letter to Philemon to justify their position with slaveholders noting that St. Paul sent a runaway slave back to his owner and abolitionists noting that St. Paul sent the slave back as a brother in Christ. The same biblical imperative to be hospitable is referenced in contemporary immigration debates, and has inspired some southern evangelicals to make stronger demands about how the United States treats immigrants.

A portrait of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, whose arrest and trial under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 touched off riots and protests by abolitionists and citizens of Boston in the spring of 1854.

Although the myth has complicated origins in slavery, it evolves to assume a variety of meanings over time. References to southern hospitality proliferate throughout the twentieth century, undergirding southern cultural endeavors that we can still see on the pages of Southern Living today. Beginning in the 1920s, southern hospitality is deployed to develop southern tourism and foreign investment in the region. Tony urges us to remember that southern hospitality has always had an economic imperative. The myth was created by southern slaveholders to justify their lifestyle, and it has paid off for generations of white southerners. Tony relates a story about how Thomas Jefferson who had a reputation for hospitality, hid slave labor from guests using dumbwaiters. He sees this story as a metaphor for the myth itself: unseen labor went into the construction of the myth and unseen strangers were relied on for their labor but never welcomed. Ultimately, Tony argues that southern hospitality is not ethically possible until after the Civil Rights Movement.

While the history of southern hospitality involves white people welcoming other white people and excluding others on the basis of their race, Tony also discusses how alternative frameworks for hospitality were happening in non-white communities at the same time. For example, the Negro Motorist Green Book published between 1936 and 1966 provided African Americans with a way to navigate through segregated facilities as they travelled through the United States. Tony notes that according to the Green Book, many prominent southern towns known for their “hospitality” did not have a single hotel where African Americans could stop and stay for the night. However, the book did include “tourist homes” where families welcomed travelers who contacted them in advance.

We would like to thank Tony Szczesiul for talking with us this week. We would also like to thank all of our friends in Lowell, Massachusetts: Sue, Paula, and everyone who came out to the panel in April about why southern studies matters everywhere.

Episode Three: Presenting Story of My Life

Gina Caison July 20, 2018

This week we're proud to feature Lindsey Alexander's podcast, Story of My Life where she asks people over 70 how they came to be who they are and where they are. In honor of tomato season, we're bringing you Story of My Life's interview with Bell Best.

From Story of My Life: "Bill Best is known as the Tomato Man in parts of Eastern Kentucky. But he'll tell you he's more of an heirloom bean man. A prolific seed saver, Bill has more than 700 varieties of bean seeds; he's even brought a bean back from the brink of distinction. He's the author of Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste, and a founder of the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center. Story of My Life met Bill on his farm to hear about heirloom vegetables, growing up rural, and his life on the land. In this episode, you'll learn how to save tomato seeds from your garden."

Learn more at: http://www.storyofmylifepod.com.

Also, check our Lindsey Alexander's new collection of poetry, Rodeo in Reverse.

From Instagram, #tomato

Gallery Block

This is an example. To display your Instagram posts, double-click here to add an account or select an existing connected account. Learn more

Episode Two: Five More Facts, or Crayfish Living

Gina Caison July 13, 2018

We're back this week with five more facts from your About South team. We cover everything from the great dogs of About South to the current activities of our resident crayfish, Dr. Grover.

Dr. Grover loves peas, fresh goldfish, and building little structures out of gravel.

We're also launching our Patreon account, which you can find at the bottom of this page or here. You can also support us with one=time donations via our support page. We really appreciate your support, and we'll use your money to continue to offer you ad-free content as well as the occasional promotional swag surprise.

Episode One: Five Facts

Gina Caison July 6, 2018

This week your About South team is answering your questions! Gina, Kelly, Adjoa, and Lindsey sit down and go through listener questions from the last year.

And we talk about Migos.

The Migos -- they're from the North -- yeah, that way.(Image from The Come Up Show via Wikimedia Commons) — The Migos -- they're from the North -- yeah, that way.
(Image from The Come Up Show via Wikimedia Commons)

And Beyoncé.

And Kelly meets a Pelican.

And we then ask for your money.

Episode Sixteen: Gone With the Windys

Gina Caison November 17, 2017

This week, we set out to unearth the mystery of famed southern author Margaret Mitchell’s porn collection. This episode was inspired by a trip Kelly took to the Margaret Mitchell House a few years ago. There, she and a friend spotted what appeared to be a pornographic photo of a woman behind one of the doors. Not to be hypocrites, we were concerned about the ethics of S-Town’ing Margaret Mitchell, that is, attempting to dive into someone’s sexual life post-mortem — and getting hit with a lawsuit.

Framed "conversation piece" from Margaret Mitchell's house in Midtown, Atlanta.

Gina took to the internet to see what’s already out there, and found that Mitchell was known to make trips to “dirty” bookstores, collected French postcards featuring nude models as well as other “erotic,” which Gina translates to mean things that acknowledged women as sexual beings in the early 20th century. In his extensively-sourced Margaret Mitchell biography, Southern Daughter, Darden Asbury Pyron quotes a friend of the late author as saying Mitchell collected erotic books, such as Fanny Hill, and postcards because she thought the models’ facial expressions were funny.

Illustration to Fanny Hill by Édouard-Henri Avril. — Illustration to *Fanny Hill* by Édouard-Henri Avril.

As cute as the question of Margaret Mitchell’s apparent penchant for erotic materials may be, Gina and Kelly note that it’s not all that fun. Mitchell’s first husband, Barrien “Red” Upshaw, was an alcoholic who abused her physically and sexually and made Mitchell fear for her safety until his own death. In her essay “Tara and Other Lies: Margaret Mitchell and the Real Rhett Butler?”, Carolyn Gage suggests Red is the real life version of Rhett Butler, accounting for Rhett’s violence toward Scarlet. But Gina and Kelly say we can’t just speculate about the details of Mitchell’s sex life and draw one-to-one comparisons from real-life people and fictional characters; we have to ask ourselves how it may (or may not) have been influenced by the sexual trauma she endured in her first marriage, and how it may (or may not) have influenced her writing, including Gone With the Wind.

On a search for even more information about the elusive pornographic collections of Margaret Mitchell, Kelly and Gina took a trip back to the Margaret Mitchell House. With the help of the engaging storyteller/guide, Linda, Gina and Kelly conclude that Margaret Mitchell had a collection of erotica. She may or may not have enjoyed the physical act of sex, but she was definitely interested in it.

Everyone wants their own Margaret Mitchell, but we can’t know if or how much Mitchell’s erotic writing and items speaks to her own sexual fluidity or sexual desires. Kelly says it’s irrelevant. Margaret Mitchell is too often used to make arguments about the perfect woman, the perfect picture of femininity, the perfect feminist, and so on. But we choose to see her as the full, complicated human being she was without tying her to men in her life.

We can tell you that the pornographic image that inspired this episode is in fact still on display at the Margaret Mitchell House (for now). And rather than some illicit piece created at Mitchell's behest, it’s actually a flyer that she liked so much that she framed it and hung it in her living room as a conversation piece.

Episode Fifteen: Television

Gina Caison November 10, 2017

Our episode this week takes us to the south on the small screen. Kelly sits down with our very own Gina Caison and About South friends Lisa Hinrichsen and Stephanie Rountree to discuss their new book, Small-Screen Souths: Region, Identity, and the Cultural Politics of Television. Attempting to define the “real” south only gets more complicated when the region is broadcasted, framed, and produced for an audience-- depending on how the audience accepts or rejects the images on screen.

The televised south in shows like True Blood or Treme both confirms and challenges ideas of the region, engaging with viewers in progressive and regressive, but ultimately meaningful, ways. In other words, connecting with the south virtually is for some the only connection possible. Connecting with our television sets-- which are less “sets” now and more likely laptop screens-- provides a sense of intimacy that other mediums simply can’t offer. We take these stories, people, and places into our homes and engage them, making the choice to defy the depictions of character and region and simply stop watching, or to stick around for the next episode.

As we continue to rely on television as our main source of narratives, it’s not only vital to examine the history and consequence of televised regions-- it’s entertaining.

Clips from this week's episode:

Lost Boundaries (1949).

Ernest T Bass learning some table manners. The Andy Griffith Show.

Buckwild Trailer 1 (2013) HD - MTV.

Jamie Oliver makes a bet with West Virginia radio host Rod on the Dawg. This clip is from episode 4 of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

Promotional spot for the third season episode "Quagmire," set in Georgia.

Many thanks for Lisa, Gina, and Stephanie for joining us. You can find Small-Screen Souths: Region, Identity, and the Cultural Politics of Television here, from the LSU Press.

Episode Fourteen: Providence & the Anthropocene

Gina Caison November 2, 2017

This week we talk to geologist Josh Poole about Providence Canyon, also known as the “Little Grand Canyon,” in southwest Georgia. The canyon, however, is not an ancient geological formation. Providence Canyon emerged as a gully resulting from the destructive agricultural practices between Creek Removal in the early 1800s and the U.S. Civil War. We talk to Josh about the history of the canyon, the emergence of the anthropocene, and how geologists think about regional distinctions.

Named for a nearby church, Providence Canyon is a 1,000 acre site in Stewart County, Georgia. At its deepest point, it’s over 150 feet down, and it reveals 30 million years of the earth’s history. The layers of the canyon showcase iron-rich topsoil, layers of white clay known as kaolin, and a basin with small running creek. Along the floor of the canyon, hikers can find old abandoned cars.

From the floor of Providence Canyon | Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The canyon calls up questions of the anthropocene — a term used by many to describe the geological age when we can begin to see the impact of humans on the earth’s story. However, as Josh explains, geologists don’t use the term the anthropocene as an official designation. Rather, they recognize that the vast changes wrought by humans will show up in the geologically record for those that come after us, but as for when the anthropocene began, that’s a harder question, geologically speaking.

Fro NPR: "The Geologic History of Earth. Note the timescales. We are currently in the Holocene, which has been warm and moist and a great time to grow human civilization. But the activity of civilization is now pushing the planet into a new epoch wh… — Fro NPR: "The Geologic History of Earth. Note the timescales. We are currently in the Holocene, which has been warm and moist and a great time to grow human civilization. But the activity of civilization is now pushing the planet into a new epoch which scientists call the Anthropocene."
Ray Troll/Troll Art

As Josh points out, geologists don't talk about the earth in terms of our geopolitical regions. In other words, the earth doesn't care where we draw the Mason-Dixon line or the border between Georgia and Alabama. But what is real is that we're living in the age of the Sixth Mass Extinction, and that's going to effect everyone, regardless of what side of an imaginary line they live on.

We'd like to thank Josh and Amanda for joining us at the Canyon on a Sunday afternoon. We'd also like to thank the Park Rangers at Providence Canyon State Park for their hospitality. You can learn more about the Canyon and plan your visit here.

Mapping Providence:

Episode Thirteen: Remembering Emily Burns

Gina Caison October 27, 2017

This week we had the pleasure of talking to Karen Cox, a professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. Cox talks about her book and her process for writing about a woman whose story was nearly hidden. In the Jim Crow south of the early 1930’s Natchez, Mississippi, Emily Burns was wrongly imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit while the true murderers became celebrated southern eccentrics who opened their home to goats, chickens, and-- for a price-- tourists.

Unlike southern gothic fiction, the murder of Jennie Merrill does not make the story of the infamous Goat Castle exceptional. Rather, it is neighbors Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery that quite literally take the spotlight. After being jailed for Merrill’s murder and quickly released despite fingerprint evidence, newspapers latched on to the odd pair’s story. People flocked to Natchez to get a glimpse of the failed descendants of southern aristocracy who now shared their antebellum home, once called Glenwood, with livestock. Meanwhile, Emily Burns and her mother were in jail for months before Emily was sentenced to life in prison for a murder she didn’t commit. Although Emily was later pardoned and didn’t serve her full sentence, the many years she spent incarcerated define the story of Goat Castle as more than just southern eccentricity, but as southern injustice and real-life horror.

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 12.50.48 AM.png

Cox went in search for the story behind the story-- the story behind the dichotomy of the “old south” that Dana and Dockery represented to their visitors. Finding the stories erased not only by an unconcerned and Jim Crow past but by incorrect retellings is imperative for understanding American history, race, and community today. By telling Emily’s story, Cox does important work towards creating space for truth and belated justice that, although decades later, resounds with injustice we see today. Buy Goat Castle here.

Episode Twelve: When the Stories Come Out

Gina Caison October 12, 2017

Located in Atlanta’s Historic West End, The Wren’s Nest is the historic home of Joel Chandler Harris, well-known for compiling and adapting the African American Brer Rabbit folktales. In the century since Harris’s death, the home has been converted into a museum, and now serves as an anchor of the Atlanta arts community, especially in its neighborhood. This week, we met with Akbar Imhotep, the site’s resident storyteller, and Kalin Thomas, its Program Director, to discuss the complicated history of The Wren's Nest and their vision for its future. We also discuss how storytelling can build relationships in communities, connect people with their heritage, and to help people heal.

The Wren's Nest in Atlanta's Historic West End

Imhotep first visited the Wren’s Nest with the Phillis Wheatley YWCA while he was working as a puppeteer for Atlanta’s Center For Puppetry Arts. Imhotep has been affiliated with the site for more than three decades. In addition to his interest in storytelling, he was attracted to the museum’s efforts to use storytelling to connect with the surrounding community. Thomas came to the center three years ago, first to film there for her job at Atlanta Interfaith Broadcast (AIB). She became a mentor in the center’s youth writing program, Scribes, and she now serves as the site’s program director.

Kalin Thomas works with Scribes students.

Akbar Imhotep has been with The Wren's Nest since 1985.

Joel Chandler Harris recorded the Brer Rabbit tales he heard when he was a young boy between the ages of 14 and 17 working on a plantation. Although he is a white man, he lived among the enslaved people while he worked on the plantation. When he took a job at the Atlanta Constitution, he turned the stories into cartoons for the newspaper, and they became so popular that he compiled the stories into a book. His first book was incredibly successful, and he went on to produce several volumes of the folktales. Harris’s collected stories, perhaps the most famous of which is “The Tar-Baby,” are collectively referred to as "Uncle Remus Tales." Many of these tales originated in Africa and were told and retold by enslaved Africans across the South. Alcée Fortier collected variants of the same folktales in Louisiana, where Brer Rabbit is referred to as Compair Lapin.

Harris’s legacy is contested. On the one hand, if Harris had not collected the folktales, they might have been lost throughout the generations, and in some ways, his publication made the folktales acceptable. On the other hand, artists who shared stories with Harris received no money for their publications, Disney used the stories as the basis for Song of the South, which has been panned for its offensive portrayal of black southerners, and the museum itself remained segregated until the mid-1980s. Thomas believes African Americans should reclaim the tales and revisit them again because they are interesting stories with useful lessons, especially for children. They’re also part of black heritage, having traveled and lived in many different places.

Joel Chandler Harris on the front porch of his West End home.

Considering the museum’s complicated racial history, they also see the site as a place for healing through sharing stories. While they believe Tar-Baby, for instance, wasn’t originally meant to be a racist tale, adaptations and interpretations have imbued the story with new meanings, and they hope to foster a sense of healing by telling the truth—making sure people know the history of the author and the history of the tales and not covering up the unsavory parts. Ultimately, Imhotep believes, his time as a storyteller is sacred time—that stories connect us to one another and help us think about our lives.

We would like to thank Akbar Imhotep and Kalin Thomas for sharing their stories with us this week. We would also like to thank Melissa Swindle, Executive Director at The Wren’s Nest for allowing us to use the office for the interview. You can help support the educational programs and the cultural mission of The Wren’s Nest by purchasing tickets to the second annual Brer Rabbit, Blues and BBQ Festival on Sunday, November 5th 2017. If you are a writer, we also encourage you to become a mentor by contacting Kalin Thomas. The center is always looking for volunteers from Atlanta’s community of writers.

The Wren's Nest receives an honor from the Atlanta City Council for its Scribes writing programs.

Episode Eleven: Capuchon

Gina Caison October 6, 2017

This week, we traveled to Baton Rouge and sat down with Dr. Carolyn Ware, a folklorist and an associate professor in the Department of English at Louisiana State University, to talk about the tradition of Cajun Mardi Gras. Carolyn has spent years talking to Cajun Mardi Gras communities about their traditions, and, no, it’s not just a knockoff of the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Carolyn educates us on what Cajun Mardi Gras is, who participates and why it’s still important.

Tee Mamou Mardi Gras Partner Dance | Photo: Carolyn Ware

During Cajun Mardi Gras, townspeople dress up, disguising their identities, and travel through the countryside knocking on neighbors’ doors for handouts, such as food or money. If the hosts ask for a dance, they oblige. The reward is usually something that will go into the community’s gumbo at the end of the night, like rice, sausage grease, or chicken. Carolyn says if the costumes, door-knocks, and treats sound familiar, it’s because Cajun Mardi Gras comes from the same mid-winter traditions that birthed trick-or-treating.

A Tee Mamou Mardi Gras in a tree | Photo: Carolyn Ware

Carolyn paints a picture of Cajun Mardi Gras: A sheriff's car leads the procession with flashing headlights. Wagons of men and women, often separated by gender, follow behind. Mardi Gras dress in bright, pajama-like outfits, scary masks, and French-inspired conical hats called capuchons. Musicians or a three-piece band accompany the group playing traditional Cajun Mardi Gras songs.

Carolyn became interested in Cajun Mardi Gras because all of the scholarship she read positioned it as a hypermasculine event. Majority-women Cajun Mardi Gras do exist in Louisiana, but Carolyn argues that women have always been central to the tradition. They design and make the costumes and capuchons, and they cook the gumbo at the end of the night. Women-run Cajun Mardi Gras became more popular in the 1950s and ‘60s after World War II as gender roles began to change around the country. Men are still the captains in these celebrations so that women can have a free night. “Women wanted to cut loose and be silly,” Carolyn says. “They’re moms the rest of the time. On this one day, they wanted to be the ones that cut up.” She’s fascinated with how women think about their role in Cajun Mardi Gras, and with how they perform it. Carolyn mentions that the women’s suits and masks are the ones catching the imaginations of outsiders.

Berline Boone, Basile Mardi Gras | Carolyn Ware

Cajun Mardi Gras has faced its share of criticism as it becomes more visible and as attitudes around social issues and gender change. Carolyn says Cajun Mardi Gras is about pushing boundaries. Men still dress in stereotypical and exaggerated feminine styles. Some runs still have a blackface character or Native caricature. Gina asks if there’s a spectrum of opinions around the more problematic parts of the tradition, and Carolyn affirms that there is. As rural towns become more diverse and more integrated, some changes are occurring. For the most, however, Carolyn says Mardi Gras runs don’t want outsiders telling them what to do with their traditions.

The tradition remains important in rural Louisiana because it builds family, community, and connections to home. You can read more about Carolyn's work and Cajun Mardi Gras here and here.

Gallery Block

This is an example. To display your Instagram posts, double-click here to add an account or select an existing connected account. Learn more

Porta

Etiam Ultricies

Vulputate Commodo Ligula

Elit Condimentum

Aenean eu leo Quam

Cursus Amet

Pellentesque Risus Ridiculus

Porta

Etiam Ultricies

Vulputate Commodo Ligula

Elit Condimentum

Aenean eu leo Quam

Episode Ten: Pronto Pup or Corn Dog?

Gina Caison September 29, 2017

In this week's episode, join in as Gina and returning About South guest Lindsey Eckert travel to the Minnesota State Fair to eat cheese curds, watch a rabbit show, and talk about regionalism. More specifically, the pair discusses how we construct regions to exist as idyllic places, separate from the problems apparent in the rest of the nation and dependent upon certain cultural calling cards-- like food-- for their survival.

The Minnesota State Fair was first hosted in 1859 in what is today downtown Minneapolis. The fair's original purpose was to promote agriculture in the state through various farming and livestock competitions. Known as the "Great Minnesota get-together," today the fair has a permanent location in between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Along with the traditional agriculture-promoting entertainment, other fair entertainment consists of art shows, technological exhibits, presentations by educational institutions, Ferris wheels, live music, and, of course, tons of Minnesotan favorites like cheese curds and pronto pups.

The Midwest often reads as “neutral” in history, politics, and cultural production, particularly when placed alongside more charged regions like the South. The South “owns,” both historically and increasingly currently, many of the nation’s social and political problems in a way that other regions never will. This is problematic not because the South doesn’t indeed host these problems, but because it seemingly allows these idealized regions like the Midwest to escape from the shared responsibility of national issues.

It’s unsurprising, then, that like Minnesotans remembering the fair, Southerners tend to focus on the easy nostalgia of food. Food provides a sense of home, safely disassociated from the real dangers that home might bring. Biscuits, gravy, grits, and cornbread provide a connection to a region that’s both inherent to and separate from the values of the region. We talk about food when we talk about regionalism because it’s relatable and definite-- the pronto pup is always wrapped in a flour dough instead of a cornmeal, and grits are always better with cheese.

You can learn more about the many offerings at the Minnesota State Fair here. If you really want to learn more, you can follow the Fair on twitter.

From Instagram #mnstatefair

Gallery Block

This is an example. To display your Instagram posts, double-click here to add an account or select an existing connected account. Learn more

Episode Nine: More Than You Think

Gina Caison September 22, 2017

Before Maurice Hobson became a Professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University, he was a Division I football player at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has since worked with student athletes at institutions across the South. We talked with Maurice about how he became interested in football, his experiences as a player and the race and class politics of southeastern football. As a former player and a fan, Maurice offers a unique perspective on the current problems facing college programs, especially programs in the South, and how we might work to make the sport safer and more ethically responsible.

Bryant-Denny Stadium. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith | Library of Congress

As a child, Maurice played soccer before his older brother joined the high school band and introduced him to football. He would go to football games to see his brother play, and afterward, he would visit the field house at Selma High School where they would take photos with the players. Soon after, his brother went on a trip to an Auburn game and saw Bo Jackson play. His brother came back and announced to the family that they were Auburn fans. After he became interested in the sport, he describes how he learned geography from watching CBS Sports, learning about American regions and what the South meant in relation to other U.S. regions.

NY junior Heisman awards dinner 1985 with Bo Jackson and Curtis High school coach Fred Olivieri. Photo: Vernon Turner via Wikimedia Commons

Once Maurice started playing college football, he began to notice some of the problems in the system. On an off weekend, he travelled to DC to participate in the Million Man March, and he was chided, ostensibly for not hanging out with his teammates instead.

Maurice says that one of his biggest issues with college football is that coaches make decisions about what the players can do and who they can be, and coaches expect them to blindly follow that plan without thinking about what the player actually wants for himself. However, while he feels that football is exploitative, he disagrees with people who call it a modern form of slavery. He asserts that this is a faulty comparison because players can walk away from the game at any time. On the other hand, he also thinks its incorrect to refer to athletic scholarships as a “free ride,” because students work hard for their education—harder than many students who pay their way through college with a traditional job.

From ESPN.com in 2011, the ongoing debate about paying college athletes.

Maurice also points out that many SEC football programs are rife with references to the Civil War, the Old South, and the Confederacy. From the Louisiana State University Tigers, who were named after the Civil War Tiger Brigade, to the University of Mississippi’s Rebels. He also notes that many of these big southern institutions have a history of segregation. That history, Maurice argues, contributes to the troublesome racial politics of the sport, especially in the South.

We would like to thank Maurice Hobson for his insightful conversation. Maurice is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University. His work focuses on twentieth-century African American History. His forthcoming book, The Legend of the Black Mecca: Myth, Maxim, and the Making of an Olympic City, examines how Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 changed the American South.

From Instagram, #collegegameday

Gallery Block

This is an example. To display your Instagram posts, double-click here to add an account or select an existing connected account. Learn more

Episode Eight: The Comic South

Gina Caison August 31, 2017

In an issue of Swamp Thing, Superman contracts a virus that will cause him to become violent. Instead of wreaking havoc in Metropolis, he heads south to Louisiana: a place where there are no superheroes. While Superman and his ilk may not make their homes in the south, the region has been richly explored in the comics medium: from early narrative comics such as Li’l Abner, Pogo, and Kudzu, to more recent serials and graphic novels such as The Walking Dead, Preacher, Bayou, and Swallow Me Whole. This week we visited Brannon Costello, English professor at LSU, to talk about southern comics. We discuss how comics explore the south’s relationship to the nation, grapple with the region’s history, and imagine its future.

According to Brannon, cartooning about the south is as old as print culture, beginning perhaps with editorial cartoons about abolition and the Civil War. However, in the 1930s, Li’l Abner, set in the fictional Appalachian community of Dogpatch, USA, becomes one of the first narrative comics to explore southern themes. It is followed closely by the introduction of Snuffy Smith as the Appalachian cousin of Barney Google. These comics were a mass medium, with as many as sixty million readers during the height of their popularity. After WWII, Pogo, a comic strip featuring anthropomorphic animals set in the Okefenokee Swamp becomes widely popular, presenting readers with an idealized, pastoral swamp setting where national problems can be adjudicated in a light-hearted way. In the 1980s, as the south is becoming more urban and suburban, Doug Marlette creates Kudzu to explore these changes.

Lil' Abner from 1947 — *Lil' Abner* from 1947

While the tropes of the superhero genre (as well as the location of major comic book producers) keep superheroes from venturing southward for most of the twentieth century, in the 1980s and 1990s, cartoonists and comics writers develop an interest in the south as a space that doesn’t fit into the genre. They explore the region as a "dark other." Southern “superheroes” greatly contrasts to the more urban superheroes: instead of the idealized physical specimens we see in Metropolis and Gotham, Swamp Thing is a shambling accretion of plants and mud who happens to think he’s human.

In a 1980s issue of Captain America, the titular hero quits his government job because he disagrees with the morality of potential missions. He’s replaced with a reactionary conservative from Georgia who becomes the new Captain America. The subsequent story line marks an attempt to think critically about what it would mean if Newt Gingrich was the new symbol of America, reflecting contemporary fears about the “southernification” of the U.S. When Captain America returns to his post.

We then discuss about some of Brannon’s favorite and least favorite southern comics. Brannon thinks The Walking Dead fails as a comic because it doesn’t exploit the possibilities of the medium in a particularly interesting way. He notes that although he’s still reading Southern Bastards and finds it visually interesting, it hasn’t yet fulfilled its promise to take a critical posture toward certain ideals about masculinity and the south. Instead, the series seems to be presenting the same tropes associated with the old south without a thoughtful critique.

Where will Southern Bastards go? — Where will *Southern Bastards* go?

Some of Brannon’s favorite southern comics include Swamp Thing, especially from the period when Alan Moore and Steve Bissette; graphic novels March (written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin), Swallow Me Whole, and Any Empire by Nate Powell; Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon; Stuck Rubber Baby, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about coming out during the Civil Rights Movement; Bayou by Jeremy Love; Wet Moon by Sophie Campbell; and the adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred by Damian Duffy and illustrated by John Jennings.

We would like to thank Brannon Costello for this interview. Brannon is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Louisiana State University. Together with Qiana J. Whitted, he edited a Comics and the U.S. South, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2012. His book, Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin will be available from Louisiana State University Press in October.

Places to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey:

Houston Food Bank

Homeless Houston

Houston Community Foundation

Texas Diaper Bank