Picking Blackberries and Getting By after the Civil War “Nineteenth-century newspaper accounts tell of snake attacks. Hornets, as my brother could tell you, can be a problem, and bears are not unheard of.” One day last year, at the end of July, I walked down to Runnymede, alongside the River Thames, and picked a mess »
“The South’s diversity not only has room for ‘High Culture,’ it also shelters a range of vernacular cultures that Mencken barely recognized. As a result, the meaning of ‘southern cultures’ is far more fluid and unpredictable than he and many others recognize.” I never knew my mother’s mother, a woman so distant from me that »
“He was a verbal bully with a bully pulpit, more entertainer than sly persuader; in terms of reach and impact, a modern equivalent would be someone like Rush Limbaugh, although Mencken’s demographic share was predominantly young and intelligent while Limbaugh’s is old and stupid.” Forgive me if I date myself by exhuming H. L. Mencken. »
“Addressing a jubilant crowd in Belfast, shortly after the declaration of the original ceasefire in 1993, Gerry Adams reminded his audience that ‘they haven’t gone away, you know’. He meant that even as ‘the cause’ was dwindling, its upholders—’the boys’—were still among us. He might just as easily have been talking about the Klan.” You »
“Irish rockers U2 are committed fans of B.B. King and wrote the song ‘When Love Comes to Town’ at his request. The song introduced King to important new rock audiences.” To explore the relationship between Ireland and southern culture is for many southerners an intensely personal journey. My own family has Irish ancestry on both »
“Into the debate about place, race, and the second-best-selling book of all time, we can also bring Irishness.” Perhaps one of the most frustrating things for fans of Gone With the Wind is arriving in Atlanta, Georgia, only to discover that they have come to the wrong place. If they want to see the white »
“As there had been only two prominent Irish generals, and only one, Cleburne, had had a very distinguished record, the story of the common soldier was the story of the Irish Confederate.” In 1877 a group of prominent Irish Americans met in Charleston to commemorate the Irish Volunteers in the Confederate States of America. Two »
“One of the realities of American life is that certain features of African American performance style will remain strange and alluring to those outside the culture. Not least among such features is the making of hard social commentary on recurring problems of life, often through cutting and breaking techniques—contentious interactions continually calling for a change »
“The authors in this special issue on Ireland and the South argue that the Irish left an outsized imprint on the cultures of the American South and forged a persistent affinity between Ireland and the South.” Not long before adventurers sailing for the first Queen Elizabeth set out to colonize the land they would call »
This article first appeared in the Photography Issue (Vol. 17, No. 2: Summer 2011). “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 »
“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.” When the color photographs of William »
“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.” This project has its roots in my travels over twenty years to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, »