Vol. 25, No. 2: Inside/Outside

Vol. 25, No. 2: Inside/Outside

“[T]he study of the South is more expansive than at any time in the region’s history,” writes guest editor William Sturkey. “The old walls separating insider and outsider are crumbling, allowing the long suppressed full talents of this region to flourish in new ways.” The second issue of our 25th anniversary series examines the boundaries⁠—real and imagined⁠—that aim to mark us as insiders and outsiders.

Front Porch: Inside/Outside

by Marcie Cohen Ferris

"The South has much to teach about the dangers and opportunities of belonging and exclusion, of being inside and outside the American experience."

The Future Belongs to Us

by William Sturkey

"What will come, I hope, is an honest reckoning that will one day finally set all of us free."

Notes Toward an Essay on Imagining Thomas Jefferson Watching a Performance of the Musical “Hamilton”

by Randall Kenan

"But he'd have to acknowledge that the soul of his country is southern; the soul of his country is black."

To Survive on This Shore

by Jess T. Dugan, Vanessa Fabbre

"I know the next relationship that I go into, that person's going to be damn lucky. Because I've got my shit together. I've got my game on."

Policing Immorality in a Virginia Girls’ Reformatory

by Erin N. Bush

"'Delinquent' girls like McNamar became the victim, the problem, the cause, and the evidence of other urban dilemmas within the reform rhetoric and agenda."

The Spaces We Inherit

by Oliver Clasper

"These landscapes hold the remnants of five thousand distant voices."

Going Up and Coming Down

by Alex Macaulay

"As the noted Music City chronicler Peter Cooper put it . . . . 'Death, taxes, and backlash are inevitable for those fortunate enough to be successful.' Such was the case with Kristofferson, whose fall paralleled his rise."

The “Baltimore Idea” and the Cities It Built

by Emily Lieb

"Every 'inside' has an 'outside.' Every boundary has a sentinel. Almost every backyard has a NIMBY."

The Rarest of Senses

by Monique Truong

"We cannot understand the power and the meaning of food until we understand hunger."

Más de una historia

by Joanna Welborn

This article appears in the Inside/Outside Issue (vol. 25, no. 2: Summer 2019) and has been condensed. To view the article in its entirety, visit Project Muse (link below).

The Sounds That Wake Me

by Savannah Sipple

"My mother says she can remember the snap. I wasn't there, / but I can hear it, too . . . "