Making Appalachian Mississippi. Imagining New Earths. Meeting at Two Rivers. Introducing the Winter Issue, guest edited by Zandria F. Robinson.

In this stimulating study, Scott Romine explores the impact of globalization on contemporary southern culture and the South's persistence in an age of media and what he terms "cultural reproduction." Rather than being compromised, Romine asserts, southern cultures are both complicated and reconfigured as they increasingly detach from tradition in its conventional sense. In considering Souths that might appear fake -- the Souths of the theme restaurant, commercial television, and popular regional magazines, for example -- Romine contends that authenticity and reality emerge as central concepts that allow groups and individuals to imagine and navigate social worlds. Romine addresses a major critical problem -- "authenticity" -- in a fundamentally new manner. Less concerned with what actually constitutes an "authentic" or "real" South than in how these concepts are used today, The Real South explores a wide range of southern narratives that describe and travel through virtual, simulated, and commodified Souths. Where earlier critics have tended to assume a real or authentic South, Romine questions such assumptions and whether the "authentic South" ever truly existed. From Gone with the Wind, Civil War reenactments, and a tennis community outside Atlanta called Tara, to the work of Josephine Humphreys, the travel narrative of V. S. Naipaul, and the historical fiction of Lewis Nordan, Romine examines how narratives (and spaces) are used to fashion social solidarity and cultural continuity in a time of fragmentation and change. Far from deteriorating or disappearing in a global economy, Romine shows, the South continues to be reproduced and used by diverse groups engaged in diverse cultural projects.

A multicultural, interdisciplinary panorama of past and contemporary southern society are captured in "Bridging Southern Culture" by some of the South's leading historians, anthropologists, literary critics, musicologists, and folklorists. Using the best of recent scholarship, this collection demonstrates a revitalized energy in southern studies. A showcase of preeminent southern intellectuals, this book is is a heady mix of observations that draw new connections between eras, groups, races, and subregions. Lowe and his peers present a timely assessment of the state of southern studies in the twenty-first century.

"Placing the New Southern Studies in conversation with film studies, this book is simply the best edited collection available on film and the U.S. South.---Grace Hale. University of Virginia --

Editors Wilson (history, Mississippi) and Ferris (anthropology, Detroit and Bakersfield. Literate, scholarly and pithy entries accompanied by well chosen photographs artfully placed. Far too good a book to be printed on acidic paper; our test contradicts the statement on the verso of the title page. The price is $49.95 until January 1990. Mississippi) have devoted 10 years to the realization of a unique concept. Involving many scholars and writers in many fields, this book ranges from grand historical themes to the whimsical; from the arts and high culture to folk and popular culture, organized around 245 thematic sections such as, history, religion, language, art and architecture, etc. Focuses on the eleven states of the former confederacy, but also encompases southern outposts in midwestern and middle-Atlantic border states, even the southern pockets of Chicago, Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Cobb, "surveys the remarkable story of southern identity and its persistence in the face of sweeping changes in the South's economy, society and political structure."--dust jacket.

This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture offers a timely, authoritative, and interdisciplinary exploration of issues related to social class in the South from the colonial era to the present. With introductory essays by J. Wayne Flynt and by editors Larry J. Griffin and Peggy G. Hargis, the volume is a comprehensive, stand-alone reference to this complex subject, which underpins the history of the region and shapes its future. In 58 thematic essays and 103 topical entries, the contributors explore the effects of class on all aspects of life in the South--its role in Indian removal, the Civil War, the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, for example, and how it has been manifested in religion, sports, country and gospel music, and matters of gender. Artisans and the working class, indentured workers and steelworkers, the Freedmen's Bureau and the Knights of Labor are all examined. This volume provides a full investigation of social class in the region and situates class concerns at the center of our understanding of Southern culture.