Southern heritage on display : public ritual and ethnic diversity within southern regionalism / Celeste Ray.

ISBN:

9780817382254

Title:

Author:

Ray, R. Celeste.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 301 pages) : illustrations

Contents:

"Keeping jazz funerals alive" : blackness and the politics of memory in New Orleans / Helen A. Regis -- The mardi gras Indian song cycle : a heroic tradition / Kathryn VanSpanckeren -- "There's a dance every weekend" : powwow culture in southeast North Carolina / Clyde Ellis -- Melungeons and the politics of heritage / Melissa Schrift -- Kin-religious gatherings : display for an "inner public" / Gwen Kennedy Neville -- Religious healing in southern Appalachian communities / Susan Emley Keefe -- Viva Mexico! : Mexican independence day festivals in central Florida / Joan Flocks and Paul Monaghan -- Forget the Alamo : fiesta and San Antonio's public memory / Laura Ehrisman -- "Where the Old South still lives" : displaying heritage in Natchez, Mississippi / Steven Hoelscher -- "'Thigibh!' means 'y'all come!'" : renegotiating regional memories through Scottish heritage celebration / Celeste Ray.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Festivals -- Social aspects -- Southern States.

Rites and ceremonies -- Southern States.

Minorities -- Southern States -- Social life and customs.

Cultural pluralism -- Southern States.

Group identity -- Southern States.

Memory -- Social aspects -- Southern States.

Geographic Term:

Southern States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-

Southern States -- Social conditions -- 1945-

Southern States -- Ethnic relations.

États-Unis (Sud) -- Mœurs et coutumes -- 1865-

États-Unis (Sud) -- Conditions sociales -- 1945-

États-Unis (Sud) -- Relations interethniques.

Added Author:

Ray, R. Celeste.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2003

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
975.043 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

How ritualized public ceremonies affirm or challenge cultural identities associated with the American South

W. J. Cash's 1941 observation that "there are many Souths and many cultural traditions among them" is certainly validated by this book. Although the Civil War and its "lost cause" tradition continues to serve as a cultural root paradigm in celebrations, both uniting and dividing loyalties, southerners also embrace a panoply of public rituals--parades, cook-offs, kinship homecomings, church assemblies, music spectacles, and material culture exhibitions--that affirm other identities. From the Appalachian uplands to the Mississippi Delta, from Kentucky bluegrass to Carolina piedmont, southerners celebrate in festivals that showcase their diverse cultural backgrounds and their mythic beliefs about themselves.

The ten essays of this cohesive, interdisciplinary collection present event-centered research from various fields of study--anthropology, geography, history, and literature--to establish a rich, complex picture of the stereotypically "Solid South." Topics include the Mardi Gras Indian song cycle as a means of expressing African-American identity in New Orleans; powwow performances and Native American traditions in southeast North Carolina; religious healings in southern Appalachian communities; Mexican Independence Day festivals in central Florida; and, in eastern Tennessee, bonding ceremonies of melungeons who share Indian, Scots Irish, Mediterranean, and African ancestry. Seen together, these public heritage displays reveal a rich "creole" of cultures that have always been a part of southern life and that continue to affirm a flourishing regionalism.
This book will be valuable to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, American studies, and southern history; academic and public libraries; and general readers interested in the American South. It contributes a vibrant, colorful layer of understanding to the continuously emerging picture of complexity in this region historically depicted by simple stereotypes.

Author Notes

Celeste Ray is Professor of Anthropology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and author of Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

A collection of articles articulating a stunningly intelligent comprehension of southern culture, this book models what true cultural studies should do: understand a culture according to how its people express it. Ray (anthropology, Univ. of the South) clearly explicates a wonderfully thorough historical and theoretical background to both cultural and southern studies. As editor, she frames the article selection to reflect event-centered ethnographies of a South that has continuously syncretized the traditions of new and diverse groups. Like any region, the South in any one moment is a different South the next. Using Appadurai's notion of cultural "gatekeeping" to dismiss stereotypes of the South as culturally static, and Barth's insights that regional boundaries are stable while their contents and expressions are dynamic, Ray dismantles southern stereotypes that intellectually stultify any true comprehension of the region. Covering a wide range of ethnic groups, the interdisciplinary articles are uniformly fascinating and discerning, always a difficult task when dealing with inherent cultural contradictions in a multicultural society. As well as its superlative content, the book also features excellent chapter bibliographies, explanatory footnotes, and a useful theoretical and regional glossary. ^BSumming Up: Essential. All academic collections. J. B. Wolford Missouri Historical Society