Synopses & Reviews
This volume of
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture reflects the dramatic increase in research on the topic of gender over the past thirty years, revealing that even the most familiar subjects take on new significance when viewed through the lens of gender. The wide range of entries explores how people have experienced, understood, and used concepts of womanhood and manhood in all sorts of obvious and subtle ways.
The volume features 113 articles, 65 of which are entirely new for this edition. Thematic articles address subjects such as sexuality, respectability, and paternalism and investigate the role of gender in broader subjects, including the civil rights movement, country music, and sports. Topical entries highlight individuals such as Oprah Winfrey, the Grimke sisters, and Dale Earnhardt, as well as historical events such as the capture of Jefferson Davis in a woman's dress, the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia, and the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, with its slogan, "I AM A MAN." Bringing together scholarship on gender and the body, sexuality, labor, race, and politics, this volume offers new ways to view big questions in southern history and culture.
Review
"Just as the original volume led to greater understanding and more in-depth analysis of southern culture, this volume will continue to fuel the academic engine that sheds light on 'the South,' life in the region, and the myths that surround both."
--The North Carolina Historical Review
Review
"[The essays] are rich resources through which readers can acquire both a fundamental and advanced understanding. . . . The essays in the volume are, in general, written and edited well, and all entries include suggestions for further reading."
-Feminist Collections
About the Author
Nancy Bercaw is associate professor of history and southern studies at the University of Mississippi. She is the author ofGendered Freedoms: Race, Rights, and the Politics of Household in the Delta, 1861-1875. Ted Ownby is professor of history and southern studies at the University of Mississippi and author of Subduing Satan: Recreation, Religion, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920(UNC Press). Charles Reagan Wilson is Kelly Gene Cook Sr. Chair in History and professor of southern studies at the University of Mississippi.