Twentieth Century Southern Culture

My first class, "Twentieth Century Southern Culture," begins on Monday. As I wrap up the course syllabus, I continue to appreciate the difficulty American Studies students/faculty have in grasping the evidence, questions and approaches that make our discipline uniquely interdisciplinary. It is an impossible task to tell the entire story I would like to share. Due to time constraints, I must stick to short stories, which leaves out some of the best cultural texts of the South. Among my favorites missing from the syllabus are Confederacy of Dunces, Absalom, Absalom!, and Black Boy. However, I have managed to squeeze in some great movies, poetry, social criticism and Walker Evans photography. Also, I geeked out yesterday and created a course logo, which I'll tag to all of my blog posts. My course description is as follows:

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“A common history has not necessarily meant a common experience, nor has it produced a uniformity of heritage and a conformity in character.” —C. Vann Woodward

Southern theorist C. Vann Woodward pondered in 1950 whether there was any usefulness in a southerner calling oneself southern. He argued that the collective historical experiences of the South where generations of scarcity and want, a pessimism in its social outlook and moral philosophy, and a deep historical consciousness all contribute to this distinct region. Later in the century, southern historian James C. Cobb claimed that the culture of the modern South is largely a mass-produced caricature of hackneyed southern stereotypes. Regardless of the utility of authenticating a “southern experience,” many people from within the borders of the traditional South, as well as people from all over the world, continue to document their admiration of the region, while others seek to express their revulsion of the South’s turbulent history.

In this course, we will examine the historical and social changes of the American South throughout the twentieth century. Material and visual culture, literature, journalism, music, food, TV, religion, and recreation serve as our course materials. This multi-disciplinary exploration of the region’s folkways dispenses with the notion of a monolithic southern culture. Among our objectives is to consider the cultural constructions of southern identity, paying particular attention to the reasons and means for the development of “The South.” 

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Although I have had many aborted attempts at maintaining this blog following my Appalachian Trail hike, I have a sincere desire to update this blog throughout the semester. My goals is to express what has been working and what has been problematic during this first semester in front of a class. I'll try to include as much of the class materials in my blog postings as possible in order to demonstrate the approaches the class is taking. Please email me or comment on all posts. I'd love to start a dialogue on many of the topics that are essential to my work and heart. Finally, I'll post the syllabus to this blog sometime this weekend.

—Mike McCollum, Saint Louis University