The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture’s ninth volume, on literature, is the latest installment of what will eventually be a twenty-four volume series, a considerable expansion on the original single-volume version launched almost two decades ago. Divided into two parts--thematic essays and biographical entries--the book is an excellent research aid in that it provides succinct yet well-weighted sketches of various issues, themes, and influential authors, supplemented by short bibliographies and indexing, thereby allowing scholars to quickly filter through a wealth of material to obtain information pertaining to specific interests, and then where to find more. Essay topics include prevalent academic foci like race and gender/sexuality issues, literary genre studies (e.g., autobiographies/memoirs, poetry, fiction, theater), folklore and regionalism, and religion, and address specifically southern subjects such as the agrarian and fugitive movements, Appalachia, the blues, the Civil War, Southern Gothic literature, slave narratives, the Southern Literary Renaissance, and the industrialization and globalization of the “new” South. Other essays discuss criticism, detective stories, food, humor, Amerindian authors, nature, the histories of various periodicals and publishing houses, and travel.
While some chapters are essentially annotated laundry lists of notable authors, works, and themes, providing useful purviews of their domain, others delve more deeply into broader issues. Kathryn McKee’s discussion of globalization, hybrid identities, and the South’s emergent paradigm shift from “other” towards an increasingly transnational perspective is topical and provocative; Ted Olson’s chapter on poetry provides, in addition to an historical overview, insightful social contextualization along with an evaluation of the influential roles of criticism and distribution media; Edward Piacentino’s treatment of humor considers the impact of oral transmission; Annette Trefzer’s essay raises--but wisely leaves unanswered--the question of what exactly counts as American Indian literature; and Jon Smith’s section on postcolonial Southern literature contains an excellent discussion of overriding issues as well as subtle problematization and analysis of Southern identity. At the very heart of the matter, George Hovis asks, in his essay on Postsouthern literature, just what “the South” is, or may mean, noting that for many postmodernists, “stability of place is of less importance to the continuing health of southern letters than is the approach of the writer” (130), concluding his argument by reflexively questioning the longevity and suitability of the term “Postsouthern.” The juxtaposition of chapters that interpret and apply theoretical insights with chapters of a more factual or historical bent offers the student a useful combination of both organizational rubrics and data. In some cases, however, it is difficult to track down and cull information on specific concepts that permeate these essays. For example, the term “Lost Cause” and the story “Marse Chan” are mentioned by several authors but fail to appear in the index.
With so broad a sweep (purportedly representing all-things-South via the literature both of and about it), and with a host of contributors, a work of this nature runs the risk of uneven and/or incomplete coverage. Certainly a mix of narrative tones and biases are present here, but this very plurality turns out to be an asset as well, insuring that all manner of authors and attitudes have a better chance of being championed. In the spirit of balance and, perhaps, decanonization, all of the autobiographical entries are kept to a roughly equivalent length such that the expected pride of literary lions (and lionesses)--Samuel Clemens, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Edgar Allen Poe, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty, Tom and Thomas Wolfe, and their ilk--share equal page-space with less well-known figures (however integral and important their roles) like newspaper humorist Henry Clay Lewis, “grit-lit” writer Bobbie Ann Mason, Appalachian writer/teacher Jim Wayne Miller, writer/peach farmer Dori Sanders, poet Natasha Trethewey, and writer/teacher/poet Margaret Walker, to name just a few. The expanded list of biographies (over 230 entries) should give college students and other scholars ample suggestions for underrepresented writers to investigate as subjects of their papers and theses. Again, while the tone of these sketches varies with the contributor (a few bios lean more towards fan reviews than critical evaluations), they are invariably helpful in directing reader attention to the social, artistic, and intellectual contributions of each author, thus providing a selected condensation of his or her life and oeuvre.
Even if one quibbles with The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture’s basic premise of isolating and compartmentalizing “the South” as an organizing principle for scholarly inquiry (to its credit, the NESC does not try to pin this definition down, and continues to challenge it throughout), it is impossible not to appreciate the expanded edition for its increased ability to pinpoint and enlarge upon multifarious aspects of this expressive cultural cluster.
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[Review length: 764 words • Review posted on October 1, 2008]