Episode Ten: No More Book Babies

Ali Arant, English Professor at Wagner College on Staten Island, joins us this week for a conversation about old maids from the South and elsewhere. Ali’s research focuses on the trope of the old maid in regional literature, examining work by William Faulkner, Ellen Glasgow, Katherine Anne Porter, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison among others.

The Old Maid card.

The Old Maid card.

However, she has also found the figure in surprising places. For instance, the term is also used to describe an un-popped kernel of popcorn at the bottom of a bowl and the single, unmatchable card in a game similar to Go Fish. An old maid lurks in the lyrics of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” as the (typically) female speaker’s “maiden aunt” with a “vicious mind.” Our conversation investigates how cultural anxieties are embodied in this tragicomic character.

The original from Neptune's Daughter Neptune's Daughter is a 1949 musical romantic comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalbán, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat and Mel Blanc. It was directed by Edward Buzzell, and features the Academy Award winning song Baby, It's Cold Outside by Frank Loesser.

According to Ali, old maids are typically past the typical age of being married, and they seem unlikely to ever be married. They are usually busybodies, overly interested in other people’s sexuality, and they retain the worst aspects of youth and age. They are childish and immature with aging, "gross" bodies. She presents Rosa Coldfield in Absalom, Absalom! whose “female old flesh [was] long embattled in virginity” as an embodiment of the trope.

Old maids represent reproductive potential gone wrong, and they can express and/or mock anxieties about changing cultural landscapes. For example, old maids appearing in early twentieth-century southern literature might reflect an Agrarian anxiety that the South with cease to be what it once was. The figure appears in conjunction with agricultural anxiety about crop exhaustion and concerns about miscegenation. Ali describes how women come to stand in for larger cultural anxieties in the late twentieth century as well, noting that Jeffrey Eugenides cites the decline of the automobile industry as the inspiration for his 1993 novel, The Virgin Suicides.

We would like to thank our special guest this week, Ali Arant, who also provided music for this week’s episode. Ali’s research focuses on regionalism, gender, and critical race studies, and she is completing two book projects, an edited collection on Flannery O’Connor with Jordan Cofer, and a second book on old maids and regionalism. We would also like to congratulate Ali and her husband, Tyler, on their recent marriage. We hope their future includes all the happiness in the world (and ample space for bookshelves).

Buy Ali Arant's album, June/July here.

Not babies.

Not babies.

Episode Nine: More Estrogen in Football

This week, we have assembled an all-star team of football fans (all of whom happen to be women). Friends of the show, Kris Townsend, Alex Patafio, and Stephanie Rountree, join host Gina Caison and co-producer Kelly Vines to have a conversation about what it’s like to be a woman who loves football in the South.

Opening weekend at Auburn versus Clemson.

Opening weekend at Auburn versus Clemson.

Our conversation covers topics big and small: our childhood connection to the sport, our experiences with other fans, prescribed roles for women on game day, toxic masculinity, mansplaining, and regional performance. While it may seem like just a game, our discussion demonstrates the complex issues associated with our favorite fall pastime.

We begin by talking about our relationship to football growing up and our current allegiances. Kelly—currently a Georgia Tech fan getting her Ph.D. at LSU—grew up listening to UGA games with her grandfather. Stephanie’s father was in sports licensing when she was a child, and they rooted for the Florida Gators at home. She became a competitive cheerleader and learned more about the game, then eventually attended Florida State who she now supports. Kris’s parents met at Florida State and visited the school frequently during Kris’s childhood. Competing in track led her to UGA, though she originally wanted to attend FSU. She now roots primarily for Florida State, but also for UGA and other teams in the SEC. Alex grew up a Penn State fan and developing a love for football in middle and high school, she became a cheerleader. Gina came to love football through her mother, an NC State season ticket holder. She learned about the sport by going to NC State games with her family before becoming a majorette in high school.

While discussing our biographical information, we also talk about some of the issues we’ve had attending games. Kris and Kelly mention some negative experiences with other fans. Gina also brings up her experience after one particularly heartbreaking Auburn game against Alabama, which was mentioned in Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, and suggests that perhaps we can all get too caught up in our fan allegiances.

After the halftime break, we discuss some issues female football fans face in the South. Gina laments that she cannot watch football in a bar without men looking at her like she’s a dog riding a bicycle. Kris offers her own experience to contrast with Gina’s; as someone who appears more androgynous, she can blend in and enjoy the game without necessarily being subjected to the "male gaze." Alex connects the difficulties of being a woman who is interested in football to the more traditional views of a “woman’s place” in southern culture.

Then we turn our attention to some of the more serious events covered by the media, including the Penn State and Jameis Winston scandals. These news stories prompt us to question whether or not team allegiances enable us to defend inexcusable behavior so that we can continue to participate in an activity we enjoy. In response to Gina’s question if, as women, we could we move the needle from the inside, Alex describes her sister’s UGA tailgates. Exclusively attended by women, they’re a place of empowerment. She asserts that if women felt more empowered instead of anomalous, then maybe we could be more involved with the sport, working for the NCAA and calling games. Gina observes how women in football relates to larger concerns about gender performance, citing Erin Andrews and the burden female sportscasters feel to look a certain way. Despite their talent, female sportscasters are still relegated to the sidelines.

Erin Andrews field reporting at USC vs. Oregon game, 2010. Neon Tommy, Wikimedia Commons.

Erin Andrews field reporting at USC vs. Oregon game, 2010. Neon Tommy, Wikimedia Commons.

We then tackled our experiences with "mansplainers," and Gina questions why we still go to games after experiencing firsthand the problematic way in which women are treated. Panelists mention a few reasons: we love our respective teams, we feel that it provides us with an important connection to our history and others at the game with us, and it provides an important escape from the hamster wheel of work involved in everyday life. Stephanie also mentions the vicarious and visceral response fans have to the game. Football especially provides women with an amazing sublimation of anger. However, on the other hand, we all lament male announcers who talk about penetration and our several negative experiences with other fans. It then becomes difficult to separate the game from gender performance and interpolation.

Stephanie mentions how football is tied up in regional identification too. She notes that the SEC is held up as the seat of all brilliance in college football, despite being dethroned many times. She wonders if it isn’t part of the same southern myth assigning glory to the region based on perception rather than hard facts.

We close this week’s show with our predictions about who will win the National Championship and who we hope will not. 

The top ten ranked teams as of Friday, September 15, 2016. Will our predictions pan out?

The top ten ranked teams as of Friday, September 15, 2016. Will our predictions pan out?

We would like to think our special guests this week, Stephanie Rountree, Kris Townsend, and Alex Patafio. We'd also like to thank Jen Welter for inspiring us all.

Episode Eight: Real Pie

This week we traveled to North Carolina to talk with Scott Romine, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, about moon pies, grits, and soft drinks. Returning to one of the central questions guiding this podcast, we also talk with Scott about what we might mean when we talk about the “real South.”

We began this podcast with three questions: What is the South? Is it real? And what’s so special about it? Given that Scott wrote a book titled The Real South: Southern Narrative in the Age of Cultural Reproduction, we thought he might be able to provide us with an answer to our first two questions or at least point us in the right direction. While he describes the South as an intersection between an idea and a social reality, he also says that he tends to approach the South as more of an idea, or an “imagined community.” He describes how people generally have a positive or negative idea about the South, and he asserts that one’s opinion can lead to a confirmation bias where new information is filtered out and the extraordinarily complex region is oversimplified.

Scott describes how current projects related to southern food relate to his work on the South as an idea. He notes that Southern Living started the year after the Civil Rights Act was passed. He accounts for Southern Living as an attempt to find a new, noncontroversial way to consume the South. After all, as he points out, no one is really going to fight a Civil War over barbecue, sweet tea, or grits. However, while publications like Southern Living successfully make the South more palatable, they also presented distorted representations of the material realities of actual people. For instance, romanticized images of the “Great Southern Table” in southern periodicals obscure the stark racial divisions and inequalities characterizing domains of food production and consumption domain. In many southern households, labor is distributed across gender lines as well, where women are primarily responsible for preparing and cleaning up after meals.

We end this week’s episode with a conversation about moon pies, a fairly new (first introduced in 1917) mass-produced, but still somehow quintessentially “southern” dessert. Scott says he started researching moon pies after Bill Ferris made the odd claim that moon pies anchor southerners to their culture and history. According to Scott, Ferris’s connection works because of an ability to invoke a southern imaginary. Ferris’s comment also highlights the fact that “authenticity” and “tradition” are always changing and demonstrates the necessity of meeting “authenticity” claims with skepticism.

Big Bill Lister, who toured with Hank Williams and was billed as "Radio's Tallest Singing Cowboy". Texan Big Bill Lister is best known for his early 1950s stint as Hank Williams' opening act and rhythm guitarist.

Episode Seven: Literally a Lobster

The Bs in Barcelona. Wikimedia Commons via LivePict.

The Bs in Barcelona. Wikimedia Commons via LivePict.

The B-52’s formed in Athens, Georgia in late 1977. Initially, they began playing together just for fun. This was before Athens became the music scene it is known as today -- before Pylon and REM --  and before the city had live music venues like the famous 40 Watt Club. After playing several house parties, the band started getting gigs in New York City at which point their success necessitated a move. After releasing “Rock Lobster” they became an international success and began touring in Japan, Europe, and Australia. When Ricky Wilson died of complications related to AIDS in 1985, the band took a hiatus, returning in 1989 to release Cosmic Thing.

Michael listened to The B-52’s as a teenager growing up in Aiken, South Carolina. He returned to their music as an academic, and he is now examining how literalism functions in their songs. For example, the lyrics “There’s a moon in the sky / It’s called the moon,” resist making the moon a symbol for something else. In “Butterbean,” the lyrics similarly emphasize the literal: “Pick ‘em, hull ‘em, put on the steam / That’s how we make butterbeans.”

The B-52's - There's A Moon In The Sky - The B-52's(1979)

Performed live on UK TV 1983.

Visually, the album cover for an early release of “Rock Lobster” reinforces the same kind of literalism, depicting a pink rock and a blue lobster next to one another.

Another song, “The Devil in My Car,” was inspired by taking the metaphorical and making it literal. After hearing a southern preacher deliver a sermon on AM radio about how the devil was everywhere, including "in your car," the band members wondered what it would be like if the devil was literally in the car with them.

One of the most famous examples of literalism occurs in “Love Shack.” This is the lyric that has given everyone so much interpretive trouble over the years: “tin roof, rusted." Several interviewers have asked band members to explain the lyric's meaning, but they can only describe how it ended up in the song. For The B-52’s, it means quite literally, “tin roof, rusted,” but listeners want it to mean more than it does. As Michael explains, this famous example demonstrates how literalism enables an object, moment, or meaning to become bigger than itself without becoming different from itself.

Watch the official music video for The B-52's - "Love Shack"

We consider how this idea of “literalism” helps us to understand aspects of southernness and queerness. The B-52’s are not performing some essentialized “overalls and accents” southernness. They are performing themselves. They were created out of the very elements we see in their appearance and hear in their music. Their thrift store aesthetic literally picks up the remains of capitalism and makes something new out of it.

Michael also relates literalism of the B-52's to the ways in which queerness is addressed via tacitness in the South. The B-52’s are unabashedly queer and unapologetically campy. At the same time, they seemingly created and performed themselves without "coming out" until relatively late in their careers. This juxtaposition leads us to reflect on the contours of queer life and queer acceptance in the small-town South that may deviate from larger national narratives of "out" or "closeted" culture.

We would like to thank our special guest this week, Michael Bibler. Michael is an Associate Professor at Louisiana State University. His book, Cotton’s Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968, examines the connections between same-sex relationships and social egalitarianism in literature of the southern plantation published in the mid-twentieth century. He’s currently working on a project about literalism.

Our thoughts this week are with the people of southern Louisiana who are overcoming the devastating effects of recent floods. Please visit www.lafloodrelief.org to donate to relief efforts. You can also text “LAFLOODS” to 90999 to make a $10 donation to the American Red Cross.

*NOTE: The band changed the spelling of their name in 2008 to remove the apostrophe. They are now known as “The B-52s.”

Episode Six: It's About Story

From top right: Shell Shaker, Seeing Red, Pixeled Skins: American Indians and Film, Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story, and Choctalking on Other Realities.

From top right: Shell Shaker, Seeing Red, Pixeled Skins: American Indians and Film, Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story, and Choctalking on Other Realities.

We were able to have this conversation when we attended the annual Falkner and Yoknapatawpha conference in Oxford, Mississippi this summer. This year’s topic was on Faulkner and the Native South. We were delighted to get the chance to sit down and discuss their work and what is meant by something now called the “Native South.”

The 2016 Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference featured numerous scholars of the Native South and/or Faulkner, including Eric Gary Anderson, Jodi Byrd, Robbie Ethridge, Patricia Galloway,  LeAnne Howe, Katherine Osbourne, Melanie Benson Taylo…

The 2016 Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference featured numerous scholars of the Native South and/or Faulkner, including Eric Gary Anderson, Jodi Byrd, Robbie Ethridge, Patricia Galloway,  LeAnne Howe, Katherine Osbourne, Melanie Benson Taylor, and Annette Trefzer.

Howe describes the importance of story to both her creative and critical projects. Guided by the story, she then begins to research for her critical work, and that research is then woven into the creative work as well. Squint describes how works such as LeAnne’s Shell Shaker open the door for students in her literature courses at North Carolina’s High Point University to begin thinking about tribal histories. Howe adds that she envisions Native American literature as a vehicle for change. Important to both Howe's critical and creative work is the idea of tribalography, which is a term she uses to describe the method by which Native stories work to encompass new people, traditions, lifeways, circumstances, challenges, and innovations.

Squint describes how the story of colonialism always asks how Europeans influenced the indigenous people, but Howe’s work prompted her to think about the Indigenous aspects of southern culture instead. For instance, Howe describes how Choctaw people offered refuge and food to Europeans. Now, she says, when she looks around the South, she sees a reflection of Chickasaw, Choctaw, and other southeastern tribes in the “southern lifeway” of hospitality.

Despite the influence of Indigenous cultures on the modern-day South, the term “Native South” is a complex term, encompassing many different ideas, cultures, people, and connections. Squint describes how, even though the term is widely used, the “South” usually refers to the Confederacy, which is a colonial construct and, therefore, might not be the best term to use when thinking about the region's Native histories and literatures. Squint also describes how those Choctaws who carried handfuls of Mississippi dirt with them during their Removal to Indian Territory further challenge our conceptions of regional identity. Howe notes that: “The land still causes us to return.” For instance, she describes how the Chickasaw Nation is buying back its homelands one acre at a time.

Historical marker, downtown Oxford, Mississippi. Chickasaw land.

Historical marker, downtown Oxford, Mississippi. Chickasaw land.

Our conversation then turns to the importance of tribal citizenship. Squint explains how Kentucky, where she grew up, has no federally recognized tribes, even though the state has a rich Native history. However, despite a lack of tribal affiliation, many people claim a Cherokee relative, which, as Gina explains, can be both offensive and harmful. These false claims to Native ancestry can have material implications when people apply for scholarships or jobs and self-identify as Indigenous without needing to prove their tribal citizenship.

Before closing, Howe and Squint describe what they would like to see in the future of Native American & Southern Studies. Squint says she would like to see Native literature in more southern literature classrooms and, more broadly, more Native literature taught in the South. Howe concludes by describing how contemporary debates about immigration demonstrate a way in which Native literatures, Native stories, and Native histories help all Americans be better prepared in the twenty-first century.   

Howe's latest book, which won the 2014 Modern Language Association inaugural prize for studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

Howe's latest book, which won the 2014 Modern Language Association inaugural prize for studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

We would like to thank our special guests this week, LeAnne Howe and Kirstin Squint. LeAnne Howe is a Choctaw author and Eidson Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia. She has won numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas and the 2014 Modern Language Association inaugural prize for studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages for her book Choctalking on Other Realities (2013). Kirstin Squint is an Associate Professor of English at High Point University. She is the leading scholar on LeAnne Howe’s work, and currently she is completing a book on this topic.

Additionally, we would like to thank Jay Watson and everyone at the University of Mississippi for a productive Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference on Faulkner and the Native South.

You can purchase LeAnne Howe's work here:

Shell Shaker

Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story

Choctalking on Other Realities

Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose

Seeing Red, Hollywood's Pixeled Skins: American Indians and Film

Episode Five: Let Yourself Go

This week, we sit down with southern studies scholar Monica Miller to talk about ugly women in southern literature and popular culture.

In the U.S. South, parents frequently tell misbehaving children to stop “being ugly,” but according to Monica, there is a certain power in being ugly, especially for southern women who want to escape traditional expectations.

Photo of Minnie Pearl wondering if her latest male interest loves her or not. Grand Ole Opry, 1949. Wikimedia Commons

Photo of Minnie Pearl wondering if her latest male interest loves her or not. Grand Ole Opry, 1949. Wikimedia Commons

Although southern women are often stereotyped as “prettier” than women from other places, Monica offers that southern literature by women writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty, and Margaret Mitchell often feature ugly women. According to Monica, ugliness enables characters like Katherine Anne Porter’s Cousin Eva — who was “doomed” because of her weak chin — to subvert the expectation that her life would be defined largely by marriage and children. Similarly, Joy / Hulga in Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” chooses ugliness. She changes her name from Joy to Hulga because its “uglier,” and she adopts “ugly” habits which enable her, in part, to obtain a Ph.D. For many of these southern literary women, ugliness provides another option.

Revisiting the phrase that kicked off our discussion, Monica describes how the conflation of behavior and appearance in the phrase “being ugly” is particularly fascinating given the particular set of strict standards governing femininity and womanhood in the South.

Kim Fields listens to Kenya Moore's lesson on makeup historiography at her "Beatless Brunch." Watch the clip from Season 12 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta "Beauty & the Beat" here.

Kim Fields listens to Kenya Moore's lesson on makeup historiography at her "Beatless Brunch." Watch the clip from Season 12 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta "Beauty & the Beat" here.

Monica brings up the drag version of Designing Women, in which Julia Sugarbaker is played by Topher Payne, to demonstrate the performative nature of southern womanhood as the male actors reproduce their female counterparts from the show.

Julia Sugarbaker has had enough of GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump's misogynistic views on women and now, the iconic steel magnolia has a few words of her own to share with the reality TV star.

Dolly Parton, who is also frequently played by drag performers (some of whom “look more like me than I do,” according to Dolly) also seems to underline southern womanhood as a construction or performance. Long before the Kardashians, Parton embraced the idea of a constructed reality of womanhood.

Finally, after discussing how even make-up terminology seems to emphasize construction (e.g. “foundation” and “primer”) we end this episode by discussing one of Monica’s favorite southern ugly icons: Minnie Pearl.

Minnie Pearl - Looking At Fellers

In short, while Reese Witherspoon may not wear sweatpants in public, there are definitely southern women who do.

In public.

Your About South co-producers included.

So #letyourselfgo and tweet us your photos—you wonderful, empowered, southern women—proudly wearing your sweatpants in public @aboutsouthpod #southernwomenwearsweatpants.

We would like to thank today’s special guest, Monica Miller. She is a Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Director of Writing and Communication at Georgia Tech. We are very excited about her forthcoming monograph, Being Ugly: Southern Women Writers and Social Rebellion, which will be published Spring 2017 by LSU Press’s Southern Literary Studies Series.

Other things we mention in this Episode:

Gretchen E. Henderson, Ugliness: A History

Blaine Roberts, Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South

 

Episode Four: Feel Lighter

Detail from Pasaquan

Detail from Pasaquan

Eddie Owens Martin was born at the stroke of midnight on July 4, 1908 to sharecroppers in the rural southern town of Glen Alta, Georgia. Perceiving himself as an outsider, Eddie left the South as a teen and spent most of his adulthood working as a street hustler in New York. There, Eddie had his first vision of Pasaquan, and when he moved back to Buena Vista, Georgia in 1957, he changed his name to St. EOM and began what would become his life’s work. The site, seven acres of brightly painted masonry walls, is currently being renovated. We talk with site director, Michael McFalls, about St. EOM and his Pasaquoyan legacy.

Michael McFalls, Director of Pasaquan

Michael McFalls, Director of Pasaquan

The 900-feet of concrete walls built by St. EOM are adorned with his interpretations of symbols from many different cultures and religions. While most visionary artists (e.g. Howard Finster) are inspired by their Christian faith and incorporate Christian imagery into their art, St. EOM’s work is much different. St. EOM built Pasaquan after he was visited by Pasaquoyans from the future in a fever dream. They urged him to create “a utopian society that’s pluralistic and accepting of all,” which, Michael admits, might be “kind of scary,” to potential visitors.

Through our conversation with Michael, we discovered that St. EOM was as much a work of art as Pasaquan. He made his own clothes and frequently adorned a self-fashioned headdress. He made a living in Buena Vista by telling fortunes, and some people believed him to be a witch doctor. Michael suggests that Eddie Martin intentionally cultivated myths about the character of St. EOM to insulate himself in a small community where he never felt like he belonged. Regardless, St. EOM is his own piece of art, as carefully curated as the concrete sculptures and painted walls of Pasaquan.

The pagoda and old well pump at Pasaquan.

The pagoda and old well pump at Pasaquan.

We hoped that visiting Pasaquan would provide us with insight into St. EOM’s artistic purpose, but instead we came away from the site unsettled and overwhelmed. Pasaquan is a house, but it is also a work of art with complex images that evoke sensory and visceral responses. Similarly, Eddie Owens Martin was a real human being and a talented artist, but he also cultivated the character of St. EOM whose mythic persona has only grown since Eddie’s death in 1986. While we left Pasaquan with more questions than answers, we feel certain of at least one thing: St. EOM attempted to build a better future with the tools he had, and that’s a noble goal.

Pasaquoyans levitating in their "power suits."

Pasaquoyans levitating in their "power suits."

We would like to thank today’s special guest, Michael McFalls. We would also like to thank everyone involved in the preservation of Pasaquan. The site will reopen with a festival on October 22, 2016, and we encourage our listeners to take the trip down to Buena Vista to see St. EOM’s utopia in person.

Learn more about the work of:

Fred C. Fussel

Tim Gregory

Kohler Foundation

Parma Conservation

This video was filmed on November 10, 2015 with a DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter.

Episode Three: Southern Souls

This week, we talk about songs and albums, lyrics and melodies, sounds and sensations with Scott Heath, a professor of African American literature and culture at Georgia State University, and we learn about the southern inflections of soul and neosoul music along with African American music more generally.

D'Angelo performing at Brixton Academy, February 2012. Photo credit: Phil Sheard

D'Angelo performing at Brixton Academy, February 2012. Photo credit: Phil Sheard

Since Andre 3000 proclaimed that “the South got something to say” after Outkast won the Best New Rap Group at the Source Awards in 1995, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in southern hip_hop artists. However, there are several distinctly southern artists who are not necessarily considered in conversations about southern musical traditions.

An excerpt from the VH1 documentary 'ATL: The Untold Story of Atlanta's Rise in the Rap Game' (2014).

We begin by investigating the importance of regional identity to certain genres of music. As Scott explains, attaching a musical aesthetic to a region only happens in a couple of genres: country and hip_hop. While country music is associated with the South, hip_hop was primarily associated with urban centers on the East and West coasts (until Outkast’s prominence beginning in the mid-90s, at least). These regional affiliations often either necessitate that the artist either relocate, adopt the sound of another region, or risk causing a disruption in the genre. Investigating the effect of music genres tied to certain regions prompts us to ask what an artist might gain or lose by associating with a particular region. We also ask what makes an artist “southern,” and what qualities make music sound “southern.”

Taylor Swift performs "Our Song" at the 2007 Country Music Awards.

With these questions in mind, we begin to consider neosoul. Neosoul grows out of soul music, which itself is a hybrid of 60s R&B and gospel music, along with some elements from jazz and blues. Initially, the most popular artists creating soul music—Ray Charles, Nina Simone, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin—were all born in the South. Scott argues that the South remains the intellectual home of soul music into the neosoul era, with D’Angelo (from Richmond, Virginia) and Erykah Badu (from Dallas, Texas). We also discuss connections between Badu’s “Southern Girl” (1999) and Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016) in their depictions of unapologetic southern black womanhood.

Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group North America Southern Girl · Erykah Badu Southern Girl ℗ 1999 Universal Motown Records

Finally, we investigate what happens when artists outside of the region adopt the aesthetics of southern rappers, as we turn our attention toward Desiigner, a Brooklyn rapper who has gained prominence by emulating Future, an Atlanta-based artist. To help us understand Desiigner’s success, Scott introduces the concept of the “long South,” in which contemporary African American music from across the U.S. is connected by a series of resonances to traditions emanating from the U.S. South.

We would like our special guest, Scott Heath. You can explore his other work on teaching poetry through Kanye West, archiving the black 90s, and viewing recent media related to slavery.

We would also like to thank our musical contributor Brian Horton. Please visit his website and support his music.

Episode Two: Vampires On the Outside, Accountants On the Inside

Covington, Georgia is a small town on the outskirts of Atlanta with a big reputation in the film industry. Billing itself as the camera-ready “Hollywood of the South,” Covington has starred in several films and television shows, including the popular CW show The Vampire Diaries.

This week, we tour the town with southern studies scholar Molly McGehee and sit down to talk about southern television.  

Paul Wesley (Stefan), Nina Dobrev (Elena) and Ian Somerhalder (Damon) at 2012 Comic-Con International. Photo by Gage Skidmore. From Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Wesley (Stefan), Nina Dobrev (Elena) and Ian Somerhalder (Damon) at 2012 Comic-Con International. Photo by Gage Skidmore. From Wikimedia Commons.

We begin our investigation into television tourism with the Vampire Stalkers Tour, a Vampire Diaries-themed tour guided by Angie at Mystic Falls Tours. Stopping for lunch at the Mystic Grill, we see first-hand how The Vampire Diaries has changed the town. At first, the Mystic Grill was only a façade created outside of an accountant’s office for the television show, but the real-world building behind the façade now houses a fully operational restaurant and goes by the name of the fictional Mystic Falls eatery. The story behind the Mystic Grill underlines the slippery relationship between reality and fiction when a television show takes over a small town.

The façade of the real Mystic Grill.

The façade of the real Mystic Grill.

In addition to learning about vampires, we question why one might choose to set a vampire show in the South anyway, specifically exploring the significance of the characters' Civil War experiences. We also consider the economic and material impact of television shows that film in southern locations.  

The courthouse in Covington,  a site of much Vampire drama.

The courthouse in Covington,  a site of much Vampire drama.

We would like to thank our special guest, Molly McGehee. Additionally, we owe enormous thanks to Angie at and our fellow vampire stalkers at Mystic Falls Tours. We would also like to thank Ben at the fictional Lockwood Mansion, and everyone who works to create The Vampire Diaries in Covington, Georgia.

Live from Instagram, #thevampirediaries:

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<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.</p>
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Episode One: The Crayfish Blues

Welcome to About South. Each week we talk to the folks who create, curate, and critique southern cultures. Ultimately, along with our guests, we consider three questions: What is the South? Is it real? And what’s so special about it?

In this episode we explore the mystery of the blue crayfish.

The Florida blue crayfish in its natural habitat in Petco.

In several pet stores across the globe, customers can find for sale a “electric” blue crayfish. Many websites describe the blue crayfish as endemic to Florida and claim these blue crustaceans are members of the species Procambarus alleni or Procambarus paeninsulanis.

Before buying a crayfish companion, though, we wanted to see if we could find one in the wild in order to understand more about this seemingly special Floridian. We reached out to several scholars and pet purveyors, hoping experts might be able to direct us to a location in Florida where we might catch a glimpse of the blue crayfish in its natural habitat.

However, our search yielded few answers and many more questions. After several false starts and dead ends, we began to wonder if the blue crayfish existed at all. Then, we paid a visit to the local Petco where we were able to see a blue crayfish in-person.

But still, the question lingered: if the blue crayfish exists, why couldn’t we find anyone who knows where it lives in Florida?

Searching for a blue crayfish in the wild brings up questions of authenticity, consumption, spectacle culture, and those things we might think of as exceptionally southern.

We would like to thank our special guest, Lindsey Eckert. Additionally, we would like to thank the Florida Department of Natural Resources, the folks at Silver Springs State Park, Dr. Bill Pine at the University of Florida, Dr. Chris Taylor and Rachel Vinsel of the Prairie Research Institute of the Illinois Natural History Survey, Dr. Leo Nico of the U.S. Geological Survey, Dr. Keith Crandall of the Department of Biological Sciences at George Washington University, Post-Doctoral Associate Jesse Breinholt of the Florida Museum of Natural History, the folks at PetSolutions, and the generous Instagram users who hashtag under “bluecrayfish.”

Last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank Dr. Jim Stoeckel of the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences and Dr. Brian Helms of the Department of Biological Sciences at Auburn University.

If you would like to learn more about researching, protecting, and appreciating aquatic life, particularly crayfish, please visit Auburn University’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences.

Live from Instagram, #bluecrayfish:

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<p>Commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.</p>
Elit Condimentum
Elit Condimentum
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.</p>
Aenean eu leo Quam
Aenean eu leo Quam
<p>Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.</p>
Cursus Amet
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<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.</p>
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<p>Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.</p>
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<p>Sed purus sem, scelerisque ac rhoncus eget, porttitor nec odio. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</p>
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