American Cultural Studies
Chair/Organizer: Elizabeth Klaver, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Paper 1: For Whom the Belle Tolls: The Southern Belle in American Popular Culture
Julie Kares, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
No character figures more prominently in Southern narrative than the Southern belle. As one of the central figures representing the antebellum South, she has become symbolic of both the historical period and the cultural ideology. In Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel, the image of the Southern belle emerges as a product of the dominant white culture; she is pious, gracious, chaste, and nurturing. Contemporary depictions of the figure in Sweet Home Alabama and by plantation tour guides engage these characteristics through a modern understanding and interpretation of the icon. As the figure is cast and recast through these cultural forms, its construction reflects the parameters of Southern identity and the influence of white Southern hegemony on American popular culture today.
This paper will consider the impact of Southern ideology on American popular culture using Antonio Gramsci’s concept of political hegemony. In order to maintain the illusion of white supremacy, the ruling plantation class created ideals of Southern identity, which translated into an iconic figure of femininity. Through this conception, the Southern belle becomes synecdochic of hegemonic Southern society. The treatment of the belle in literary and popular contexts reflects the perceptions of the Southern belle as they are negotiated between white Southern society and those of a larger national identity.
Paper 2: The Black Madonna and the Mammy in Contemporary American Culture: The Secret Life of Bees and Grey’s Anatomy
Cammie Sublette, University of Arkansas Fort Smith
In Sue Monk Kidd’s celebrated first novel, The Secret Life of Bees (2002), Lily Owens, a young white girl, enters into a community of black women. Her first connection to these black women—her black nanny—serves as a bridge between her privileged white world and the mysterious black world that remains initially out of her reach. As she comes to embrace this world, however, the beloved black nanny’s centrality to the child’s life is usurped by the larger than life figure of August Boatwright, a powerful black woman who teaches Lily to worship a black Madonna idol. While this tribute to black women has been praised, these two figures of black womanhood remain firmly rooted in stereotypes prominent in American thought: the black Madonna and the mammy. Likewise, in the new hit television show Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) acts as a nurturing force in the lives of the young residents, though her character is complicated enough to bounce between the stereotypes of black Madonna and mammy.
Paper 3: Making Biscuits in the Morning: The Sound and the Fury of Confederate War Memorials
Richmond B. Adams, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Many county seats in the South feature a Confederate War Memorial, usually perched in the town square adjacent to the courthouse. These memorials provide the symbolic “glue” that binds together two disparate elements of ongoing Southern life. This paper argues that Southern politics, religion and the memorials themselves continue to form a syncretism that has dramatically recast America’s political and religious life. At the center of that transformation, as historian Dan Carter argues, stands George Wallace. Largely through Wallace, southern history and religion have provided the foundation for current national politics and, near the center of Wallace’s “base,” are the Confederate War Memorials. They represent the Lost Cause while simultaneously projecting the Confederacy’s power throughout American life.
After a discussion of the memorials in Franklin and Clarkesville, Tennessee along with their fellow statue in William Faulkner’s hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, this paper explores The Sound and the Fury as the means by which the most prominent of “post-surrender” Southern authors examines the cultural impact of the memorials and the Lost Cause.