Southscapes: Geographies of Race, Region, and Literature
Thadious M. Davis
Abstract
Drawing heavily from works of the era of post-civil rights modern and postmodern writers and poets from the South, this book approaches the experiences of segregation in the South in a radical manner. The African American, especially belonging to Louisiana and Mississippi, is no longer a victim of discrimination, but has reconstituted the space that is rightfully theirs. The book bases its analyses on the writings of Ernest Gaines, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Natasha Trethewey, Olympia Vernon, Brenda Marie Osbey, Sybil Kein, and others. In a sense, the book redefines the black space by makin ... More
Drawing heavily from works of the era of post-civil rights modern and postmodern writers and poets from the South, this book approaches the experiences of segregation in the South in a radical manner. The African American, especially belonging to Louisiana and Mississippi, is no longer a victim of discrimination, but has reconstituted the space that is rightfully theirs. The book bases its analyses on the writings of Ernest Gaines, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Natasha Trethewey, Olympia Vernon, Brenda Marie Osbey, Sybil Kein, and others. In a sense, the book redefines the black space by making a distinction between social processes and spatial ones, and redraws its map extending the territory beyond its perceived limitations of the Deep South. In this recreated and reclaimed place and space, writers have diffused the racial exclusion and the White racial hegemony that were believed to have prevailed during the times of slavery and segregation and racial separation.
Keywords:
Deep South,
modern writers,
slavery,
racial separation,
place and space,
Louisiana,
Mississippi
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780807835210 |
| Published to North Carolina Scholarship Online: July 2014 |
DOI:10.5149/9780807869321_davis |
