The Real South Southern Narrative in the Age of Cultural Reproduction

In this stimulating study and winner of the C. Hugh Holman Award, Scott Romine explores the impact of globalization on contemporary southern culture and the South's persistence in an age of media and what he terms "cultural reproduction." Rather than being compromised, Romine asserts, southern cultures are both complicated and reconfigured as they increasingly detach from tradition in its conventional sense. From Gone with the Wind, Civil War reenactments, and a tennis community outside Atlanta called Tara, to the work of Josephine Humphreys, the travelogue of V. S. Naipaul, and the historical fiction of Lewis Nordan, Romine examines how narratives (and spaces) are used to fashion social solidarity and cultural continuity in a time of fragmentation and change. Far from deteriorating or disappearing in a global economy, Romine shows, the South continues to be reproduced and used by diverse groups engaged in diverse cultural projects.