How Plantation Fiction Fixed Ghost Stories to Black Americans
by Alena Pirok
In 1890 The Richmond Times declared that Virginia had developed “uncanny mania.” The symptom was simple: residents’ ability and willingness to “tell more ghost stories than those of any other state.” The mania quickly spread to every neighborhood, each having its own “story of the supernatural, its haunted houses, its lonely road” with “strange sights »
When I describe Jesmyn Ward’s writing to people, I say, “Her writing leaves me with brittle bones.” Originally from the Gulf Coast community of DeLisle, Mississippi, Ward is unapologetically steeped in a southern Black literary tradition that amplifies the complicated realities of being Black in the South, wrapping her characters in a warmth and honesty »
A dark spirit lives on your porch,” the medium told me. Excuse me? Prickles of dread and fear blossomed in my chest. What the hell am I supposed to do about that? I was only beginning my journey in ancestor veneration—working through my fears of the dead in general and dark spirits in particular with »
Environmental and Social Collapse along the Louisiana Coast
by Daniel Kariko
For the last few years, northward breezes have pushed more water from the Gulf onto the land—breaching marshes, overtopping the banks of bayous, and flooding roadways and people’s yards. Some of the submerged roads are the only ways in and out of narrow bayou-side communities strung along South Louisiana. Louisiana is at the forefront of »
The Surprising Story of Apples in the South (An Excerpt)
by Dianne Flynt
Before cider, there were apples, and the story of how domestic apples came to the South includes unexpected characters and circuitous routes. Flowering plants, called angiosperms, originated in the fossil record at least 120 million years ago, and possibly as early as 170 million years ago. Around 100 million years ago, plants appeared that are »
Amelia Alvarez was born in Cuba when the island was a Spanish colony. Yet by Amelia’s ninth birthday, her home as she knew it no longer existed. The Cuban War for Independence, which U.S. imperial ambitions turned into the Cuban– Spanish–Puerto Rican–Filipino–American War, brought an end to Cuba’s colonial status as well as Cubans’ hopes »
Magnolia mothers, owl eyed girls,fellow forget-me-nots, let’s gather our God-gowns down the golden gallows. We made it to the foreverfantasy where I can’t remember what war we were weaponing to win: For some secretary sex? Some back-handed brother? Some sons & uncles & Grandfatherswho forget we have a heart-dream? An ox-blood song? A maiden name? »
These lesson plans were developed through the “Portraits of Climate Change” initative—a collaboration between Southern Cultures, Carolina Public Humanities, and NC Community Colleges. They are designed to assist high school and college instructors interested in using Snapshot: Climate to empower their students to employ the arts and humanities and reflect on climate change in their »
The Snapshot: Climate issue features more than 60 photographs and accompanying short reflections from artists, activists, photojournalists, and scientists to provide a “snapshot” look at climate impacts across the South. As climatologist Angel Hsu writes in the issue’s introduction, we set out with this issue to make the “invisible visible,” “using images and words from the »
Dear Remnant of my Amen, All of these hours are swinging open,doors you will never walk through. Dear Progeny of my Exhale, So be this exile from the State; return againon virtue of your breath if it be at all an option, if not— Dear Son of »
“We all struggle with interior storms in these challenging times. Strength lies in action and solidarity.” This extraordinary Snapshot: Climate issue marks the beginning of a year and more of contemplation—and celebration—of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of Southern Cultures and the Center for the Study of the American South in 1993. The issue’s »
I have lived on a small farm in southern Vermont for the last thirteen years. One year, it simply did not snow, and the low-grade environmental anxiety I’d been swallowing blossomed into something ferocious, blocking my imaginative impulse. I felt as though I couldn’t write fiction anymore. I poured my energy into becoming an environmental »
Essay
