Books published by University Press of Mississippi

Was there a sudden break in the world of art, literature, and music when modernism gave way to postmodernism? Philip Nel attacks the notion of tremendous and sudden change in artistic understanding and literary practice. Instead, he proposes that a series of small but far-reaching changes drew understanding from modernism to postmodernism.

Illuminates Britain's evolving relationship with the American South over a period of four centuries, an era that witnessed Britain's rise to imperial dominance and then the gradual erosion of its influence on the wider world. It considers the British influence upon - and often critical responses to - Southern institutions and cultural formations such as religion, gentility, slavery, and music.

An examination of the most gruesome tales in contemporary legend

Before Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois lifted the banner for black liberation and independence, Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) was at the forefront. This study of his life and thought, the first critical biography of the pivotal African American thinker written by a historian argues that Delany reflects the spectrum of the nineteenth-century black independence movement.

Examines the cultural and historical significance of swing and tells how and why it achieved its audience, unified its fans, defined its generation, and, after World War II, fell into decline. This book shows that swing manifested the kind of up-to-date allure that the populace craved. Swing sounded modern, happy, optimistic.

The thirteen essays in this anthology contribute to a growing interest in the emerging international genre of exile and diaspora films, treating a variety of motion pictures from Europe and the United States in their national and transnational contexts.

The "Travelling People" of Scotland are a nomadic minority group. For their skill as storytellers, as well as ballad singers, they are internationally recognized. One of their best-known storytellers is Duncan Williamson. While this book focuses on a number of individuals, Duncan's skill as a storyteller and his extensive knowledge of traveller storytelling traditions are prominently featured.

In this crusading book Roger deV. Renwick argues that the business of folksong scholars is to explain folksong: folklorists must liberate the material's own voice rather than impose theories that are personally appealing. To that end, Renwick presents a case study in each of five essays to demonstrate the scholarly value of approaching this material through close readings and comparative analysis.

Walt Disney created or supervised the creation of live-action films, television specials, documentaries, toys, merchandise, comic books, and theme parks. His vision, however, manifested itself first and foremost in his animated shorts and feature-length cartoons. Working with Walt collects conversations with animators, voice actors, and designers who worked extensively with Disney.

Southern food is as delightful and as varied as the region from which it comes - shrimp gumbo simmered in kitchens along the gulf Coast, roast venison from Alabama's piney woods, wild ducks from Georgia's marshland, tall stacks of Tennessee in-fare cakes, charlotte piled high in crystal bowls, dewberry cobbler, scuppernong wine, tender turnip greens with wedges of hot cornbread, peas cooked with ham hocks, Brunswick stew made by an old family recipe, fresh fish with hush puppies, chess pie, squash souffle, spoon bread, smothered quail with baked grits, chicken fried to a crisp, thick slices of country ham with red-eye gravy. The list goes on and on, as good Deep South cooks and discriminating diners know.

Collected interviews with the award-winning African American author of A Lesson Before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, "The Sky Is Gray," and many other works

Ken Kesey (1935-2001) is the author of several works of well-known fiction and other hard-to-classify material. These interviews trace his arc through success, fame, prison, farming, and tragedy. These conversations make clear Kesey's central place in American culture and offer his enduring lesson that the freedom exists to create lives as wildly as can be imagined.

The international reputation and pervasive influence of William Faulkner upon world literature is the subject of the papers In this book. For this collection the papers of scholars from Chile, Italy, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Japan, Germany and the United States are assembled to assess Faulkner and his works and to answer questions about the extent of his influence.

Through the combination of text and images, comic books offer a unique opportunity to explore deep questions about aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology in non-traditional ways. The essays in this collection focus on a wide variety of genres, from mainstream superhero comics, to graphic novels of social realism, to European adventure classics.

Here in a facsimile of the 1930 edition is Willis Richardson's collection of twelve plays and pageants that playwrights of the era wrote expressly for black audiences, mainly students and other young black people who staged them. This is the important work of nine significant dramatists who helped to lay the foundations of African American drama.

Offers a collection of twenty-one literary and historical essays to mark the 50th anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals dedicated to southern studies. The Past Is Not Dead features the best of the work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Offers a collection of twenty-one literary and historical essays to mark the 50th anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals dedicated to southern studies. The Past Is Not Dead features the best of the work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Describes how the social and political movements that grew out of the Depression facilitated the left turn of several African American artists and writers. The formation of a black cultural front is examined by looking at the works of poet Langston Hughes, novelist Chester Himes, and cartoonist Ollie Harrington.

James T. Currie relates in this thought-provoking work that between July 4, 1863, and the end of the Civil War in May 1865, Vicksburg and the plantations around it were an enclave of Union territory in the heart of the Confederacy. He also identifies many of the problems confronting the city during the late 1860s and indicates the means through which solutions were sought.

Unlike most Chinese-American studies which focus on large urban concentrations sustained by continuous immigration, this study centres on a small Chinese enclave located in a rural Southern biracial society. It focuses upon three generations of Chinese undergoing social change in an area within the state of Mississippi known as the Delta.

Remembering the sting of male discrimination she repeatedly endured during her career as a newspaper-woman, Kathryn Tucker Windham, with wistful amusement, recalls here the hurt and the awful fact of being overlooked, snubbed, and ribbed by her male colleagues.

This valuable and informative book is a study of Percy's five novels in the context of his southern and American literary sources and his tragic personal history. This perceptive study examines Percy's novels in the light of psychoanalytic theory, philosophy, and literary analysis. The author finds that Percy's fiction has been shaped as much by what Percy rejected as by what he embraced.

Felicia R. McMahon breaks new ground in the presentation and analysis of emerging traditions of the "Lost Boys", a group of parentless youths who fled Sudan under tragic circumstances in the 1990s. With compelling insight, McMahon analyzes the oral traditions of the DiDinga Lost Boys, about whom very little is known.

This intense examination of the writings of Tillie Olsen shows Elaine Neil Orr's deeply sympathetic passion for Olsen's literary world. Orr's objective is not simply to offer literary criticism but to interpret the subjects that inspire and disclose Olsen's spiritual vision.

Introduced in a reflective essay written by the acclaimed author Willie Morris, this account of Medgar Evers's professional and family life will cause readers to ponder how his tragic martyrdom quickened the pace of justice for black people while withholding justice from him for thirty years.

This fascinating history set in the Reconstruction South is a testament to African-American resilience, fortitude, and independence. It tells of three attempts to create an ideal community on the river bottom lands at Davis Bend south of Vicksburg.

Offers a stimulating analysis of a period of American history through the literary art it produced. Norman Harris focuses on how Afro-Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement, or the Vietnam War either failed or achieved in making sense of their lives when the goals they struggled for were not accomplished.

These essays, originally presented by Faulkner scholars, black and white, male and female, at the 1986 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, the thirteenth in a series of conferences held on the Oxford campus of the University of Mississippi, explore the relationship between Faulkner and race.