aeon.co hosts some excellent essays. This piece by the historian Keri Leigh Merritt on the American South enlightens the reader because the author incorporates race into her historical sketch of the economic underdevelopment of the region, as opposed to moralizing or appealing to suprahistorical racial categories.

Anybody wanting to know more about recent arguments regarding the relation between slavery and capitalism in the USA should read the Gavin Wright article referenced in this essay.

Capitalism and (under)development in the American South | Aeon Essays

https://aeon.co/essays/capitalism-and-underdevelopment-in-the-american-south

#aeon #USHistory #USPolitics #USSouth #Slavery #Capitalism #NewHistoryOfCapitalism #GavinWright #KeriLeighMerritt #SouthernStudies

#Question: If you were to assign or recommend one #book about/from the US #South, what would it be and why? Asking partially out of curiosity and partially to get the wheels turning for a syllabus.

#syllabus #SouthernStudies #SouthernLit #SouthernHistory #AmericanStudies #AmericanLit #AcademicChatter #Books #Bookstodon #SyllabusPrep

This is me: “conservative optics and southern spaces and all manner of iconic Americana, for good or ill.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/herschel-walker-georgia-black-americans/672373/

#Americana #conservative #AmericanSouth #Iconic #USSouth #southernstudies #politics #GASen #tragedy #BlackLivesMatter

I missed the #publication day, but want to offer my congratulations to my friend and colleague, Elijah Gaddis, on his book. "Gruesome Looking Objects: A New History of Lynching and Everyday Things" is now available from Cambridge University Press.

I had the honor of reading a few chapters in various stages, and I've been constantly impressed by this difficult and important project.

#history #AmericanStudies #UShistory #MaterialCulture #SouthernStudies

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/gruesome-looking-objects/15A59EEE1D7B0259CBE007204F7AF9E7

Thinking about legacies and representations of peanuts, so I got myself a copy of “The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver” by Gene Barretta.

Y’all. It’s gorgeous. Frank Morrison’s #illustrations are wonderful. Definitely going to sit with this one for a bit.

#peanuts #GeorgeWashingtonCarver #SouthernStudies #AmericanStudies #VisualCulture #paintings #ChildrensLiterature #FoodStudies #art #histodons #history

My stack of new #TBR #books is high, with many well suited for travel #reading. Problem is, I went budget and am flying with only a personal item. Perhaps that means I'll actually take some time off this week.

If I find room for one, which should I take? (Full transparency: the #novel I'm reading before bed will get first priority).

#academia #histodons #southernstudies

#Introduction
Hello to the elephant app! Glad to find you. I'm a lecturer at Harvard University, with a newly-minted PhD in American Studies (I focus on visual and material culture of the US South). I enjoy crafting (currently in a solid #embroidery phase), and I take far too many pictures of my #cat, Morris. He wears bowties.

#AmericanStudies #SouthernStudies #history #culture #MaterialCulture #VisualCulture #Food #academia #histodons #humanities