Flashes of a southern spirit : meanings of the spirit in the U.S. South Cover Image

Flashes of a southern spirit : meanings of the spirit in the U.S. South / Charles Reagan Wilson.

Summary:

Charles Reagan Wilson sees ideas of the spirit as central to understanding southern identity. The South nurtured a patriotic spirit expressed in the high emotions of Confederates going off to war, but the region also was the setting for a spiritual outpouring of prayer and song during the civil rights movement. Arguing for a spiritual grounding to southern identity, Wilson shows how identifications of the spirit are crucial to understanding what makes southerners invest so much meaning in their regional identity.

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Record details

ISBN: 9780820338293
ISBN: 082033829X
ISBN: 9780820338309
ISBN: 0820338303
Physical Description: xviii, 249 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
Publisher: Athens : University of Georgia Press, [2011]
Copyright: ©2011

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: "The soul-life of the land": meanings of the spirit in the U.S. South -- 1. Tradition -- The invention of southern tradition : the writing and ritualization of southern history, 1880-1930 -- The burden of southern culture -- Saturated southerners : the South's poor whites and southern regional consciousness -- Our land, our country : Faulkner, the South, and the American way of life -- The myth of the biracial South -- Visualizing the spirit after -- 2. Creativity -- Beyond the Sahara of the Bozart : creativity and southern culture -- Flashes of the spirit : creativity and southern religion -- The word and the image : self-taught art, the Bible, the spirit, and southern creativity -- 3. Spirituality -- Apocalypse South : McKendree Long and southern evangelicalism -- "Just a little talk with Jesus" : Elvis Presley, religious music, and southern spirituality -- Richard Wright's Pagan Spain : a southern Protestant abroad -- A journey to southern religious studies -- Afterword : constructing and experiencing the spirit.