Analysing the ubiquity of the small town in fiction of the mid-century US South, Living Jim Crow is the first extended scholarly study to explore how authors mobilised this setting as a tool for racial resistance. With innovative close readings of Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Lillian Smith, Byron Herbert Reece, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and William Melvin Kelley, the book traces the relationship between activism and aesthetics during the long civil rights movement. Lennon reframes a narrative of southern literature during the period as one as one characterised by an aesthetics of protest, identifying a new mode of reading racial resistance and the US South. You can view his talk with the following Q&A here.
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About U.S. Studies Online Forum for New Writing
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As the Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher webspace of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS), U.S. Studies Online showcases cutting-edge research by, and professional development support for, American Studies scholars at an early stage in their careers.
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Recent Posts
- Book Review: The American Presidency: An Institutional Approach to Executive Politics
- BAAS 2023 Panel Review: 7C – Making Sense of the South
- #USSOBookHour with the Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies, with Dr. Chris Lloyd, Dr. Hilary Emmett, et al. 5th June – 12pm (noon, GMT).
- BAAS 2023 Conference Panel Review: Race and Reassessment in the Recent Past
- Book Review: A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism.