The Bohemian South ─ Creating Countercultures, from Poe to Punk

From the southern influence on nineteenth-century New York to the musical legacy of late-twentieth-century Athens, Georgia, to the cutting-edge cuisines of twenty-first-century Asheville, North Carolina, the bohemian South has long contested traditional views of the region. Yet, even as the fruits of this creative South have famously been celebrated, exported, and expropriated, the region long was labeled a cultural backwater. This timely and illuminating collection uses bohemia as a novel lens for reconsidering more traditional views of the South. Exploring wide-ranging locales, such as Athens, Austin, Black Mountain College, Knoxville, Memphis, New Orleans, and North Carolina's Research Triangle, each essay challenges popular interpretations of the South, while highlighting important bohemian sub- and countercultures. In addition to tracing the historical legacy of southern bohemians, the collection traverses such contemporary issues as contested memory, the commodification of the bohemian South, and how southern bohemians play with traditions in new ways that compliment, contradict, and commingle with the region's past traditional practices and ideas. The Bohemian South provides an important perspective in the New South as an epicenter for progress, innovation, and experimentation.

Contributors include Scott Barretta, Shawn Chandler Bingham, Jaime Cantrell, Jon Horne Carter, Alex Sayf Cummings, Lindsey A. Freeman, Grace E. Hale, Joanna Levin, Joshua Long, Daniel S. Margolies, Chris Offutt, Zandria F. Robinson, Allen Shelton, Daniel Cross Turner, Zackary Vernon, and Edward Whitley.

Scott Barretta, University of Mississippi
Shawn Chandler Bingham, University of South Florida
Jaime Cantrell, University of Mississippi
Jon Horne Carter, Appalachian State University
Alex Sayf Cummings, Georgia State University
Lindsey A. Freeman, Simon Fraser University
Grace E. Hale, University of Virginia
Joanna Levin, Chapman University
Joshua Long, Southwestern University
Daniel S. Margolies, Virginia Wesleyan College
Chris Offutt, University of Mississippi
Zandria F. Robinson, Rhodes College
Allen Shelton, State University of New York-Buffalo State
Daniel Cross Turner, Coastal Carolina University
Zackary Vernon, Appalachian State University
Edward Whitley, Lehigh University