The very best essays from fifty years of scholarship and thought Essays by Margaret Walker Alexander, Alfred Bendixen, David C. Berry, Augustus M. Burns, James Taylor Carson, Thadious M. Davis, Susan V. Donaldson, Don H. Doyle, Barbara C. Ewell, Robert L. Hall, William H. Hatcher, Arthell Kelley, Manning Marable, Joseph Millichap, Willie Morris, John Solomon Otto, Harriet Pollack, Kathryn L. Seidel, John Ray Skates, Randy J. Sparks, Martha Swain, and Anne Bradford Warner The Past Is Not Dead is a collection of twenty literary and historical essays that will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. Like its companion volume Personal Souths, this essay collection features the best work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s. Topics range from historical essays on the Mississippi frontier, southern religion, African culinary influences, and New Deal politics, to literary essays on George W. Cable, James Dickey, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Richard Wright. Important regional subjects like the Yazoo Basin and Mississippi blues are given special attention. Contributors range from such noted literary figures as Margaret Walker Alexander and Willie Morris, to literary critics Thadious M. Davis, Susan V. Donaldson, Kathryn L. Seidel, and Joseph Millichap, to scholars of African American studies such as Robert L. Hall and Manning Marable and historians including Don H. Doyle, Randy J. Sparks, and Martha Swain. Collectively, the essays in The Past Is Not Dead enrich and illuminate our understanding of southern history, literature, and culture, and celebrate the work of a distinctive, distinguished journal.

"The Past Is Not Dead" is a collection of twenty-one literary and historical essays that will mark the 50th anniversary of the "Southern Quarterly," one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. Like its companion volume, "Personal Souths," "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. Topics covered range from historical essays on the French and Indian War, the New Deal, and Emmett Till's influence on the Black Panther Party to literary figures including William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers. Important regional subjects like the Natchez Trace, the Yazoo Basin, the Choctaw Indians, and Mississippi blues are given special attention. Contributors range from noted literary critics such as Margaret Walker Alexander, Virginia Spencer Carr, Susan V. Donaldson, James Justus, and Willie Morris to scholars of African-American studies such as Robert L. Hall and Manning Marble and historians including John Ray Skates, Martha Swain, and Randy Sparks.

Collectively, the essays in this volume enrich and illuminate our understanding of southern history, literature, and culture.

Personal Souths, a collection of 20 interviews with famous southern writers, will mark the 50th anniversary of The Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. The figures interviewed range from Erskine Caldwell, Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams (all from the 1970s), to a virtual Who's-Who of southern literature in the second half of the twentieth century. All of these interviews were originally published in the journal in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and are collected here for the first time. The South is represented broadly, with writers from eight states; at least four represent the ""mountain South"" (Donald Harrington, Bobbie Ann Mason, Robert Morgan, Lee Smith), while another four typify a ""cosmopolitan South"" (Reynolds Price, Mary Lee Settle, Elizabeth Spencer, Tennessee Williams). The greatest number of voices, at least eight of the authors, speak for or from the ""poor white South"" (Larry Brown, Erskine Caldwell, Harry Crews, Donald Harrington, Bobbie Ann Mason, Robert Morgan, Del Shores, Lee Smith). Though there is only one African American writer, Ernest J. Gaines, another interview (William Styron, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Confessions of Nat Turner) also focuses on a conversation about African American literature.The interviews are all fascinating. Not only do they reveal the personalities of these southern literary stars, they also represent a self-conscious community of writers. It is a testament to the quality of The Southern Quarterly that many of these writers, when discussing their most important contemporaries, often refer to other writers whose interviews are also in this collection. These first-hand discussions will continue to illuminate and inform our understanding of their creative work.

Personal Souths, a collection of 20 interviews with famous southern writers, will mark the 50th anniversary of The Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. The figures interviewed range from Erskine Caldwell, Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams (all from the 1970s), to a virtual Who's-Who of southern literature in the second half of the twentieth century. All of these interviews were originally published in the journal in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and are collected here for the first time. The South is represented broadly, with writers from eight states; at least four represent the ""mountain South"" (Donald Harrington, Bobbie Ann Mason, Robert Morgan, Lee Smith), while another four typify a ""cosmopolitan South"" (Reynolds Price, Mary Lee Settle, Elizabeth Spencer, Tennessee Williams). The greatest number of voices, at least eight of the authors, speak for or from the ""poor white South"" (Larry Brown, Erskine Caldwell, Harry Crews, Donald Harrington, Bobbie Ann Mason, Robert Morgan, Del Shores, Lee Smith). Though there is only one African American writer, Ernest J. Gaines, another interview (William Styron, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Confessions of Nat Turner) also focuses on a conversation about African American literature.The interviews are all fascinating. Not only do they reveal the personalities of these southern literary stars, they also represent a self-conscious community of writers. It is a testament to the quality of The Southern Quarterly that many of these writers, when discussing their most important contemporaries, often refer to other writers whose interviews are also in this collection. These first-hand discussions will continue to illuminate and inform our understanding of their creative work.

Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia by Douglas B. Chambers. In 1732 Ambrose Madison, grandfather of the future president, languished for weeks in a sickbed then died. The death, soon after his arrival on the plantation, bore hallmarks of what planters assumed to be traditional African medicine. African slaves were suspected of poisoning their master. For Montpelier, his estate, and for Virginia, this was a watershed moment. Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia explores the consequences of Madison's death and the ways in which this event shaped both white slaveholding society and the surrounding slave culture. At Montpelier, now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and open to the public, Igbo slaves under the directions of white overseers had been felling trees, clearing land, and planting tobacco and other crops for five years before Madison arrived. This deadly initial encounter between American colonial master and African slave community irrevocably changed both whites and blacks. This book explores the many broader meanings of this suspected murder and its aftermath.It weaves together a series of transformations that followed, such as the negotiation of master-slave relations, the transformation of Igbo culture in the New World, and the social memory of a particular slave community. For the first time, the book presents the larger history of the slave community at James Madison's Montpelier, over the five generations from the 1720s through the 1850s and beyond. Murder at Montpelier revises many assumptions about how Africans survived enslavement, the middle passage, and grueling labor as chattel in North America. The importance of Igbo among the colonial slave population makes this work a controversial reappraisal of how Africans made themselves African Americans in Virginia. Douglas B. Chambers is a professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi.