Finally breaking through heterosexual cliches of flirtatious belles and cavaliers, sinister black rapists and lusty "Jezebels," "Cotton's Queer Relations" exposes the queer dynamics embedded in myths of the southern plantation. Focusing on works by Ernest J. Gaines, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Katherine Anne Porter, Margaret Walker, William Styron, and Arna Bontemps, Michael P. Bibler shows how each one uses figures of same-sex intimacy to suggest a more progressive alternative to the pervasive inequalities tied historically and symbolically to the South's most iconic institution.

Bibler looks specifically at relationships between white men of the planter class, between plantation mistresses and black maids, and between black men, arguing that while the texts portray the plantation as a rigid hierarchy of differences, these queer relations privilege a notion of sexual sameness that joins the individuals as equals in a system where equality is rare indeed. Bibler reveals how these models of queer egalitarianism attempt to reconcile the plantation's regional legacies with national debates about equality and democracy, particularly during the eras of the New Deal, World War II, and the civil rights movement. "Cotton's Queer Relations "charts bold new territory in southern studies and queer studies alike, bringing together history and cultural theory to offer innovative readings of classic southern texts.

A story of love, violence, and race set at the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791, African American writer Arna Bontemps's Drums at Dusk immerses readers in the opulent and brutal -- yet also very fragile -- society of France's richest colony, Saint Domingue. First published in 1939, this novel explores the complex web of tensions connecting wealthy plantation owners, poor whites, free people of color, and the slaves who stunned the colony and the globe by uniting in a carefully planned uprising. The novel's hero, Diron Desautels, a white Creole born in Saint Domingue who belongs to the French antislavery group Soci?t? des Amis des Noirs, attempts to spread his message of "liberty, equality, fraternity" in a world fraught with conflict.

Imaginatively inhabiting a wide spectrum of Haitian voices, including those of white indentured servants, female slaves, and Toussaint L'Ouverture, who later emerged as the revolution's best-known hero, Bontemps's work reflects not only the intricacies of Haitian society on the eve of the revolution, but also a black artist's vision of Haiti in the twentieth century, during the U.S. Marines' occupation and at the brink of war in Europe.

A new introduction by Michael P. Bibler and Jessica Adams reveals how Drums at Dusk -- even seventy years after its original publication -- contributes to contemporary studies of the American South as part of the larger plantation region of the Caribbean and inspires a reevaluation of assumptions about revolution, race, and nationalism.

Just Below South is the first book to examine the U.S. South and the Caribbean as a "regional interculture" shaped by performance--as a space defined not so much by a shared set of geographical boundaries or by a single, common culture as by the weave of performances and identities moving across and throughout it. By offering fresh ways for thinking about region, language, and performance, the volume helps to reimagine the possibilities for American Studies. It advances beyond current analyses of historical or literary commonalities between the South and the Caribbean to explore startling and significant connections between a range of performances, including Trinidadian carnival, Civil War reenactments, the Martinican dance form kalenda, dramatic adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin, rituals of spirit possession, the teaching of Haitian Kreyol, the translation of Louisiana Creole, and the imaginative "travels" of southern and Caribbean writers.

While generating textual conversations among scholars of Francophone, Anglophone, and Hispanophone literature and culture and forging innovative ties between cultural studies, performance studies, linguistics, literary analysis, and studies of the African diaspora, these essays raise provocative new questions about race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality.

ContributorsJessica Adams, University of California, Berkeley * Carolyn Vellenga Berman, The New School * Anne Malena, University of Alberta * Cecile Accilien, Columbus State University, Georgia * Don E. Walicek, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras * Julian Gerstin, San Jose State University * Rawle Gibbons, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine * Kathleen M. Gough, University of Glasgow * Shirley Toland-Dix, University of South Florida, Tampa * Michael P. Bibler, University of Mary Washington * Jana Evans Braziel, University of Cincinnati