Negotiating Gender Lines: Women’s Movement across Atlanta Mosques
Overview Introduction The city of Atlanta has a reputation of promise and opportunity in the American ummah (the Islamic brotherhood and sisterhood), particularly for African American Muslims. Indeed, many leave cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia to join the Atlanta ummah, known for its African American Muslim professionals, its progressive African American mosque communities, and […]
Anniversary
Overview Readings Jake Adam York reads the poem “Anniversary.” Poem text. Jake Adam York reads the poem “Consolation.” Poem text. Jake Adam York reads the poem “Darkly.” Poem text. Jake Adam York reads the poem “Self-Portrait at a Bend in the Road.” Poem text. Interested in submitting your work to Southern Spaces? Similar Publications Sections
Naming Each Place
Overview Readings Jericho Brown reads the poem “Like Father.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads “Prayer of the Backhanded.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads the poem “Scarecrow.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads the poem “Runaway.” Poem text. Interview with Natasha Trethewey In this interview, conducted on September 5, 2009, during the Decatur (Georgia) Book Festival, Jericho […]
Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course and 1859 Slave Sale
Overview Introduction The blades of grass on all the Butler estates are outnumbered by the tears that are poured out in agony at the wreck that has been wrought in happy homes, and the crushing grief that has been laid on loving hearts. —Mortimer Thomson (Philander Doesticks)1Q. K. Philander Doesticks, “Great Auction Sale of Slaves […]
Trying the Dark: Mammoth Cave and the Racial Imagination, 1839–1869
Overview Mandeville Thum, Mouth of the Cave, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, 1876–1877. Introduction Geologically, Mammoth Cave is a network of underground caverns in central Kentucky believed to be the world’s largest cave system. Understanding Mammoth Cave as a social and political space, however, means grappling with its singular place in the history of American slavery. During […]
A City Divided
Overview Introduction In spite of increasing animosity between workers and elites, blacks and whites, through the turn of the century, Atlanta’s residential landscape remained curiously heterogeneous in terms of race and class. Blacks and whites, business owners and laborers lived in close proximity in the late 1800s, often on the same block. If the home-owning […]
Natasha Trethewey Interviews Elizabeth Alexander
Overview Interview with Natasha Trethewey Part 2: Alexander discusses growing up in NYC and Washington DC, DC as Upsouth, identifications with Blackness and southernness Part 3: Alexander discusses southernness and urban space, and reads from “Letter: Blues,” “Frank Willis,” “Talk Radio, DC” Part 4: Alexander reads “Race” and comments on the pale-skinned body; Trethewey compares “Race” and Phillip […]
A Sleight of History: University of Alabama’s Foster Auditorium
Overview A Sleight of History: Film and Essay Sleight of History: University of Alabama’s Foster Auditorium. A short film by Sarah Melton and Marshall Houston, 2009. My fellow filmmaker Marshall Houston and I became interested in Foster Auditorium while searching for a topic for our documentary filmmaking course at the University of Alabama. We both […]
Prop Master at Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art
Overview Introduction Artists Susan Harbage Page and Juan Logan designed Prop Master: An Installation specifically for the Main Gallery of the Gibbes Museum of Art. In its totality, Prop Master constitutes what Logan and Page call “a disruption from within.” As the person who acquires and manufactures props for theatrical and film productions, the prop […]
Same-Sex Intimacy in Fiction about Southern Plantations
Overview Same-Sex Intimacy in the Fiction of Southern Plantations Part 2: Bibler refers to Gaines’s novel Of Love and Dust, focusing on how same-sex relations can disrupt plantation hierarchies Part 3: Bibler explores three frames: queer black fraternity, elite white planter homoeroticism, and “southern kitchen romance” Part 4: Bibler discusses the plantation and related literary […]