An Interview with Tim Gautreaux: “Cartographer of Louisiana Back Roads”
Introduction In his 1983 book, The People Called Cajuns, James Dorman observes that Cajuns “rarely speak for themselves” in the various sources that refer to them—historical, biographical, or literary—but that same year Louisiana’s Tim Gautreaux published his first short story, “A Sacrifice of Doves,” in the Kansas Quarterly.1James H. Dorman, The People Called Cajuns: An […]
Bodies and Souls
Bodies and Souls: Video and Essay When the body is falling apart, it’s hard to pay attention to what your soul is telling you. —Sister Manette Durand After making Waking in Mississippi, I moved to Boston where I spent four years working in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of […]
Preserving the Memory of Ybor City, Florida
Introduction Founded by cigar manufacturers V.M. Ybor and Ignacio Haya in 1885, Ybor City, Florida, became the “Cigar Capital of the World” in the early twentieth century. Despite efforts by émigrés from Spain, Italy, and Cuba to retain distinct ethnic and national identities, primarily through ethnically-based mutual aid organizations, the immigrant population of Ybor City […]
Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the US South, 1997–2007
Introduction Introduced in a 1995 song by the Atlanta-based group Goodie Mob, the idea of the “Dirty South” spread quickly throughout the rap music subculture and industry, and by the early years of the twenty-first century moved into more general usage in a variety of contexts not directly related to rap. The concept of the […]
John Cohen in Eastern Kentucky: Documentary Expression and the Image of Roscoe Halcomb During the Folk Revival
Preface On a muggy Sunday afternoon in June of 1959, John Cohen wandered the winding mountain roads of eastern Kentucky searching for old-time musicians. Neon, Bulan, Vicco, Viper, Daisy, Defiance — tiny coal and timber towns with sonorous names popped up around each bend before giving way to the Cumberland Mountains. Cohen had come to […]