In some aspects, markers of Southern identity can sound clichéd and near-monolithic: sweet tea; church politics; kudzu, honeysuckle, and privet hedges. Yet, every Southerner understands the divergent vibrancy across the region, whether it’s as benign as the never-ending debate of vinegar vs tomato-based barbecue or as fraught as racial divisions in the Mississippi Delta.
Read MoreThe strike of a tuning fork resonates foggy images for me of middle school science experiments and the distinct elementary school smells of stale crayons and brown pungent erasers. Learning about the physics of sound waves and frequencies of vibrating objects didn’t dispel …
Read MoreThe first official day of my fellowship in Spartanburg. The name sounds formal and official: the Southern Studies Fellowship in Arts & Letters. I’m a Watson Brown fellow. Or something like that. Several organizations and people got involved to make this possible.
THAT doesn’t feel daunting.
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