Böcker utgivna av University Press of Mississippi

Drawn from his letters, notebooks, memoirs, and his fiction, this account of Chester Hime's varied, episodic life attempts to trace the origins of his significant literary gift. It details his socioeconomic, familial, and cultural background, and is the bittersweet story of a man who found salvation in writing.

In this collection of candid interviews, Ishmael Reed discusses how critics, especially from the northeastern establishment have consistently marginalized African American writers. As he does in his writing, Reed uses invective, satire, and humour to show how those people "have made no attempt to understand recent American writing."

Although the definitive history of the Southern literary renaissance has yet to be written, its leading figure, without question, was William Faulkner. Helping to define and describe this startling literary phenomenon and Faulkner's place in it are papers of eight noted scholars included in this collection.

Will the South rise again - this time cinematically? The answer to this question is among the subjects considered in this collection of essays. These essays, which introduce a vast subject, were included in the Spring/Summer 1981 issue of The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South.

Focusing on the state of Arkansas as typical in the role of ecclesiastical activism, Johnny Williams argues that black religion from the period of slavery through the era of segregation provided theological resources that motivated and sustained preachers and parishioners battling racial oppression.

The essays in this volume are indicative of the scope of international scholarship concerning the works of William Faulkner. They reflect the distinctive and somewhat varying views that scholars have of the Nobel Prize author. The nine papers included, a sampling of those delivered at the First International Colloquium on William Faulkner, articulate the relationship between Faulkner and idealism.

During World War I, in the period of the Red Scare, and throughout the Great Depression, the US army's domestic spy agency mounted an extensive surveillance campaign focused on civilians and groups deemed subversive. Negative Intelligence traces the fascinating and astonishing story of military espionage on the home front.

Under the leadership of Samuel Adams, patriot propagandists conscientiously kept the issue of slavery off the agenda as goals for freedom were set for the American Revolution. This book finds that the patriots avoided, misinterpreted, or distorted news reports on blacks and slaves, even in the face of a vigorous antislavery movement.

Gertrude Stein and Richard Wright began their careers as marginals within marginalized groups, and their desire to live peacefully in unorthodox marriages led them away from America and into permanent exile in France. Still the obvious differences between them-in class, ethnic and racial origins, and in artistic expression-beg the question: What was there to talk about?

Presents Susan Ketchin's discerning interviews with twelve southerners living and writing in the South. Along with a piece of fiction by each are her penetrating commentaries about the impact of southern religious experience on their work.

From more than a hundred autobiographical accounts written by American Indians recalling their schooling in government and missionary institutions this book recovers a perspective that was almost lost.

In novel after award-winning novel, Don DeLillo exhibits his deep distrust of language and the way it can conceal as much as it reveals. Not surprisingly, DeLillo he interviews with the same care and caution. For years, he shunned them altogether, but despite claims by interviewers about his elusiveness, he now hides in plain sight.

In Tallulah, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller, Tallulah Bankhead's literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London.

There was a time when birth was treated as a natural process rather than a medical condition. Before 1800, women gave birth seated in birth chairs or on stools and were helped along by midwives. Then societal changes in attitudes toward women and the practice of medicine made birthing a province of the male-dominated medical profession. In Birth Chairs, Midwives, and Medicine, Amanda Carson Banks examines the history of the birth chair and tells how this birthing device changed over time. Through photographs, artists' renditions of births, interviews, and texts from midwives and early obstetricians, she creates an evolutionary picture of birthing practices and highlights the radical redefinition of birth that has occurred in the last two centuries. During the 1800s the change from a natural philosophy of birth to a medical one was partly a result of heightened understandings of anatomy and physiology. The medical profession was growing, and with it grew the awareness of the economic rewards of making delivery a specialized practice. In the background of the medical profession's rise was the prevailing perception of women as fragile invalids. Gradually, midwives and birth chairs were relegated to rural and isolated settings. The popularity of birth chairs has seen a revival in the late twentieth century as the struggle between medical obstetrics and the alternative birth movement has grown. As Banks shows through her careful examination of the chairs themselves, these questions have been answered and reconsidered many times in human history. Using the artifacts from the home and medical office, Banks traces sweeping societal changes in the philosophy of how to bring life into the world.

At least one of every four people in America has had some experience with addiction--either personally or through a family member. Addiction and its consequences cost billions of dollars each year in direct medical costs, lost productivity, accidents, crime, and corruption. Yet as a disease, addiction is still largely misunderstood. Starting with the question "e;what is addiction?"e; Elizabeth Connell Henderson takes the reader through the many facets of this disorder. She examines the effects of addictive substances on the brain and reviews each of the major classes of substances. In the development of addiction, she looks at the genetic, social, and psychological factors. Henderson shows the effects of addiction on the family and guides the reader on a journey through the course of the illness and the process of recovery. Additional chapters deal with the problems associated with dual diagnosis--when addiction is accompanied by other psychiatric illnesses. Also chapters cover behavioral addictions such as compulsive overeating, pathological gambling, and sexual addiction. Covered are: Who becomes addicted and why? What are the properties of the major addictive drugs? What is the course of addiction? How does addiction affect the family? What constitutes recovery? What are the current trends in research? What organizations are available for help and how are they contacted? For the addict in recovery and for the family of the afflicted, Understanding Addiction provides crucial information to demystify this disease and provide clear guidance toward recovery. For human resource workers, attorneys, social workers, nurses, corrections officers, school counselors, and teachers, the book provides a framework of practical information for aiding individual sufferers and coping with their unique struggles.

In 1952, Faulkner noted the exceptional nature of the South when he characterized it as "the only really authentic region in the United States, because a deep indestructible bond still exists between man and his environment." The essays in this volume explore Faulkner's environmental imagination, seeking what Ann Fisher-Wirth calls the "ecological counter-melody" of his texts.

Before Groucho Marx and W.C. Fields American comedy was innocent. After they left their hilarious smudges on the genre, comedy was anything but. Here in a captivating book comparing and contrasting these two premier American comics is the history of how flimflam came to prevail as a major comic form.

For more than 150 years readers have interpreted Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction in a dazzling variety of ways. Instead of arguing in favor of or against what these readers conceive the fiction to mean, this examination of Hawthorne's narrative strategies demonstrates how he leads readers to reason as they do.

Published in paperback for the first time, A Business Career is the story of Stella Merwin, a white woman entering the working-class world to discover the truth behind her upper-class father's financial failure. A "New Woman" of the 1890s, Stella joins a stenographer's office and uncovers a life-altering secret that allows her to regain her status and wealth.

Uproariously funny and filled with choice narration, The Big Ballad Jamboree is Donald Davidson's only novel. He set his story - the romance of hillbilly and country singer Danny MacGregor with folk singer and ballad scholar Cissy Timberlake - in the fictional western North Carolina town of Carolina City during the summer of 1949.

Insights into a rediscovered author's revealing portraits of New England women

Colonizers imposed Christianity and biblical codes on their subjects. In the waning of imperialism, newly emerging peoples employed these same biblical codes as their cries for freedom and justice. These essays expose this tool of oppression as a tool of justice in works from Latin American, Native American, African, and Middle Eastern authors.

This probing look at capital punishment in execution novels and in real-life media accents the poles of punitive power. Such a comparison of literary works with confrontational journalism and court records also brings revealing insight into the long-term debate on capital punishment in American culture.

Richard Wright, the Mississippi-born black writer, saw himself as "an outsider between two cultures," a man searching. In these twelve essays, Michel Fabre follows Wright's search in an investigation of the novelist's life and career. Not originally intended as a collection, these essays underscore Wright's literary and intellectual development.

A history of the Magnolia State's notorious watchdog agency established for maintaining racial segregation