SouthTalks: Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South

Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South 

Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd and Darren Grem

Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South explains a curiosity: why a feminine ideal rooted in the nineteenth century continues to enjoy currency well into the twenty-first. Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd examines how the continuation of certain gender rituals in the American South has served to perpetuate racism, sexism, and classism.

Boyd is an independent scholar who lives in Takoma Park, Maryland. A native of Jackson, Mississippi, she holds an MA in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi, and a PhD in American studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Darren Grem is associate professor of history and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity and coeditor with Ted Ownby and James G. Thomas Jr. of Southern Religion, Southern Culture: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson.

This event is cosponsored by Square Books.