The Scourges of the South? Essays on "The Sickly South" in History, Literature, and Popular Culture

In this book, eleven scholars â oetake their standâ on the controversial issue of disease as it occurs in the context of the American South. Playing on the popular vision of the South as an ill region on several levels, the European and American contributors interpret various aspects of the regional â oesicklyâ culture as not so much southern â oeproblemsâ , but, rather, southern opportunities, or else, springboards to yet another of the Southâ (TM)s cultural revitalizations, â oehealthâ . As Thomas Ã+rvold Bjerre and Beata Zawadka note in their introduction, the so-called â oeHealthy Southâ has never been an easy topic for scholars dealing with the region. One reason for this is that researchers have been taught to approach so formulated a topic no further than to the point when it turns out it is a contradiction in terms, and, indeed, there is much in southern history and the present situation that justifies such an approach. This volume, however, comprises a collective effort of southernist historians, literature experts, and culture critics to transcend the â oecontradictoryâ concept of the â oeHealthy South, â and does so by reinventing the notion of the southern disease and, consequently, the role of the South as a â oescourgeâ in American culture in terms of this cultureâ (TM)s bountiful gift.