Southern Literature/Culture and the Idea(s) of Europe: Studies in the Development of the Autostereotypes of an American Region and Their Transatlantic Connections

Research project P 13858 Southern Literature/Culture and the Idea(s) of Europe Waldemar ZACHARASIEWICZ 28.06.1999 The applicant, who has dealt with imagological questions, particularly with the genesis, dissemination and function of national stereotypes in literatures (in the English language) for the last three decades and has focused on the literature and culture of the American South during the last twenty years (he has published monographs in both fields and has edited the proceedings of several international interdisciplinary conferences he organized), would like to draw upon his dual expertise and assess the importance of "ideas of Europe" for the collective self-image of authors from the American South, a topic which (in contrast to the study of the close links between New England and continental Europe) has so far not received sufficient attention. He would like to show in diachronic perspective how the quality and quantity of the literary and cultural output in the South correlated with this self- image. In the development of this autostereotype since the Antebellum the autoptic encounter with Europe (or its mediated equivalent for armchair travelers) seems to have functioned as an important stimulus, as the Old World served as a catalyst and significant provider of ideas. They aided Southern spokesmen eager to postulate an identity distinct from the American mainstream and defending the hierarchical structures and values peculiar to the South. While the "European influence" on romantic trends in the Antebellum South and on Agrarians and Regionalists in the 1930s, manifest in some explicit statements ` has not remained unknown, the complexity of the issue calls for a close analysis of travelogues, essays, poems and works of fiction. The "ideas of Europe" tended paradoxically both to consolidate the collective identity established by white spokesmen in the 19th century and to undermine reactionary trends, as white progressivist observers (like G. W. Cable or H. L. Mencken) and well-travelled blacks like W. E. B. Du Bois were encouraged by their encounters with Europe to critically assess their own region, a fact which helped to initiate a cultural awakening after phases of ostensible lethargy. In the analysis of a representative sample of published and unpublished travelogues, expository and fictional texts from two centuries the present project will also draw on the results of numerous studies of travel literature and on current interdisciplinary research concerning the depiction of the "other". The goal of the study would be a comprehensive account of significant uses of images and ideas of Europe by Southern authors in the 19th and 20th centuries. The post-World War II transformation of the American . South into the "Sunbelt" with the erosion of Southern distinctiveness through rapid modernization and the adoption of postmodernist tendencies and traits in fiction seems, however, to be balanced by renewed interest. in regional cultures in newly-established centers for regional studies and the literary output of numerous younger authors, who seem to retain, at least, some of the preoccupations and concerns of their great forebears.

A major goal of the research project was the establishment of the presence of close transatlantic ties between spokesmen of the élite from the American South and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. The analysis of published and unpublished travelogues, autobiographical accounts, novels, poems and essays has demonstrated the importance of these links for the self-image of Southerners, their claims concerning a specific collective identity in the Antebellum, in the post-Reconstruction Era, in the period of the so-called Fugitives and the Agrarians, who regarded European national cultures as models in their own struggle for the preservation of their collective identity. (Much material has also been found concerning the inspiration Southern fiction writers derived from their Eruopean sojourns since World War II). Paradoxically, the encounter of representatives of marginalized groups, especially African Americans from the South, with European cultures also helped them in the articulation of their opposition to the reactionary claims of a restrictive view of Southern culture. Research at nine American libraries provided the material which was presented in twelve lectures at international conferences or guest lectures at European and American universities. The results have also been published in eight articles; six essays and segments of books are currently in the press. They will also be discussed at additional international symposia involving experts from Europe and North America (e.g. at a conference in Vienna in 2005).