Southern folk traditions are shown to be alive and relevant today in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 14: Folklife (UNC Press). The book will be available in January 2010.
Edited by Glenn Hinson and William Ferris in the College of Arts and Sciences, it explores the role of folk traditions in communities’ self-definitions. A broad range of these traditions is examined, including car culture, funerals, hip-hop, roadside memorials, college stepping, powwows, New Orleans marching bands and hunting dogs.
The general editor of the series is Charles Reagan Wilson of the University of Mississippi.
The director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress praises it as “an invaluable research tool for scholars as well as a wonderful read for anyone interested in the American South…. Hip-hop, stepping, face jugs, Mardi Gras Indians, and shot-gun houses — you can discover the cultural meaning and history of them all here.”
Hinson is an associate professor of folklore and anthropology, and has researched African American expressive culture. He is the author of Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South. His new book, Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, is also published by UNC Press.
