The Making of a Southerner, Day Two (up to page 151)

As you continue reading The Making of a Southerner, think about how Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin narrates the material and psychological aftereffects of the Civil War. What does she say about Lost Cause ideology? (You can read about the Lost Cause here and here.) How do both whites and blacks react to the loss what she terms the "old order"? Are there moments in the text that you feel her dislocate her allegiances from this old order and nod toward her conversion to racial equality? Keep reacting to the text's subtle critiques of southern paternalism, racism, and plantation-based ideologies.

You might want to also continue to think about the issues of tone, narrative, and point of view that we discussed in class yesterday.

The Making of a Southerner (1947)

Some background on Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin (1897-1988) can be found here.  You can also listen to an oral history interview with her here.  As you read the first part of this autobiography (through page 47), think about how Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin looks back on the world in which her father and grandfather lived. Does she view it with nostalgia?  With skepticism?  With outright critique?  What does she tell us about life on the plantation? 

Why does this first part of the autobiography not read as autobiography (that is, about the self) but as biography?  How do class and gender figure into her autobiography?  

Finally, comment on what you notice about the style, voice, and sense of self found in this early section of The Making of a Southerner. 

Mary Mebane: End

As you finish reading Mary, post your final assessment of the text below. How does Mary compare and contrast with the other autobiographies that we have read so far? How does its treatment of race, gender, and class differ? What do we learn through reading this autobiography? What did you especially enjoy in this final section?

We'll also be discussing again the question of audience. To whom do you think Mebane directs her autobiography? 

Looking forward to reading your comments!

Mary Mebane, Day 2

As you post below, think about how we described Mary Mebane's autobiography last Thursday. We focused on the many moments of quiet recognition and delicately voiced epiphany in the text. We also looked a few moments where Mebane has trouble discussing herself and only voices her "I" after discussing "someone" or "one" (page 23-24 is a paramount example of this oblique type of  narrative). 

As her autobiography proceeds, does it become more frank? Do you continue to notice moments of reticence or narrative shyness? How does the narrative foreground or conceal issues of race, gender, and class?

Link to Harry Crews' Review of Mary

We will be reading an excerpt from Harry Crews' autobiography A Childhood: The Biography of a Place a bit later in the course. Read his review of Mary E. Mebane's autobiography here.

Mary E. Mebane's Mary (1981)

Use the space below to comment on ANY aspect of the opening of Mary E. Mebane's autobiography. You might want to focus on the features of African-American autobiography that we discussed in class yesterday. The intersection of race and gender in this text will be our primary focus, but read the opening of this text with an eye to Mebane's descriptions of material life in the South (especially her sensitivity to the domestic labor her mother handles daily), and her negotiation of memory itself. Are there tonal shifts in her text? Moments that she cannot remember? Experiences that she describes as vividly burned in her mind?

We've now read enough texts that you should start comparing and contrasting Mebane's text with those of other African-American women (Jacobs, Angelou, Hurston) and with the autobiographies of Douglass, Wright, and Washington. Keep noticing the form of the genre and how Mebane modifies or follows its demands.

Commentary on Zora Neale Hurston / Maya Angelou

Please note there will be no blogging today. I'd like you to focus on finishing up your short response papers. Note that these papers will be discussed and shared in class.