Heritage and Hate
Regular price
€40.99
A01=Stephen M. Monroe
America
American South
Author_Stephen M. Monroe
Category=CBP
Category=CFG
Category=JBFA
Category=JNM
Category=NHB
Communication
Confederate
Culture
Discourse
Dixie
Education
eq_bestseller
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Higher Education
History
Identity
Language
Leadership
Memes
Memory
Mississippi
Ole Miss
Race
Race Relations
Racism
Rhetoric
Social Media
Southern Studies
Product details
- ISBN 9780817320935
- Weight: 575g
- Dimensions: 160 x 230mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2021
- Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
How southern universities presently contend with an inherited panoply of words and symbols that embody and perpetuate Old South traditions
In Heritage and Hate: Old South Rhetoric at Southern Universities, Stephen M. Monroe presents the US South as a pulsating rhetorical landscape, a place where words and symbols rooted in a deeply problematic past litter the ground and contaminate the soil. This provocative text focuses on predominantly white southern universities where Old South rhetoric still reverberates, empowering rebel flags to stifle racial harmony, school cheers to reinforce racial barriers, and student yearbooks to create and protect an oppressive culture of exclusion. Across the region, in college towns like Oxford, Mississippi, Athens, Georgia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, communities remain locked in a difficult, recursive, and inherently rhetorical struggle wrestling with this troubling legacy.
Words, images, and symbols are not merely passive artifacts of southern history, Monroe argues, but formative agents that influence human behavior and shape historical events. Drawing on research from many disciplines, including rhetoric, southern studies, history, sociology, and African American studies, Monroe develops the concept of confederate rhetoric: the collection of Old South words and symbols that have been and remain central to the identity conflicts of the South. He charts examples of such rhetoric at work in southern universities from Reconstruction to the present day.
Tracing the long life and legacy of Old South words and symbols at southern universities, this book provides close and nuanced analysis of the rhetorical conflicts that have resulted at places like the University of Mississippi and the University of Missouri. Some conflicts erupted during the civil rights movement, when the first African American students pushed their way into all-white southern universities and colleges, and others are brewing now, as African Americans (and their progressive white peers) begin to cement genuine agency and voice in these communities. Tensions have been, and remain, high. Remnants of the old majority continue to recruit modern adherents. The white majority may be in decline by many measures, but it is also powerful and resilient, still standing guard in defense of Old South traditions.
Ultimately, Monroe offers hope and optimism, contending that if words and symbols can be used to damage and divide, then words and symbols can also be used to heal and unify. Racist rhetoric can be replaced by antiracist rhetoric. The old South can become new. While resisting naÏve or facile arguments, Heritage and Hate ultimately finds the promise of progress within the tremendous power of language.
In Heritage and Hate: Old South Rhetoric at Southern Universities, Stephen M. Monroe presents the US South as a pulsating rhetorical landscape, a place where words and symbols rooted in a deeply problematic past litter the ground and contaminate the soil. This provocative text focuses on predominantly white southern universities where Old South rhetoric still reverberates, empowering rebel flags to stifle racial harmony, school cheers to reinforce racial barriers, and student yearbooks to create and protect an oppressive culture of exclusion. Across the region, in college towns like Oxford, Mississippi, Athens, Georgia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, communities remain locked in a difficult, recursive, and inherently rhetorical struggle wrestling with this troubling legacy.
Words, images, and symbols are not merely passive artifacts of southern history, Monroe argues, but formative agents that influence human behavior and shape historical events. Drawing on research from many disciplines, including rhetoric, southern studies, history, sociology, and African American studies, Monroe develops the concept of confederate rhetoric: the collection of Old South words and symbols that have been and remain central to the identity conflicts of the South. He charts examples of such rhetoric at work in southern universities from Reconstruction to the present day.
Tracing the long life and legacy of Old South words and symbols at southern universities, this book provides close and nuanced analysis of the rhetorical conflicts that have resulted at places like the University of Mississippi and the University of Missouri. Some conflicts erupted during the civil rights movement, when the first African American students pushed their way into all-white southern universities and colleges, and others are brewing now, as African Americans (and their progressive white peers) begin to cement genuine agency and voice in these communities. Tensions have been, and remain, high. Remnants of the old majority continue to recruit modern adherents. The white majority may be in decline by many measures, but it is also powerful and resilient, still standing guard in defense of Old South traditions.
Ultimately, Monroe offers hope and optimism, contending that if words and symbols can be used to damage and divide, then words and symbols can also be used to heal and unify. Racist rhetoric can be replaced by antiracist rhetoric. The old South can become new. While resisting naÏve or facile arguments, Heritage and Hate ultimately finds the promise of progress within the tremendous power of language.
Stephen M. Monroe is chair and assistant professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Mississippi.
