Southern United States literature

"Southern literature" redirects here. For other uses, see Southern literature (disambiguation).
16 states and Washington, D.C. are defined as the Southern region of the United States by the Census Bureau. The 13 states in dark red and solid red are usually considered part of the South. The inclusion of some of the four states in stripes is sometimes disputed. The Census Bureau does not include Missouri, but parts of that state are considered culturally more Southern than Delaware, another state colored here in stripes, which the Census Bureau includes in the Southern region. Southern literary studies questions these geographic boundaries.
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Southern United States literature consists of American literature written about the Southern United States or by writers from the region. Literature written about the American South first began during the colonial era, and developed significantly during and after the period of slavery in the United States. Traditional historiography of Southern United States literature emphasized a unifying history of the region; the significance of family in the South's culture, a sense of community and the role of the individual, justice, the dominance of Christianity and the positive and negative impacts of religion, racial tensions, social class and the usage of local dialects.[1][2][3] However, in recent decades, the scholarship of the New Southern Studies has decentralized these conventional tropes in favor of a more geographically, politically, and ideologically expansive "South" or "Souths".[4]

  1. ^ Patricia Evans."Southern Literature: Women Writers" Archived 2000-03-03 at archive.today. Accessed Feb. 4, 2007.
  2. ^ David Williamson. "UNC-CH surveys reveal where the 'real' South lies". Retrieved February 22, 2007.
  3. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on August 9, 2007. Retrieved March 18, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ Jon Smith and Deborah Cohn "Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies"