Nothing could stop it, nothing

This paper considers Barry Hannah’s short story “Uncle High Lonesome” (1996) as a postsouthern reworking of the modernist “southern burden” paradigm. Close readings of Hannah’s work reveal conspicuously “southern” narratives of historical haunting, trauma and guilt, implying that the burden of history remains a useful means of understanding late twentieth century regional fiction. This paper argues for Hannah’s unique currency in ongoing critical debates, both in the new southern studies and in southern literary studies more broadly, about the future of “South” and the concept of inherited historical memory in a post-regional and post-historical culture. In proposing that Hannah’s story is tenaciously southern even while it highlights the ways in which the South is mediated and performed, this paper argues that the story offers a creative response to the notion that the regional and the postmodern exist in simple opposition

Art · Art history · Epistemology · Literature · Nothing · Autobiographical and Biographical Writing · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · History · Philosophy

• Creating and Consuming the American South

  Brian E Ward, Martyn Bone et al.•Creating and Consuming the…•2015

  Incluir item

• Trauma

  Ruth Leys•Trauma•2000

  Incluir item

• New Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner

  John T Matthews•New Cambridge Companion to…•2015

  Incluir item

• The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism

  Matthew D Lassiter, Joseph Crespino•The myth of southern exceptionalism•2009

  Incluir item

• Narcissistic Narrative

  Linda Hutcheon•Poetics Today•1984

  Incluir item

• Unclaimed experience

  Cathy Caruth•Unclaimed experience•1996

  Incluir item