The Other Southern Belles
Civil War Reenactment, African American Women, and the Performance of Idealized Femininity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12370087 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Patricia G Davis (0000-0002-5798-5205, Gzhel State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 308-331 |
| Publication date | 2012-07-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Text and Performance Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1046-2937 • E-ISSN: 1479-5760 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10462937.2012.707783 |
| OpenAlex | W1972854292 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 25 |
This essay examines African American women's participation in Civil War reenactment as performances of idealized femininity. African American Civil War reenactments enable black men and women to construct narratives of historical subjectivity through performances of masculine and feminine agency. In enacting the role of the “demure southern belle” supporting black Union soldiers, black women reenactors occupy an image associated with idealized femininity. This appropriation of southern belle iconicity destabilizes past and contemporary representations, rooted in southern mythology, relegating black women to the categories of the mammy and Jezebel, the black whore. In this endeavor, they use these performances as resistance, thereby suggesting the presence of power and subversion within traditionalism. Moreover, as the black male reenactor's occupation of the conservative image of the idealized citizen-soldier is perceived as anathema to contemporary black masculinist discourse, the ironies inherent in black women's performance of traditional femininity as feminist discourse underscore the problematics embedded within mainstream feminism, revealing the situated nature of its core assumptions
Agency (philosophy · Appropriation · Emancipation · Femininity · Mainstream · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Subversion · Gender Studies · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Race, History, and American Society · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
Ar'N't I A Woman
American Anatomies
Ain't I a Beauty Queen?
Utopia in Performance
Performance Remains
Ain't I a woman
Black Feminist Thought
‘All the women are white, all the blacks are men – but some of us are brave’
The Civil War in Popular Culture
Reconstructing Dixie
Gender Trouble
Rethinking Critical Pedagogy
All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave
Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves
Appropriating Blackness
Making Place, Making Race
Performance Studies
Babylon Girls
American Anatomies
A Special Place within the Order of Knowledge
Black Skin/White Masks
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,6 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |