This year, the Oxford Conference for the Book will host a wide variety of professionals in the literary world to continue a tradition of investigating topics and influences of modern literature. In one of the many sessions presented, the writers and co-editors of “The Bohemian South: Creating Countercultures, from Poe to Punk” will lend a sociological perspective on reinterpreting what it means to be “southern” at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics.
A co-release from sociologists Shawn Bingham and Lindsey Freeman, “The Bohemian South” explores the dichotomy between the South’s large cultural, musical and culinary influence on the American landscape compared to its relatively “backwater” reputation. According to publisher UNC Press, the book segues into perspectives of an industrialized “New South” by investigating the history of bohemian culture found in multiple cities throughout the Southeast.
Bingham, assistant dean and professor of sociology at the University of South Florida, has authored other books but said he feels a personal connection to this newest release through his experience of moving back to Florida from the Baltimore area.
“The book explores creative subcultural communities and landscapes of the South, particularly the ways in which these communities continue to thrive,” Bingham said. “We use bohemia as a lens to reconsider traditional views of the American South. The title popped into my head as I was driving my moving van through Georgia, (and) I quickly realized that this was not a book I would be able to write alone.”
Freeman, co-editor and assistant professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University, will moderate the talk alongside Bingham. Freeman said she hopes the event will encourage people to have an open discussion of bohemia and, ultimately, an enlightened perception of the South.
“When we began this project – to explore and to think critically about the American South and its pockets of artists, musicians, writers and cultural producers of all stripes – we knew we needed a new concept distinct from the contemporary catchall term ‘hipster,’” Freeman said. “Hipster culture did not capture the scenes and creators we wanted to think with. We needed another way of looking.”
The book features essays from various sociologists and culture-makers throughout the South, including Zandria Robinson, Jaime Cantrell, Chris Offutt and Scott Barretta, who all will be co-moderating the event at the Overby Center.
“My chapter addresses the actions taken by young whites in the 1960s to try to promote blues in the South at a time when ‘race-mixing’ was often illegal, particularly when African Americans and their culture were treated with respect,” Barretta said. “I look at music scenes in Houston, Memphis and New Orleans and address how differences in those scenes changed the ways (of how) they presented blues music.”
The book’s forum is meant to help audiences better understand the meaning behind bohemia and its different cultural paradigms.
“I think it will be good for a Southern audience to think about bohemia as a concept that applies to the South,” Barretta said. “… as the imagery of bohemian scenes is usually more associated with places like Greenwich Village or Paris.”
This will be both Bingham and Freeman’s first time attending the Oxford Conference for the Book, and both editors said they are looking forward to experiencing the cultural and hospitable atmosphere the town is known for as well as connecting with other “Bohemian South” contributors whom they’ve only met online.
“I’m bringing my mom from east Tennessee, and we are going to celebrate our recent milestone birthdays,” Freeman said. “We couldn’t think of a better place to do so. I’m coming from Vancouver, Canada, where I live now, so I’m also hoping to have some good biscuits.”
The moderators intend for the talk to be an open platform for both students and faculty to ask questions in a comfortable environment rather than anticipating a formal forum. Bingham and Freeman both want to be as approachable as possible, knowing that participants may contribute to the “future imaginations” of the South.
“So many times (at conferences), people take themselves too seriously or they attempt to project a certain kind of persona,” Bingham said. “I think that the ‘Bohemian’ contributors would have the exact conversations about these topics at Ajax Diner as they would in a fancy conference room. So don’t feel intimidated to speak to folks at the conference when the talk is done. Continue the conversations.”
Freeman described the project as a celebration of “… the wonderfully off-kilter, sometimes queer, often radical and always contradictory Southern bohemian spaces.”
“Bohemians need bohemias: geographies where they can live, create and be celebrated,” she said.
This article was submitted to The Daily Mississippian by an advanced reporting class.
