Cinematic Visions and Lost Causes: The Civil War and the South

• In Event: Roundtable Session 68
  In Roundtable Session: Place, Posterity, and Possibility: Writing the Past, Imagining the Future

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance, significance and lasting impact of the Civil War on notions of identity in the south. Conceptualizations of the lost cause from Chase to Zizek will be incorporated to develop an understanding of the notion of lost causes globally. The use of cultural curriculum studies inquiry will be used to investigate these conceptualizations. Two films will be analyzed in the paper. These films (Gods and Generals and Gettysburg) will demonstrate the lingering nostalgia and emotional ties that southerners have to a romanticized notion of the lost cause. Emphasis will be given to relative absence of the discussion of slavery in these films.
This paper will add to the knowledge of southern place by enhancing the understanding of southern identity. This will add to the literature of place which is lacking in cultural curriculum studies.

Author

• William M. Reynolds, Georgia Southern University