Alternative Economies of Pleasure in Contemporary Southern Working-Class Cultures

Session Submission Type: Paper Session: Traditional Format

Abstract

The South continues to be the poorest region in the United States and local economies in rural parts of the South such as Appalachia and the Alabama Black Belt and Southern cities such as Memphis and New Orleans continue to be characterized by a scarcity of basic necessities for many individuals and families. This panel seeks to explore ways that contemporary working-class cultures in the South imagine and construct economies of pleasure, abundance, and fulfillment that stand in contrast to material economies of scarcity and want.
Our first two papers analyze Southern cultures within which alternative spaces for personal and bodily satisfaction are constructed. Faune Albert’s essay examines Dorothy Allison’s semi-autobiographical short-story collection Trash, arguing that it develops a narrative thematics of starvation and denial that is connected to the failure of Allison’s poor “white trash” family to adequately provide her with emotional sustenance. Albert argues that this thematic of want is contrasted with Allison’s luscious, detailed descriptions of the Southern foods that represent her heritage, contending that her linkage of this gastronomic pleasure to the erotic pleasure of her lesbian encounters suggests an alternative economy of pleasure in consumptive excess that exists alongside this economy of scarcity.
Our next paper, to be read by Nicholas Gorrell, looks at a little-documented body of blues music that is still popular with working-class African American audiences in Deep South locales such as the Mississippi Delta. Gorrell will argue that many songs in this contemporary tradition conflate a personal or family economics of scarcity with the relationship politics experienced by their protagonists. To these songs, Gorrell will juxtapose songs in which protagonists create alternative relationship economies of sexual satiety and emotional fulfillment out of the contingent spaces of illicit relationships that, Gorrell contends, illustrate both the importance and difficulty of carving out spheres of satisfaction within economies of desperation.
Our final essay, to be presented by Anne Gessler, moves farther South to New Orleans, examining the work of black cooperative movements in that city. She discusses how, in the post-Katrina period, these groups have struggled to reclaim control over their neighborhoods in the face of city and corporate-led disinvestment and gentrification. She suggests that cooperatives have attempted to marry New Orleans’ participatory heritage of jazz, social aid and pleasure clubs, and second line parades to the principles of the national cooperative movement so that residents can claim their share of their city’s economic and political power. Gessler’s essay, which documents efforts towards establishing alternative economic institutions, will, we believe, contrast with our first two essays in ways that will engender a discussion of the potential bridges between the imaginative and the concrete within working-class cultures, a discussion that will be further encouraged by our respondent, Eric Porter, who has published work on popular music culture as well as the culture of post-Katrina New Orleans. All panelists have agreed to closely follow time limits to ensure a lively conversation moderated by our chair, Michael K. Honey.

Sub Unit

• American Studies Association Annual Meeting

Chair

• Michael K. Honey, University of Washington, Tacoma (WA)

Individual Presentations

• The Pleasures of Shame: Emotional Starvation and Sensual Hunger in Dorothy Allison's Trash - Faune Albert, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (MA)

• Economies of Scarcity and Abundance in Contemporary Southern Blues - Nicholas Neil Gorrell, University of Mississippi (MS)

• Second Lines, Creative Economies, and Gentrification: Music Cooperatives in Post-Katrina New Orleans - Anne Gessler, University of Texas, Austin (TX)

Comment

• Eric Porter, University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)