Sniffing the "Calypso Magnolia": Unearthing the Caribbean Presence in the South (Response)

In "Sniffing the 'Calypso Magnolia': Unearthing the Caribbean Presence in the South," Kimberly Nichele Brown discusses the multifarious ways in which John Lowe takes the academy to task for its rigid conceptual framing of southern literature. She further examines how Lowe's proposition for widening the southern literature canon to include Caribbean influences marks a potentially paradigmatic shift in our understanding of not only southern and Caribbean studies, but of African American and Latino studies as well. Although Brown discusses the multiple benefits of blurring the boundaries of literary and cultural specialties within the academy, she voices concern about what consequences Lowe's proposal might have on the future of African American, Caribbean, and Latino studies--disciplines founded by scholars who fought for autonomy in resistance to an inflexible canon. Finally, Brown challenges Lowe to more fully define what constitutes southern literature and what characteristics (place of birth, style of writing) make someone a southern writer.