Tell About the South: The 2005 St. George Tucker Society Meeting

September/October 2005 Historically Speaking 47 that part ofour duty is to offer informed comments , however much they might prejudice us in the ant heap of egotism that passes for part ofthe profession. For me, the most fulfilling academic experiences this year have been sitting on a jury in the Sorbonne, as a candidate superbly defended his five volume dossier d'habilitation of about 1 500 pages for five and a half hours (being France, there was a champagne reception and great grub afterwards); and spending a weekend in the sun (don't laugh, we get a lot of sun in Devon despite it being "God's idea of Heaven/Where it rains six days out of seven") reading the excellent submission of an American scholar I do not know who was up for a full chair. I was happy to support both candidates, but you cannot do so unless you accept that not everyone is so gifted. W.S. Gilbert of course understood the logical consequence of such a world: "When every one is somebodee ,/Then no one's anybody." Jeremy Black has recentlypublished Using History (Hodder Arnold, 2005), Introduction to Global Military History (Routledge, 2005), and A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (London Books, 2005). Tell About the South: The 2005 St. George Tucker Society Meeting Randall J. Stephens Imagine that you are about to present your work to a room full of intent scholars. All are ready, and more than willing, to dash your thesis against the sharp rocks of critical analysis. Last year I was in the hot seat. For fifteen years members of the St. George Tucker Society, an interdisciplinary southern studies group, have prided themselves on their collective ability to ferret out the faintest signs of intellectual skullduggery, evasion, or opaque argument. After hearing of previous years— tales of how such and such historian or English professor was laid low by volleys from the audience—I imagined what might happen if I chose flight instead offight. When I mounted the podium, it gave me comfort to know that dozens of scholars had gone before me, enduring the same ritual. Some fared well. Others had not. As I stood before the assembly, discussing my research on southern pentecostals, the audience gave little quarter. "Who were these believers?" "What motivated the faithful?" "How do these people fit into the larger narrative of southern and American history?" Somehow I pieced together responses to several such questions, and my manuscript is now the better for criticisms leveled at the meeting. Presenters, myselfincluded, typically come away grateful for the critical, Presenters at the St George Tucker Society typically come away gratefulfor the critical, unapologetic style of meetings. Exchanges are at once scholarly, tough, and civil unapologetic style of Tucker. Exchanges are at once scholarly, tough, and civil. This year, University of South Carolina historian Mark Smith delivered a stunning keynote address at Hickory Hill, the historic Greek revival home of Tom Watson. Smith's paper was a preview ofhis forthcoming book on the sensory history of slavery, How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses. "Modern discussions of 'race,'" Smith argued, "are hostage to the eye." Historians' post-Enlightenment preference for seeing race, said Smith, has cut short a fuller understanding of the construction of racial identity. In riveting detail, Smith described how white Southerners in the antebellum era marked race through a host of non-visual senses: touch, smell, even taste. Yet scholars have focused almost exclusively on the visual element . After Smith's talk, some members of the audience pointed out that historians , in general, deal exclusively with visual materials. Hence, the omission ofother senses is not entirely surprising. Smith's respondent , sociologist Peggy Hargis of Georgia Southern University, wondered how a biologist or another specialist might describe Smith's evidence. Others were curious about the epistemology ofthe senses. Can we really know how white Southerners in the antebellum South perceived race through senses? 48 Historically Speaking · September/October 2005 Or, is their personal experience in this regard lost to us? Other perceptive questions followed , but Smith defended his thesis with an expertise backed by hundreds of hours of research and in-depth...