Contemporary Southern Identity: Community through Controversy (review)

In Contemporary Southern Identity: Community Through Controversy, Rebecca Bridges Watts analyzes the public discourse surrounding four heated debates over various Southern symbols, people, and institutions that took place between 1989 and 2002: (1) the gender integration debate at the Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel; (2) the display of art juxtaposing Confederates and African Americans in Richmond, Virginia; (3) the debate over whether to remove the confederate flag from the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina; and (4) the public uproar over Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's praise of Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday. Though her rhetorical analyses are primarily Burkean in their emphases on social mystery, perspective through incongruity, agonism, and scapegoating, Watts also incorporates the work of Walter Fisher, Ernest Bormann, and others as she examines the persistence of Civil War–era Southern identity into the new millennium. Her thesis is that the "underlying theme thus far in the quest for Southern identity is a concern with order" (9), an order that is primarily maintained through identification and division. Watts's analyses lead her to conclude that "the order of division seems to be waning just as the order of identification seems to be waxing influence" (14), because despite the differences that exist among them, Southerners are concerned with preserving what they perceive to be a distinctly Southern identity. For Watts, the contemporary South is one that provides forums for a dialectical exchange of ideas among Southerners from varying backgrounds.

In the introduction, Watts both surveys the foremost scholars of Southern identity—John Shelton Reed, David Potter, W.J. Cash, and Richard Weaver—and sketches the historical contexts within which the ensuing case studies (each earning and constituting its own chapter) will unfold. She also details the origin of the Lost Cause myth or religion: the belief that even though the South lost the Civil War, Southerners could still be proud of their forbearers because they "fought on behalf of what was right and consequently could maintain their sense of honor" (12). Lost Cause symbols and beliefs are undoubtedly at the heart of the four rhetorical situations in question.

In chapter 1, Watts explores Burke's concept of "social mystery" as it applies to the Virginia Military Institute (and, to a lesser extent, the Citadel) gender integration debates that took place from 1989 to 1996. Watts analyzes the public forum discourse surrounding the series of court cases that eventually resulted in the admission of the first female VMI cadets in 1997. VMI's social mystery stemmed from the social knowledge—gentlemen codes, initiation rituals, and the like—to which women (and African Americans, until 1968) were not privy because they were not allowed admission into the institution. This created identification among cadets but division between cadets and those who were excluded from VMI.

In chapter 2, Watts details two debates that took place in Richmond, Virginia, in 1995–1996 and 1999, respectively. The first concerns the placement of an Arthur Ashe memorial statue on Monument Avenue, a street previously reserved for the likenesses of Confederates. Opponents voiced the concern that the tribute to an African American hero should not be placed next to Confederate generals for fear of validating the latter as heroes. Others objected that the aesthetics of the Ashe statue did not align with others on Monument Avenue, as his statue was smaller in size. Similarly, debates erupted over whether a portrait of Robert E. Lee was appropriate for placement along Richmond's Canal Walk, a space touted as part of the city's efforts to redefine its image. According to Watts, Burke's "perspective by incongruity" is at work in these debates because they deal with the matter of "what properly goes with what" (15). By bringing together seemingly incongruous symbols, the people of the city of Richmond might gain a new perspective that equips them to embrace the alternative perspectives of their fellow Southerners. Though Watts briefly nods to Burke's idea of the "comic frame," greater attention to...