About the Contributors

William R. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of History, Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and adjunct professor of folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris has made numerous documentary films and has authored over 100 publications in the fields of folklore, history, literature, and photography.

Eugene D. Genovese, a retired professor of history, is author of A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South and other books on the Old South. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, in Atlanta, Georgia. Together, they have just completed The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview.

Alan Shapiro is the author of eight books of poetry, including The Dead Alive and Busy, winner of the 2001 Kingsley Tufts Award, and Mixed Company, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as a memoir, The Last Happy Occasion, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Albert Way is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Georgia. His dissertation is an environmental history of the Red Hills region of south Georgia.

Karen Yochim is a resident of Arnaudville, Louisiana, who has just completed a post-Civil War Acadiana novel, The Strange Disappearance of Jean-Claude Benoit. She has a deep love for bayou country and is pleased that Acadiana continues to maintain its unique identity.