Introduction

We're delighted to include in this issue of the South Central Review several special features. We are proud to publish here the keynote address from last year's SCMLA annual meeting in New Orleans, delivered by the distinguished novelist and travel writer Michael Mewshaw. We are also pleased to publish Professor Lynn Higgins's stimulating essay on documentary film, "Documentary in an Age of Terror." The essay was originally delivered as a Distinguished Lecture at Texas A&M University, sponsored by the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, in November 2004.

We are also pleased to include an interview with Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading public intellectuals as well as one of the most distinguished novelists of his generation. Bruckner's works include Tears of the White Man (New York: Free Press, 1986), a critique of French intellectual attitudes towards formerly colonized peoples, as well as prize-winning novels such as Bitter Moon (originally published in French as Lunes de fiel [Paris: Seuil, 1981]), made into a successful film by Roman Polansky (1992). Recently Bruckner has stirred controversy in France and internationally through his critique of French anti-Americanism as well as his denunciations of American abuses in Iraq.

As an additional feature in this issue we include an essay by distinguished historian Terry Anderson on "The Strange Career of Affirmative Action." Finally, we publish Anke Finger's critical memoir of Germany's dual legacy of Nazi and communist totalitarianism on subsequent generations of a German family. We hope our readership will enjoy these stimulating features.