Editor's Introduction

This general issue of The Southern Quarterly marks my first as solo editor; although I became the journal's editor in January 2018, I have thus far been working with our former editor (Philip C. Kolin, on his special double issue "Replaying Gone With the Wind-Novel and Film") and two esteemed guest editors (John Wharton Lowe on "The Caribbean South" and Angela Jill Cooley for "Foodways in the South"). Those three special issues are particularly fine, reflecting the interdisciplinary approach of the journal and our commitment to exploring various aspects of Southern culture in innovative ways. My predecessor Philip Kolin-and those fine scholars who preceded him, like Noel Polk, Peggy Ann Prenshaw, and Douglas Chambers, to name a few-established a strong legacy with The Southern Quarterly, published continuously since 1962 from The University of Southern Mississippi, and it is a legacy I am most proud to continue.

Although this issue does not have a specific theme, much of the work here focuses on New Orleans, which accounts for the cover art: Jean-Pierre Lassus's Veile et Perspective de la Nouvelle Orleans (1726). This is supposedly the only known contemporary view of New Orleans from the first French Colonial era, prior to Louisiana's 1763 transfer to Spain. The view is of the very young city from across the Mississippi River at Algiers Point; in the foreground, slaves are downing trees on the West Bank while nearby a man spears an alligator. Trees are shown as cleared only a short distance beyond the town limits, though the view extends at the top to the road to Bayou St. John. This "view" seems particularly poignant now, given the current precarious state of New Orleans' levee system, strained from holding back the Mississippi River swollen to constant flood stage.

In our first article, Eugene Slepov considers one of the novels most closely associated with New Orleans in '"Singularities of Time and Place': A Study of Nativity as Ethnicity in A Confederacy of Dunces." In identifying the protagonist Ignatius Reilly as a kind of regionalist scapegoat, and incorporating theories of humanist geography, Slepov shows how the novel depicts New Orleans as a fraught habitat for Ignatius. At home, at work, and in the city, Ignatius both fears losing his homeplace and dreads never leaving it, marking his "native" New Orleanian status as the most potent aspect of his identity.

Moving from humanist geography to architectural history, Monica E. Jovanovich looks at the complicated symbology of public space in her "Traveling Through Time: The Art and Architecture of the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal." Jovanovich recounts the development of the centralized railway station as part of Mayor deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison's strategy for urban renewal in the 1940s and 50s. As with Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long's sponsorship of the Shushan Airport, the railway station was to embody a spirit of modernity in both design and decor; Jovanovich effectively historicizes the paradox of the terminal building's innovation during the days of Jim Crow. Focusing specifically on the massive murals created for the terminal by artist Conrad Albrizio, Jovanovich concludes that "Albrizio's murals attempted to reconcile the harsh realities of Louisiana's history with a hopefulness about the possibilities of a unified, inclusive future for all."

Far from that optimistic view of the future, Jennie Lightweis-Goff's article laments the present state of post-Katrina New Orleans's food landscape. In "Lean Times in Boom Towns: #FoodGentrification at the Mouth of the Mississippi," Lightweis-Goff argues that "[t]he threat of gentrification—or the threat of whitening—dawned in those first days after the breached levees, but was not fully realized until nearly a decade after"; she asserts that the gentrifying threat overtook local restaurants rather than residential real estate, leaving a blight of abandoned corner stores and eateries. Writing from her "home-base" of the Treme neighborhood, Lightweis-Goff analyzes how digital media portrays a limited view of the gentrifying impulse, which she connects with much broader political and economic forces.

Our final article in this issue travels from the Crescent City to Hampton, Virginia, to explore the...