CFP: Historical Tourism in the American South

by Kevin Levin on March 3, 2009 · 3 comments · Follow me on Twitter

in Civil War Historians, Memory, Public History, Southern History

My friend and fellow historian, Karen Cox, has issued a call for papers for a proposed collection of essays on tourism in the American South. Karen already has a number of historians involved in this project, including yours truly. I am going to contribute an essay on Arlington House and the evolution of the NPS’s discussion of slavery on the grounds. Over the past few years I’ve collected some information on this subject so it will be nice to be able to finally do something with it. Karen is already in contact with a publisher and has been given an advanced contract so it is likely that the collection will see the light of day. What follows is the CFP as well as Karen’s contact info. if you are interested. [oh...and I stole the image from K's Facebook page.]

This is an invitation to submit proposals for essays to join others in a book (now under advance contract) that explores historical tourism in the American South. Historic sites, for the purposes of this volume, are those places that have been restored and/or adapted for the purpose of preserving some aspect of southern history and interpreting that history to the public. This volume will be divided into four sections each exploring a different aspect of tourism to sites of southern history and memory and proposals should fit into one of the following categories:

People and Places: will examine individual southerners and the historic sites preserved to tell their story.

War and Remembrance: will examine Revolutionary, Civil War, Spanish-American sites in the region.

Race and Slavery: will examine historic sites that interpret slavery or civil rights.

Landscape and Memory: will examine tourist sites that are concerned with the physical environment. Suggestions include cemeteries, Rock City, the Virginia’s Natural Bridge or the Florida Everglades.

Final essays will be 20-25 pages in length and will be accompanied by illustrations.

For consideration, please send a brief CV and a 1-page abstract by April 1, 2009 describing your topic to: Karen L. Cox, Editor, Department of History, UNC Charlotte, kcox@uncc.edu

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"In this stunning and well-researched book, Kevin Levin catches the new waves of the study of memory, black soldiers, and the darker underside of the Civil War as well as anyone has... Levin is both superb scholar and public historian, showing us a piece of the real war that does now get into the books, as well as into site interpretation."

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