Monday, November 30, 2015

"What Can and Can't Be Said"

New from Yale University Press: What Can and Can't Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South by Dell Upton.

About the book, from the publisher:
An original study of monuments to the civil rights movement and African American history that have been erected in the U.S. South over the past three decades, this powerful work explores how commemorative structures have been used to assert the presence of black Americans in contemporary Southern society. The author cogently argues that these public memorials, ranging from the famous to the obscure, have emerged from, and speak directly to, the region’s complex racial politics since monument builders have had to contend with widely varied interpretations of the African American past as well as a continuing presence of white supremacist attitudes and monuments.
Dell Upton is professor of architectural history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has studied the Southern landscape for four decades. He lives in Culver City, CA.

--Marshal Zeringue