Kirsch 1

Mary Ryan Kirsch

English 2040: Project 3
Dr. Olivas
10/27/20

Academic Discipline Research Project: Southern Rhetoric

Southern rhetoric casts a wider net than I initially thought. Upon first researching the

topic, I didn’t think many people had studied it as thoroughly as I thought they should. When I

refined my research, however, I realized that much study has been conducted on Southern

rhetoric as it pertains to Civil War rhetoric, political rhetoric, agrarian rhetoric, and Southern

Gothic rhetoric. Putting together all these facets of the genre helped paint a clearer image of

modern Southern rhetoric.

Civil War rhetoric hosts the foundation on which modern Southern Rhetoric is built.

Impassioned speeches and articles about decency and civility were delivered to the Confederate

public to justify slavery. Rather than focusing on the atrocities of slavery, Confederate Civil War

rhetoric focused on defending a way of life. The South still clings to this idea that they are the

last bastion of Christianity, morality, and righteousness and that they frequently face persecution

from the rest of the world. This tone was set long ago during the Civil War, and we see it today

in the current political climate. As the Black Lives Matter movement gains traction and people

establish themselves as “Antifa,” or anti-fascists, much online content emerging from the South

serves to separate themselves from those movements. The excessive use of hyperbole in

Southern rhetoric makes delineation from ideals that don’t align with antiquated Confederate

sentimentality easier. As a result, othering is taking root causing tensions between those who

believe they’re defending decency and those who practice more liberal thinking.

Hyperbole born out of Southern rhetoric has found a home in the political realm, as well.

Scholars suspect that President Reagan’s use of Southern rhetoric gave rise to the practice. The
 Kirsch 2

American public found Reagan “less threatening” than his opponents and were seemingly more

receptive to his glossy form of racism. His anecdote about the “welfare queens” who took

advantage of welfare programs was found to not be grounded in reality, but the way the

“evidence” was presented to the American public fueled racist sentiments about African

Americans and the welfare system. Since Reagan, we’ve seen other politicians use both Southern

rhetoric and Southern dialectical affectations to win over their constituents. There are videos of

Hillary Clinton and Mike Pence putting on Southern accents for particular audiences, and there is

video evidence of both politicians simplifying speeches for Southern audiences to cater to

laymen.

Though the “dumbing down” of writings and speeches for a Southern audience can be

seen as offensive, it’s not entirely unfounded. In the 1930’s, Southern agrarians railed against the

technocracy of the Northeastern elite believing that it would undermine Southern culture and

validity. Basically, Southerners worried that intelligent “Yankees” would write to invalidate

Southern culture by using words unfamiliar to them. Though the movement to resist the

“Northeastern technocracy” would ultimately fail, it chiseled out a niche market for politicians to

tap into and shaped modern Southern Rhetoric.

Southern gothic rhetoric deviates from all the aforementioned facets of Southern rhetoric,

but it is a large facet nonetheless. Prominent Southern gothic writers include Flannery O’Conner,

William Faulkner, Harper Lee, and Tennessee Williams. Most Southern Gothic rhetoric serves as

the foil to Southern antebellum rhetoric. While Southern antebellum rhetoric focuses on the

civility and purity of a bygone era the South so desperately tries to preserve, Southern gothic

focuses on the wickedness of the antebellum south, and characters often meet their

comeuppances as a result of their misdeeds. Southern gothic and Southern antebellum rhetoric
 Kirsch 3

both examine the morality and values of the American South, but Southern gothic examines

them through a critical lens while Southern antebellum rhetoric tries to preserve them.

Much of the work I’m producing at the most have a heavy focus on the American South.

I’ve been advised to write my truths and speak to what I know, and as an Alabama native,

Southern culture and history is in my wheelhouse. Post-graduation, I hope to find employment

with one of the many magazines being published in the South. Specifically, I would love to work

for The Local Palate, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, or The Oxford American. As passionate

as I am about certain aspects of the South, I’m not blind to its more negative traits. I’ve been

studying, reading, and writing about the Southern Gothic genre despite the fact that I don’t see

myself pursuing a career in fiction writing. There’s plenty of darkness to be found in reality, and

I’d like to write about the South with a Southern gothic spin.

From a purely academic standpoint, I just wanted to know more about Southern rhetoric.

People from the South write and speak differently. The excessive use of hyperbole, supporting

arguments with anecdotes, and cloaking hostile mentalities in flowery language are all elements

of Southern rhetoric I don’t find in other rhetorical spheres. I’ve long been aware of these

characteristics of Southern rhetoric, but I have never researched the “whys.” I realized that

despite my immersion in the culture, I couldn’t explain why or how Southern rhetoric deviated

from other types of rhetoric.

Southern rhetoric is a pretty specific field, and there aren’t really graduate programs

dedicated to that particular area of study. However, enrolling in a writing or rhetoric graduate

program in the South can guarantee a focus on Southern rhetoric. Colleges like the University of

Arkansas, Auburn University, and The University of South Carolina all have graduate programs

in rhetoric. The University of Mississippi offers a Master degree in Southern Studies, as does the
 Kirsch 4

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt. Ideally, to be an expert on Southern

rhetoric, one would get a masters in both Rhetoric and Southern Studies. Alternatively, it’s not

unheard of to find a compassionate dean willing to help you create a niche degree, and it might

behoove a student specifically interested in Southern rhetoric to press for the creation of the

specialty.

While there isn’t a huge market for areas of study pertaining to Southern rhetoric, I

believe it has enough history and dimensions to merit a place at the rhetorical table. There are

few scholarly articles and dissertations dedicated to the overarching umbrella of the discipline,

but one only needs to dig a little deeper to discover the sprawling roots of the ancient tree that is

Southern rhetoric.
 Kirsch 5

Part 2: Scholarly Articles on Southern Rhetoric

Bailey, Peggy Dunn. "Female Gothic Fiction, Grotesque Realities, and Bastard Out of Carolina:

Dorothy Allison Revises the Southern Gothic." Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 63 no. 1,

2010, p. 269-290. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mss.2010.0034.

This article from the Mississippi quarterly not only examines female Southern
gothic writers, but it also praises the genre for it unique use of hyperbole and
grotesqueness. This piece differs from the Bennett article in that it is written by a self-
identified “iconoclastic, queer, Southern writer,” though it does dovetail nicely with the
Bennett piece. Southern gothic rhetoric is an offshoot of Southern rhetoric, and the genre
has defined much of the literary works that come out of the South. Bailey approaches the
subject of Southern gothic rhetoric not only by looking at works from female authors, but
also through the lens of her “queer, iconoclastic” lens.

Bennett P.B. (2016) Gothic Landscapes: Poe and Antebellum Southern Women Poets. In:

Castillo Street S., Crow C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic.

Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47774-3_4

Southern gothic is my favorite genre of writing, art, and music, and it definitely
fits under the umbrella of Southern rhetoric. Writers like William Faulkner and Flanner
O’Conner are Southern gothic writers, and while the genre doesn’t exactly fit into Southern
rhetoric in terms of public speaking and conversation, it absolutely applies to compositions
and literature. Southern gothic is kind of the foil to Southern antebellum rhetoric in that
antebellum Southern rhetoric more falls in line with Gone with the Wind-type stories, and
Southern gothic calls attention to the less desirable attributes of Southern life like
radicalized religion and racism. Most characters in Southern Gothic stories meet their
comeuppances as a result of their wickedness. The chapter from the book Gothic
Landscapes focuses on female Southern gothicists.
 Kirsch 6

Davison C.M. (2016) Southern Gothic: Haunted Houses. In: Castillo Street S., Crow C. (eds)

The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47774-3_5

This piece from The Palgrave Handbook of Southern Gothic “offers a socio-
historically contextualized, generically detailed overview of the haunted plantation
house featured in Southern Gothic literature since the early nineteenth century.” Much
of Southern gothic literature focuses on hauntings and the paranormal with ties to
history. Many of these works were produced in the early nineteenth century with ties to
“the slave-based economy that produced it.” Again, Southern gothic almost serves as a
foil to traditional and antebellum Southern rhetoric, despite being an offshoot from it. I
could integrate this piece into a research paper on Southern rhetoric by dedicating a
portion to Southern Gothic rhetoric as a facet of generalized southern rhetoric.

Fairbanks, Eve. “Perspective | Conservatives Say We've Abandoned Reason and Civility. The

Old South Said That, Too.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 Aug. 2019,

www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/29/conservatives-say-weve-abandoned-reason-

civility-old-south-said-that-too/?arc404=true. 

This article cautions against the modern Southern rhetoric of “lost civility and
reason” as it mirrors language used in the Civil War to defend slavery. I was drawn to this
article because it gets at the heart of how I would conduct a research project focusing on
Southern rhetoric. It bridges the gap between old Southern rhetoric with modern Southern
rhetoric, despite many similarities between the two areas. It also focuses on the overuse of
hyperbole in Southern rhetoric, a topic I’d love to learn more about.

Fritz, Karen E. Voices in the Storm: Confederate Rhetoric, 1861-1865. University of North

Texas Press, 1999. 

I had to take the summary for this book for reference, but I would read the entire
book for context as it would support my search for information about Southern rhetoric.
This reference focuses on Southern Rhetoric as is applies to the Civil War to defend
slavery. It’s a more historically-focus document, and I would need to use it in tandem with
 Kirsch 7

the Fairbanks article and the Williams piece to draw focus to modern iterations of Southern
rhetoric.

Grey, Stephanie Houston (2014) The Gospel of the Soil: Southern Agrarian Resistance and the

Productive Future of Food, Southern Communication Journal, 79:5, 387-

406, DOI: 10.1080/1041794X.2014.931452

This piece focuses on the agrarian roots of Southern rhetoric. According to the
abstract for the piece, “Fearing the forces of industrial capitalism, the Southern agrarians
argued that the technocratic mass culture of the Northeast would exterminate Southern
identity” in the 1930’s, and it gave rise to the prevalence of Southern agrarian rhetoric.
Ultimately, the attempts to promote this rhetoric were unsuccessful, but it paved the way
for “political resistance against growing technologic materialism.” I couldn’t access the
bulk of the article without paying for it, and I would need to read more about how it
contributes to modern Southern rhetoric, but I think the thrust of the piece is that the
efforts surrounding the effort made a niche market for politicians to tap into to appeal to
laymen.

Moss, Christina L. Re-conceptualizing southern rhetoric: a meta- critical perspective. 2005.

LSU, PhD dissertation. LSU Digital Commons,

https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2366

&context=gradschool_dissertations

This is the place I started my search on Southern rhetoric, and it is by far the most
comprehensive piece of literature I found on the subject. It focuses on areas like Southern
public speaking, defining Southern rhetoric, the South as a cultural identity, and parody
of Southern demagoguery. It’s the most researched, broadest document on Southern
rhetoric, but it is a great starting point for researching the topic.

Ritter, Kurt (1999) Ronald Reagan's 1960s Southern rhetoric: Courting conservatives for the

gop,Southern Communication Journal, 64:4, 333 345, DOI:10.1080/10417949909373148

 Kirsch 8

This article skews political, and it covers how President Reagan’s Southern
rhetoric won over the American people and veiled his racism. Having grown up in the
South, I understand how much Southern writing and speech is interlaced with racism and
elitism, shrouded by flowery language. His tactics have been appropriated by many a
modern politician. Politicians like Hilary Clinton and Mike Pence has been caught using
Southern dialectical affectations to win over their constituents, though I’ve yet to
research whether or not that affectation was used to gloss over racism in their speeches.
The purpose of the article is to examine how Reagan’s Southern persona painted him as a
less severe persona than his opponents, and even than he actually was.

Williams, Kelsey. The Rhetoric of the Civil War: Literary Devices of the North and South. 2017.

Liberty University, PhD dissertation. Liberty Digital Commons,

https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1777&context=honors

This article focuses on rhetoric used in the American Civil War by both the Union
and the Confederate sides. For the purposes of researching Southern rhetoric, I would
only look for the information that applies to the South to compare that rhetoric to modern
Southern rhetoric, and to hold it up against different forms of Southern rhetoric as it
applies to agrarian, political, and gothic Southern Rhetoric. I could also use the
information about Union rhetoric as a contrast to Southern rhetoric.