(Posted 2-23-00)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Laurie Gengenbach, 336-334-5371

ROMINE BOOK EXAMINES
SOUTHERN COMMUNITY
 
GREENSBORO — Community is a central theme throughout southern literature, and while the term typically evokes warm feelings about moral stability and cohesiveness, it also embodies a more sinister undercurrent that has gone mostly unexamined by critics and authors.

Dr. Scott Romine, assistant professor of English at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, examines this paradox in his book, "The Narrative Forms of Southern Community" (1999, Louisiana State University Press).

In his study, Romine considers how southern writers were able to maintain an appearance of cohesiveness in the communities they described, despite the fact that these places were deeply divided along race and class lines. His book draws from works by William Faulkner, William Alexander Percy, Thomas Nelson Page, John Pendleton Kennedy and Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. Romine demonstrates how these authors, all of whom were associated with the cultural status quo, rationalized the oppressive nature of society.

"Romine realizes the complexity of the concept of community and appreciates the challenges facing those who wrestle with its questions," writes the publisher. "This first book- length study of community in southern literature contributes greatly to current revisionary reappraisals by going beyond many of the old assumptions."

Romine is a native of Atlanta, Ga., and received his bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Georgia in 1989 and his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991 and 1996. He joined the faculty of UNCG in 1996 and teaches southern and American literature. ###

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