120111 SE Literary Seminar: Southern Writers and the European Scene (2008S)

While members of the social and cultural elite of the American South in the 18th and 19th centuries cultivated close links with Europe by regular visits to its historic sites and art treasures, the prolonged economic depression during Reconstruction and afterwards impeded the transatlantic exchange with the Old World. As the advocates of the New South pushed for industrialization, the defenders of traditional Southern values insisted on the affinity of their region to the Old World, the destination of many expatriates also from the South. As the social backwardness of the segregated South continued, writers and other intellectuals from the region flocked to Continental Europe where the political crises leading up to World War II caused them to confront important ethical questions and to revise their own attitudes. In the era of the Cold War there were further opportunities for travel and for inspiration to adopt and adapt the "international theme".