In this time of conservative governments and austerity measures, arts agencies such as the NEA and NEH are constantly threatened with cutbacks. This announcement is a good reminder that some really interesting projects are born out of federal grants. This book sounds like a promising read, and a welcome rebuttal to the Lost Cause, which is finally starting to be rethought (and re-fought) in popular culture.
LeMahieu has been awarded a $60,000 Fellowship to continue work on his book project “Reconstructing Civil War Memory in American Literature after Brown v. Board of Education.”
LeMahieu’s book will analyze how, in the wake of the landmark United States Supreme Court desegregation case, leading American authors took up the pen as an instrument of civil rights. His project will examine the work of James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor and other writers.