The very best essays from fifty years of scholarship and thoughtEssays by Margaret Walker Alexander, Alfred Bendixen, David C. Berry, Augustus M. Burns, James Taylor Carson, Thadious M. Davis, Susan V. Donaldson, Don H. Doyle, Barbara C. Ewell, Robert L. Hall, William H. Hatcher, Arthell Kelley, Manning Marable, Joseph Millichap, Willie Morris, John Solomon Otto, Harriet Pollack, Kathryn L. Seidel, John Ray Skates, Randy J. Sparks, Martha Swain, and Anne Bradford WarnerThe Past Is Not Dead is a collection of twenty literary and historical essays that will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. Like its companion volume Personal Souths, this essay collection features the best work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s. Topics range from historical essays on the Mississippi frontier, southern religion, African culinary influences, and New Deal politics, to literary essays on George W. Cable, James Dickey, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Richard Wright. Important regional subjects like the Yazoo Basin and Mississippi blues are given special attention. Contributors range from such noted literary figures as Margaret Walker Alexander and Willie Morris, to literary critics Thadious M. Davis, Susan V. Donaldson, Kathryn L. Seidel, and Joseph Millichap, to scholars of African American studies such as Robert L. Hall and Manning Marable and historians including Don H. Doyle, Randy J. Sparks, and Martha Swain.Collectively, the essays in The Past Is Not Dead enrich and illuminate our understanding of southern history, literature, and culture, and celebrate the work of a distinctive, distinguished journal.