The result of a conference held to assess the state of southern literary scholarship and to suggest new directions for research, this collection includes essays by Lewis D. Rubin, Jr., Richard Beale Davis, Arlin Turner, Lewis P. Simpson, Cleanth Brooks, Blyden Jackson, Walter Sullivan, George Core, Charles T. Davis, Floyd C. Watkins, Carl Dolmetsch, Lewis Leary, Philip Butcher, Thomas Daniel Young, John C. Guilds, George Brown Tindall, Norman Brown, and Charles Ray.