Southern Studies as Area Studies: Faulkner and Provincial Nationalism during the Cold War.

The article examines the important role played by U.S. author William Faulkner in the formalization of both U.S. literary studies and southern literary studies. Topics discussed include the application of southern studies as area studies under a nationalistic project during the Cold War. Also discussed are the origins of modern southern literature as an academic discipline and Faulkner's prominence in the literary criticism "Southern Renascence: The Literature of the Modern South" in 1953.