Society Ties

Also today comes news that my co-author Thomas Howard and Owen Gallogly are about to publish Society Ties, about the Jefferson Literary Society at UVA.  I'm a big fan of this book and of the study of literary societies (and especially addresses given to them and of course of literary society debates).  One of these days -- maybe even one of these days this summer -- I'll get back to the paper on the Wake Forest literary society debates before the Civil War that I am writing with Elizabeth Carroll.  Those debates reflect the shifting (increasing) proslavery ideas on the Wake campus in the years leading into Civil War and also the increasingly strong support of southern nationalism and empire.  And one of these days soon the article Thomas and I wrote on proslavery (and sometimes antislavery) ideas on UVA's campus will be out -- and then down the road, not too many years from now I hope, so will a volume we're working on, on ideas about law, slavery, and constitutionalism in addresses to southern literary societies.