Reviewed by:

• The Whole Machinery: The Rural Modern in Cultures of the U.S. South, 1890–1946 by Benjamin S. Child
• Margaret T. McGehee

In his deeply engaging book The Whole Machinery: The Rural Modern in Cultures of the U.S. South, 1890–1946, literary scholar Benjamin S. Child offers a significant and beautifully crafted counterpoint to the "familiar story … that modernization radiates out from metropolitan origins" (p. 3). Through an examination of a wide range of both familiar and less well known [End Page 356] literary-historical texts—including works of fiction by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frances E. W. Harper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Rudolph Fisher, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ellen Glasgow; the writings of the Nashville Agrarians and Highlander Center cofounder Don West; photographs by Louise Boyle of Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) organizer Myrtle Lawrence; and music by Charlie Poole—Child sets out to show "how modernizing agents move … from the country to the city" and "to upend the U.S. South's reputation as retrograde and unresponsive to modernity by showing how the effects of national and transnational exchange, emergent technologies, and industrialization animate environments and bodies associated with, or performing, versions of the rural" (p. 3). Furthermore, he seeks to bring to light "the rural sources—the laboring bodies and raw materials—that made such urban spaces possible" (p. 3). Taking his title from Booker T. Washington's phrase "'the whole machinery of slavery,'" Child emphasizes that "rural forms and figures, rural histories and phenomena," are central to any understanding of "the whole machine of modernity" (p. 3). As he states in the coda, the periphery—or "rural shadow," or in Raymond Williams's words, the "'wide margin of the century'"—has had significant influence on "the cultural core" (pp. 205, 213, 205).

Organized into three parts with two chapters within each (Part 3 is technically one chapter and the coda), The Whole Machinery offers a rich series of close readings of paired texts that collectively exhibit the presence of the "rural-in-the-modern" (p. 17). Along the way, Child offers innovative theoretical frameworks and applications for readers to consider. For example, in chapter 1, as a contrast to the pastoral, Child puts forth the notion of "a distinctly black georgic" and points to the "postplantation poetics of reclamation" within Dunbar's 1890s plantation poems and Harper's Iola Leroy (1892) (p. 25). In chapter 2, Child revisits Washington and Du Bois, "not so much to resolve the tension" that is often the focus of scholarly interest, but to explore their mutual contributions to modernism (p. 49). Child's reading of Du Bois's less popular novel The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911) is particularly insightful and contributes, as Child states, to "confound[ing] the discursive split" typically assigned to Washington and Du Bois while also "recast[ing] as politically radical an old and familiar relationship to the earth" (p. 87). Within Part 2, Child again finds connection across seemingly disparate political works, as he explores in chapter 3 what he terms "leisure agrarianism" within texts by the conservative Nashville Agrarians and activist Don West and, in chapter 4, addresses labor agrarianism within the STFU's letters, collected within The Disinherited Speak: Letters from Sharecroppers (1937), and Boyle's photographs (pp. 93, 122). Distinguishing between the two, he defines leisure agrarians as "emphasiz[ing] the earth in contact with the body," whereas labor agrarians (whose works were much less circulated and are not as well known as those of the leisure agrarians) place the "tenant body" front and center and "represent lived experience" (pp. 124, 123, 122). "Instead of turning inward and developing a self-conscious process of imaginative responses to the surroundings," writes Child, "they push outward, presenting pieces of their own lives—and their own bodies—as the text itself" (p. 154). Child's final chapter, focused on works by Poole, Fisher, Hurston, and Glasgow, frames their migration narratives within...

审核人：

• 整体机器：美国南方文化中的乡村现代，18​​90年至1946年，本杰明·S·希尔德（Benjamin S. Child）
• 玛格丽特·麦基希

文学学者本杰明·S·柴德（Benjamin S. Child）在其深具吸引力的书《整个机械：美国南部文化中的乡村现代》，1890年至1946年，提出了一个重要而精巧的对立观点，即“现代化的故事是从大都市起源中辐射出来的……那个熟悉的故事”。 （第3页）。通过广泛的熟悉和较不知名的检查[结束页356]文学史资料，包括保罗·劳伦斯·邓巴（Paul Laurence Dunbar），弗朗西丝（Frances EW Harper），韦伯·杜波依斯（WEB Du Bois），鲁道夫·费舍尔（Rudolph Fisher），佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿（Zora Neale Hurston）和埃伦·格拉斯哥（Ellen Glasgow）的小说作品；纳什维尔农业和高地中心联合创始人唐·韦斯特（Don West）的著作；南部租户农民联盟（STFU）组织者默特尔·劳伦斯（Myrtle Lawrence）的路易丝·博伊尔（Louise Boyle）拍摄的照片；查理·普尔（Charlie Poole）创作的音乐和音乐-齐德尔（Child）着手展示“现代化的代理人如何……从国家迁移到城市”和“通过展示国家和跨国交流的影响如何产生，来颠覆美国南方的逆行和对现代性不敏感的声誉。技术和工业化为与农村版本相关或与农村版本相关的环境和身体赋予生命”（第3页）。此外，他试图揭示“整个现代机器”（第3页）。正如他在尾声中所说的那样，外围或“乡村阴影”，或用雷蒙德·威廉姆斯的话说，“'世纪的广阔边缘'”对“文化核心”（第205、213、205页）。

整体机械分为三个部分，每个部分有两章（第3部分从技术上讲是一章，是尾声），《整体机械》提供了丰富的配对文本读物，内容丰富，共同展现了“现代农村”的存在。 （第17页）。在此过程中，Child提供了创新的理论框架和应用程序供读者考虑。例如，在第一章中，与牧民形成鲜明对比的是，Child提出了“明显的黑乔治时代”的概念，并指出了邓巴在1890年代的种植园诗和哈珀的《伊奥拉·莱罗伊》中的“垦殖后的种植业诗学”。（1892）（第25页）。在第二章中，Child重新审视了华盛顿和杜波依斯，“不是为了解决紧张局势”，这通常是学术界关注的焦点，而是探讨它们对现代主义的共同贡献（第49页）。儿童读杜波依斯（Du Bois）不太受欢迎的小说《银绒的探索》（The Quest of the Silver Fleece）（1911）特别有见地，并且如儿童所说，有助于“混淆通常分配给华盛顿和杜波依斯的话语分裂”，同时也“将政治上的古老而熟悉的关系重铸为政治上的激进分子”（第87页）。在第2部分中，Child再次发现了看似迥异的政治作品之间的联系，因为他在第3章中探索了保守的纳什维尔农业主义者和活动家Don West所著文本中的“休闲农业主义”，在第4章中，探讨了STFU内的劳动农业主义。信件，摘录于《无继承权的演讲：Sharecroppers的来信》（1937年）和博伊尔的照片（第93、122页）。他将两者区别开来，将休闲农业者定义为“强调地球” 与身体接触”，而劳动耕种者（其作品流传得多，并且不如休闲耕种者那样广为人知）将“租户身体”摆在前面和中间，“代表生活经验”（第124页， 123，122）。儿童写道：“与其向内发展，而是发展出一种对周围环境进行富有想象力的反应的自觉过程，他们向外推动，将自己的生活以及自己的身体作为文本本身呈现出来” （第154页）儿童的最后一章侧重于普尔，费舍尔，赫斯顿和格拉斯哥的作品，将他们的迁徙叙事构想成……