From books to barbecue, and current events to Colonial history, historian and author Walter Edgar delves into the arts, culture, and history of South Carolina and the American South. Produced by South Carolina Public Radio.
https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org
Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- Most Influential Southern Novel?
With today's news of the death of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Harper Lee, at age 89, we offer two encore episodes of Walter Edgar's Journal, each dealing with her book To Kill a Mockingbird. The first is a discussion between two internationally-renowned Southern-literature scholars: Dr. Trudier Harris of UNC and Dr. Noel Polk of Mississippi State University. They talk Dr. Edgar to prior to a televised debate in the SCETV series Take on the South​. The topic: "What was the most influential Southern novel of the 20th century?" Prof. Polk chose William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom. Prof. Harris chose Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. This episode of the Journal was intended as a companion to the May 2009 installment of the SCETV series Take on the South: "What was the most influential 20th-century Southern novel?" The second episode of Walter Edgar's Journal aired in October 2015, and was entitled How Does Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" inform "Mockingbird"? Dr. Robert Brinkmeyer,