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In this searching study, Nghana Lewis offers a close reading of the works and private correspondences, essays, and lectures of five southern white women writers: Julia Peterkin, Gwen Bristow, Caroline Gordon, Willa Cather, and Lillian Smith. At the core of this work is a sophisticated reexamination of the myth of southern white womanhood.

Lewis overturns the conventional argument that white women were passive and pedestal-bound. Instead, she argues that these figures were complicit in the day-to-day dynamics of power and authorship and stood to gain much from these arrangements at the expense of others.

At the same time that her examination of southern mythology explodes received wisdom, it is also a journey of self-discovery. As Lewis writes in her preface, “As a proud daughter of the South, I have always been acutely aware of the region’s rich cultural heritage, folks, and foodstuffs. How could I not be? I was born and reared in Lafayette, Louisiana, where an infant’s first words are not ‘da-da’ and ‘ma-ma’ but ‘crawfish boil’ and ‘fais-do-do.’ . . . I have also always been keenly familiar with its volatile history.” Where these conflicting images—and specifically the role of white southern women as catalysts, vindicators, abettors, and antagonists—meet forms the crux of this study. As such, this study of the South by a daughter of the South offers a distinctive perspective that illuminates the texts in novel and provocative ways.

Philadelphia’s Chinatown, like many urban chinatowns, began in the late nineteenth century as a refuge for immigrant laborers and merchants in which to form a community to raise families and conduct business. But this enclave for expression, identity, and community is also the embodiment of historical legacies and personal and collective memories.
 
In Ethnic Renewal in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Kathryn Wilson charts the unique history of this neighborhood. After 1945, a new generation of families began to shape Chinatown’s future. As plans for urban renewal—ranging from a cross-town expressway and commuter rail in the 1960s to a downtown baseball stadium in 2000—were proposed and developed, “Save Chinatown” activists rose up and fought for social justice.
 
Wilson chronicles the community’s efforts to save and renew itself through urban planning, territorial claims, and culturally specific rebuilding. She shows how these efforts led to Chinatown’s growth and its continued ability to serve as a living community for subsequent waves of new immigration.  

Exploring the Architecture of Place in America's Farmers Markets explores the elusive architectural states of these beloved community-gathering places. From classic market buildings such as Findlay Market in Cincinnati, to open-air pavilions in Durham North Carolina and pop-up canopy markets in Staunton, Virginia, the country currently has over 8,700 seasonal and year-round farmers markets.

Architect, teacher, and founder of the Friends of the Farmers Market, Katheryn Clarke Albright combines historically informed architectural observation with interview material and images drawn from conversations with farmers, vendors, market managers and shoppers.

Using eight scales of interaction and interface, Albright presents in-depth case studies to demonstrate how architectural elements and spatial conditions foster social and economic exchange between vendors, shoppers, and the community at large. Albright looks ahead to an emerging typology—the mobile market—bringing local farmers and healthy foods to underserved neighborhoods.

The impact farmers markets make on their local communities inspires place-making, improves the local economy, and preserves rural livelihoods.  Developed organically and distinctively out of the space they occupy, these markets create and revitalize communities as rich as the produce they sell.