Heuristic cultural question

[muckefuck]

I'm not sure quite what I'm asking, so please bear with me. The recently flurry of entries about regional stereotypes (Digression: Now that's my kind of meme! Not the same dull list of questions propagating from blog to blog but a discussion that causes each person to ponder the same issues but post about different aspects of them) got me thinking about local culture and sparked the question:

Who do you think of as your culture-bearers?

Of course, this already begs many more questions, most significantly what constitutes "culture". The arts, particularly performance, come immediately to mind, but foodways or even modes of thought certainly qualify as well. Even a person who simply embodies a particular mindset that seems locally prevelant might fit the bill.

I admit, when it comes to my own background, I'm kind of stumped. Mark Twain was born only a few miles away from where I once lived, but I don't read his works to learn about my culture as much as to get a taste for one that preceded it. None of the modern writers I've read has given me the experience of thinking, "This is it; these are the people I belong to (or came from)"; the closest I've come is the petit-bourgeois northern German family described in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks.

But I feel I've already said to much to prejudice the question. Don't rely on my interpretation; take it however you will.

Comments

[humpingbears.livejournal.com]

That's pretty great. I am related to him in no way whatsoever, but I grew up in Chattanooga, TN, in a part of town literally littered with Civil War cannons and monuments, and he just seemed to be an appropriate part of my heritage to list. My dad's side of the family is all from East Tennessee, and though very few of them were actually supporters of the Confederacy, Lee's style of life is, I think, very emblematic of much of my family at that time. There is a lot of "Old South" in my heritage.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Have you read Harry Turtledove's alternate history series that begins with The Guns of the South? (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345384687/qid=1111083099/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9149081-9749518?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) My Nunca Bob E Lee is a really appealing character in it.

Sometimes I complain about how southerners still go on and on about The Wawuh, but it IS some compelling history. Lee is fascinating to me not just as a sideways ancestor but also because of the choices he made, fighting for the Confederacy because he felt himself to be more of a Virginian than a USonian in particular, despite his abolitionist tendencies.

[humpingbears.livejournal.com]

I have not read that, but it sounds intriguing.

And for the record, I know very few Southerners who go on and on about the war, even though I think it has done more to shape Southern culture than any other period in out history.