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NASCAR and the "Southernization" of America: Spectatorship, Subjectivity, and the Confederation of Identity
Joshua I. Newman
and
Michael D. Giardina*
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: giardina{at}express.cites.uiuc.edu.
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Abstract |
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Written against the backdrop of the exploding popularity of NASCAR auto racing, the authors argue that the American South’s post-Emancipation mediated history—and the signifiers through which it has been mediated—legislate a lingua franca of White privilege, White supremacy, and patriarchal hegemony. Under the auspices of a seemingly natural "heritage culture," the authors surmise that "the South" actively stands for something. The authors use this article to make the case that when it is brought to life by way of public spectacle, such as the spectacles of the neo-Confederate sporting local, this imaginary South resurrects the power structures that have long influenced the lived experiences of the region. They conclude by arguing that under the auspices of a Bush-inspired, post-9/11, anti-affirmative action backlash, a hyper-White, neo-Confederate NASCAR gives license to the resurgent regimes of the most vigilant factions of the ethnocentric American White Right.
First published on August 8, 2008, doi:10.1177/1532708608321578
Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies 2008;8:479.
A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2008
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