A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

The Story Beneath the Sprawl

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Mastodons to Mississipians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past, Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres offer a brief, fascinating survey of the Nashville region’s rich archaeological record and a primer on the human communities that thrived there thousands of years before Timothy Demonbreun arrived. The book is also a plea for preservation of sites under threat from the city’s raging development boom, as well as a sobering acknowledgment of what has already been lost. Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

 
The Story Beneath the Sprawl

So Many Stories to Be Told

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: With her latest novel, I Must Betray You, award-winning YA author Ruta Sepetys returns to the difficult task of telling an unfamiliar story from history: the struggles of people living under the brutal Ceaușescu regime in Romania in the late 1980s. Sepetys will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

So Many Stories to Be Told

Welcome to Your New Eden

Bruce Holsinger’s new novel, The Displacements, imagines America’s first Category Six hurricane hitting South Florida and East Texas, uprooting millions of people. He answered questions from Chapter 16 about the way natural disasters exacerbate cultural divides but reveal everyday heroism. Holsinger will appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 14-16.

Welcome to Your New Eden

You Are What You Cook

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Michael Pollan apprentices himself to four culinary experts: a barbeque pit-master, a brazier, a baker, and a fermenter. By mastering their techniques, he writes, we can wrest the kitchen away from Big Food and reclaim both our food chain and our selves.  

You Are What You Cook

Quintessential Observer

Brandon Taylor’s prizewinning story collection, Filthy Animals, has just been released in paperback. He spoke with Chapter 16 about his Southern roots, his Baptist upbringing, how his brief career as a scientist has influenced his writing, and why he has been increasingly drawn to analog technologies in our digitally obsessed world.

Quintessential Observer

Discovering the Soil All Over Again

When he died in January 2022, historian John Rice Irwin was described as the “guardian of Appalachia’s past.” In a 2008 interview, he talked with poet Jesse Graves about his family and his life’s work.

Discovering the Soil All Over Again

Visit the Q&A archives chronologically below or search for an article

TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING