Imagine you are a man living in the Ozarks. (This might not be hard for a lot of you.) Now imagine that you are in the TV room/garage/smoking parlor during Thankgiving, watching football with the guys, probably drinking beer, telling crude jokes. And so on. This would be pretty typical, right? Inevitably the subject of politics is going to come up, right after a few stories about fishing and/or golf, which is where this thing might possibly get a little weird. Do you really tell your uncles and cousins where you stand on the key issues? Or do you think better of it and just sandbag? The safest course of action, you quickly realize, is to steer the conversation back to football, tools, or killing things. Just to be safe. Don't be fancy. You certainly don't want to engage them in a conversation about the merits of Jim Harrison's new novel. You definitely don't want to admit that the economy might cause you to switch from oils to watercolors...
So how bad are those Chiefs? Does Alabama really have enough offense to stick with Florida this year?
Anyway, Trent Watts, an American studies professor in S&T's English department, has published a new book of essays called White Masculinity in the Recent South. The book contains essays about everything from southern Protestant churches to the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Stereotypes explored include the good old boy, the redneck and the southern gentleman. Basically, the book tries to address questions like: What is it like to be a white man in the New South? What does this mean? What are the expectations? And so on.
Anyway. We know that the Ozarks isn't technically a part of the South, but whatever. We just really like books and interesting ideas.
So how bad are those Rams? Will Mizzou ever beat Oklahoma again?
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