The Stories We Keep Telling about the Civil War with Cody Marrs


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I am really happy to have Dr. Cody Marrs on The Rogue Historian. Cody is an Associate Professor of English (that’s right…English! Expanding into other disciplines, yo!) at the University of Georgia, where he teaches and writes about the Civil War and American literature. He is the author of Not Even Past: The Stories We Keep Telling About the Civil War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). He has also published widely on nineteenth-century American literature and culture, and he is currently writing a book about Southern Unionism. He lives with his wife, Kristin, and their two kids, Harper and Caleb, in Athens, Georgia. If you know me you know how much I’m invested in memory studies…so it was great to have someone on to weigh in from the perspective of a scholar of literature. We have a few divergent ideas…but lots to agree on - and the conversation was great. We discuss:

  • How memory studies translates to English departments (my world can be insular…so I was genuinely curious)

  • The profound impact of the work of David Blight’s Race and Reunion

  • Challenges to the “reconciliation premise” in Blight’s work

  • Lost Cause “history”

  • The postwar war with words

  • The “family squabble” narrative and why this is troubling

  • The cruel war narrative in postwar literature

  • Monuments: repurposing them, the changing commemorative landscape, and what to do with them now

  • The fall of Confederate commemorative and the broader implications for other memorialized national figures  

Have a listen…

As you can see, there was a lot to cover, and we could have gone on and on. So, you should pick up a copy of the book and then we can keep the conversation going. Now, Cody is smarter than all of us - he stays away from social media. But, he has promised to launch a website in the near future - stay tuned! AND…don’t forget to subscribe to The Rogue Historian Podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app so you never ever ever ever miss a show. That would be dumb.

With compliments,

Keith