Oxford American # 130, Fall 2025

THE ARTS & CULTURE ISSUE


Photographic Memory: The Debate Over Southern Photography’s Purpose
Reading the mysterious moments of Southern images
By James McWilliams

Abbey Lincoln and the Neglected Toil of Jazz Showmanship
How supper clubs turned legends into exploited laborers
By Harmony Holiday

Gobsmacked! Supernatural Sightings After a Flood
The mysterious wave of goblin-like creature appearances in Eastern Kentucky
By Lora Eli Smith

Intercession for Kirk Franklin
A poem by Karisma Price

Foreshadowing the Future: Julia Perry’s Forgotten Cosmic Vision
The pioneering Black female composer whose visionary work vanished despite predicting the future of American composition
By Samantha Ege and Garrett Schumann

The Voice Thief: A Story by Chris Stavitsky
A boy steals an old storyteller’s voice and can’t give it back
A story by Chris Stavitsky

The South Will Rise at Noon
On comedy, irony, and the Southern novel
By William Giraldi

Married Love
Five micro-memoirs offering brief, tender observations on marriage
By Beth Ann Fennelly

Soldiers
A young suburbanite discovers the letters of her uncle, who died in Vietnam.
By Mary Miller

A View from Beyond the Deadline
The Southern penal press in the era of mass incarceration
By Lauren Stroh



ART & PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Hannah Altman, Paul Windle Wang, Noah Davis, William Christenberry, Walker Evans, Eudora Welty, Susan Worsham, Rylan Steele, RaMell Ross, Baldwin Lee, Clarence John Laughlin, Edward Weston, William Eggleston, Mickalene Thomas, Philippe Gras, Carter/Reddy, goce risteski, Spc. Danielle Sturgill, Xaviera Simmons, David Lees, Wen-Hang Lin, Anthony Cudahy, Aimee McCrory, Binh Danh, Donald Jones, Keith Calhoun, Giles Clarke, Jeffrey Dale Hilburn

COVER: Toward, 2021, a photograph by Hannah Altman from her book We Will Return to You, published in March by Saint Lucy Books © The artist. Courtesy Abakus Projects, Boston