A Dirty South Manifesto

American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present

by L.H. Stallings

From the shutdown of Planned Parenthood clinics and rising rates of HIV to opposition to marriage equality and bathroom bills, the New South is the epicenter of the new sex wars. Antagonism toward reproductive freedom, partner rights, and transgender rights has revealed a new and unacknowledged era of southern reconstruction centered on gender and sexuality.

In A Dirty South Manifesto, L. H. Stallings celebrates the roots of radical sexual resistance in the New South—a movement that is antiracist, decolonial, and transnational. For people within economically disenfranchised segments of society, those in sexually marginalized communities, and the racially oppressed, the South has been a sexual dystopia. Throughout this book, Stallings delivers hard-hitting manifestos for the new sex wars. With her focus on contemporary Black southern life, Stallings offers an invitation to anyone who has ever imagined a way of living beyond white supremacist heteropatriarchy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, LGBT, Queer, Sexuality, Academic, Theory

208 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2019

Reviews

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a combination of manifestoes and research that focuses on the intersectionality of oppressions within the South, and how these alternative ways of being are being used as sites of resistance to the heterosexual and "moral" majorities. And if like me you're reading this in the first few months of 2025, let it serve as reassurance that yes, while the next four years are going to fucking suck, the work is being done, and has been done, and will continue to be done, and here's a way of doing it. Hell of a needed read. Picked this up from the library, do the same if you can.

[Nikki Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I finished it in a day and a half, it was so good.

Stallings is brilliant. But this here?! This shit is brilliant + Sweet (thick, like honey) + Decadent (full, packed with the conversations we don't have enough) + Dirty (like the South and like that "slow tongue" she theorizes about).

I really loved this book. Now I need to teach a class on the Dirty South and use this as our text book.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The premise is really interesting but I didn’t think the examples lived up to the framework.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

i found a lot of value in this book but at the same time a lot of it was confusing to me.