Photographs of people at horse race tracks in France and North America.

Black & White photographs of people around the world by Leo Touchet, American photographer (born 1939 during his 45 years of photographing in over fifty countries.

A collection of Photographs of children around the world by American photographer Leo Touchet (born 1939) taken over his 45 year career.

A collection of digital black & white photos of flowers photographed over several years after switching from film to digital.

Poet Elizabeth Burk and photographer Leo Touchet collaborate on this book of stunning photographs accompanied by poems inspired by them.

Catalog of photographs from an exhibit of the New Orleans Jazz Funerals from 1968 to 1970.

How ritualized public ceremonies affirm or challenge cultural identities associated with the American South W. J. Cash's 1941 observation that “there are many Souths and many cultural traditions among them” is certainly validated by this book. Although the Civil War and its “lost cause” tradition continues to serve as a cultural root paradigm in celebrations, both uniting and dividing loyalties, southerners also embrace a panoply of public rituals—parades, cook-offs, kinship homecomings, church assemblies, music spectacles, and material culture exhibitions—that affirm other identities. From the Appalachian uplands to the Mississippi Delta, from Kentucky bluegrass to Carolina piedmont, southerners celebrate in festivals that showcase their diverse cultural backgrounds and their mythic beliefs about themselves. The ten essays of this cohesive, interdisciplinary collection present event-centered research from various fields of study—anthropology, geography, history, and literature—to establish a rich, complex picture of the stereotypically “Solid South.” Topics include the Mardi Gras Indian song cycle as a means of expressing African-American identity in New Orleans; powwow performances and Native American traditions in southeast North Carolina; religious healings in southern Appalachian communities; Mexican Independence Day festivals in central Florida; and, in eastern Tennessee, bonding ceremonies of melungeons who share Indian, Scots Irish, Mediterranean, and African ancestry. Seen together, these public heritage displays reveal a rich “creole” of cultures that have always been a part of southern life and that continue to affirm a flourishing regionalism. This book will be valuable to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, American studies, and southern history; academic and public libraries; and general readers interested in the American South. It contributes a vibrant, colorful layer of understanding to the continuously emerging picture of complexity in this region historically depicted by simple stereotypes.

A personal and historical account of the particular place of death and funerals in African American life.