Michael T. Bertrand
Professor of History
Welcome!
"The past is never dead. It is not even past." -- William Faulkner
As someone who engages the past on a daily basis, my teaching and scholarship reflect a long-standing commitment to understanding the interrelationships between race, class, gender, and generation as they have existed and evolved in the American South.
I especially am interested in comprehending the complex connections and dynamics between popular music, popular culture, memory, and social change from the late nineteenth through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.
James Baldwin, a late contemporary of Faulkner, once wrote:
"History does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do."
webpage contact:
M.Bertrand
"This book is an eye-opener for anyone who wants to understand race, class, and popular culture in the modern South. It is broadly and solidly based in sources, and convincingly and readably argued that rock 'n' roll can be a sound means for recognizing the transformation of the lives of black and white working-class youths in the South of the 1950s and 1960s.
It needs to be read by sociologists, anthropologists, and historians, not only by musicologists."
Carl N. Degler, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
More about Race, Rock, and Elvis ...
"This robust, clear, and pathbreaking study looks at the history of the South and the nation through the lens of popular music, and, more specifically: R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll. The argument and contribution are quite clear and spelled out well...Southern History Remixed is significant for a variety of reasons." -- Randall Stephens, historian and author of The Devil's Music: How Christians Inpsired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll
"Southern History Remixed is like nothing I have ever read before in an academic context...The framework is innovative, and could have faltered in lesser hands, but Bertrand's clear writing style and command of extensive research produces a fascinating narrative that never confuses the reader, even as he draws together several threads across time." -- Beth Fowler, historian and author of Rock and Roll, Desegregation Movements, and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era: An "Integrated Effort"