About this item
Highlights
- Each year, tens of thousands of people flock to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, and to more than two hundred other locations across the country to attend Scottish Highland Games and Gatherings.
- About the Author: Celeste Ray is associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
- 280 Pages
- Social Science, Ethnic Studies
Description
About the Book
Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American SouthBook Synopsis
Each year, tens of thousands of people flock to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, and to more than two hundred other locations across the country to attend Scottish Highland Games and Gatherings. There, kilt-wearing participants compete in athletics, Highland dancing, and bagpiping, while others join clan societies in celebration of a Scottish heritage. As Celeste Ray notes, however, the Scottish affiliation that Americans claim today is a Highland Gaelic identity that did not come to characterize that nation until long after the ancestors of many Scottish Americans had left Scotland.Ray explores how Highland Scottish themes and lore merge with southern regional myths and identities to produce a unique style of commemoration and a complex sense of identity for Scottish Americans in the South. Blending the objectivity of the anthropologist with respect for the people she studies, she asks how and why we use memories of our ancestral pasts to provide a sense of identity and community in the present. In so doing, she offers an original and insightful examination of what it means to be Scottish in America.
Review Quotes
Each year, tens of thousands of people flock to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, and to more than two hundred other locations across the country to attend Scottish Highland Games and Gatherings. There, kilt-wearing participants compete in athletics, Highland dancing, and bagpiping, while others join clan societies in celebration of a Scottish heritage. As Celeste Ray notes, however, the Scottish affiliation that Americans claim today is a Highland Gaelic identity that did not come to characterize that nation until long after the ancestors of many Scottish Americans had left Scotland.
Ray explores how Highland Scottish themes and lore merge with southern regional myths and identities to produce a unique style of commemoration and a complex sense of identity for Scottish Americans in the South. Blending the objectivity of the anthropologist with respect for the people she studies, she asks how and why we use memories of our ancestral pasts to provide a sense of identity and community in the present. In so doing, she offers an original and insightful examination of what it means to be Scottish in America.
[A] combination of resource compendium, exhaustively detailed anthropological study and astute cultural criticism. Extensive research, clear prose and respect for her subjects will win this authoritative work favor among Scottish American enthusiasts and academics alike. ("Publishers Weekly")
[Ray] recreates in detail the annual Highland games and gathering at Grandfather Mountain, N.C., for those of us who don't know our sporrans from our claymores. (A Nota Bene selection of "The Chronicle of Higher Education")
ÝA¨ combination of resource compendium, exhaustively detailed anthropological study and astute cultural criticism. Extensive research, clear prose and respect for her subjects will win this authoritative work favor among Scottish American enthusiasts and academics alike. ("Publishers Weekly")
ÝRay¨ recreates in detail the annual Highland games and gathering at Grandfather Mountain, N.C., for those of us who don't know our sporrans from our claymores. (A Nota Bene selection of "The Chronicle of Higher Education")
Anthropologists, ethnographers, and students of Southern studies will find Ray's work valuable. ("Choice") The strong pull of the homeland has manifested itself in a surprising number of American southerners. Ray's scholarly and readable examination of that pull offers insight into this fascinating minority group. ("Bloomsbury Review")
As a textbook, this would be a thought-provoking and enjoyable addition to local history, oral history, and ethnic history syllabi, as well as those in anthropology and sociology. ("H-Net Book Review")
About the Author
Celeste Ray is associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.