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Memphis Magazine published a column by Alex Greene last week on the broad impact of the NEH funding cuts in the city. Chapter 16, especially through its media partnership with the Commercial Appeal, is part of that picture. University of Memphis historian Aram Goudsouzian, a regular Chapter 16 contributor, was also personally affected, losing a grant that would have supported completion of his new book, The Sports Page. As Greene writes, "These cuts, made in the name of efficiency, risk derailing the shared cultural history that binds us together." That's true in Memphis and throughout Tennessee.
We should note that the ax has also fallen on funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, with grant terminations affecting small presses we often work with, including Hub City, Milkweed Editions, Red Hen Press, and others. The NEA has been a source of support for a number of arts organizations in Tennessee that intersect with the work of Chapter 16, as well as for others across the country that have a Tennessee connection, such as Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, where Sheree Renée Thomas is associate editor.
It's all a reminder that there's a cultural ecosystem in Tennessee and across the U.S., with many individuals and organizations ideally thriving together. The proposed elimination of both the NEH and the NEA would turn the immediate pain of the recent cuts into a long-term calamity for that ecosystem. Now is the time for everyone who values the arts and humanities — and wants them to receive federal support — to speak up and let our representatives in Washington know.
This week at Chapter 16, Jane Marcellus reviews The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir by Martha S. Jones, an intimate look at the complexities of racial identity. Bianca Sass reviews Girls with Long Shadows, the debut novel by Tennessee Hill, which follows the troubled lives of three beautiful sisters. And we revisit Joe Pagetta's 2017 essay about the warmth of a grandmother's love, "Honey and a Ham Sandwich."
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