Women of Discriminating Taste
White Sororities and the Making of American Ladyhood
Available from the University of Georgia Press
You can also read my shorter essays on white college sororities in The Right Side of the Sixties, edited by Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams, and Rethinking Campus Life, edited by Christine A. Ogren and Marc A. VanOverbeke.
A painful memory prompts a personal journey
Over the last decade, I’ve collaborated with filmmaker Kathryn Smith Pyle as an advisor on her documentary about racism and white college sororities. Sorority Story brings the historical narrative from Women of Discriminating Taste into the present, through the living voices of the women at the center of it.
“It’s like the Lost Cause dressed in Lilly Pulitzer.”
A big thank you to Mike Ayalon, CEO of Greek University, for having me back on The Fraternity Foodie Podcast. I join Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd, author of Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South, to discuss sororities’ continuing preoccupation with the southern aesthetic—and the performance of southern ladyhood in particular.
“Trust the process.”
Sororities tell wide-eyed, potential members to “trust the process” of recruitment. But what IS that process and why is the secrecy so important? I speak to Lucy Taylor on Season 2 of SNAPPED: The Podcast to offer some historical perspective on sorority rush.
The South lives on in white sororities.
I join Think With Krys Boyd from KERA Dallas, Texas to discuss Women of Discriminating Taste.
“Is there a southern belle in every sorority girl?”
Nell Beram reviews my book for the Portland Press Herald - Maine Sunday Telegram, January 31, 2021.
What about the 125 years of history after the founders?
I recently had the pleasure of stopping by the Fraternity Foodie podcast where I spoke with Michael Ayalon, CEO of GreekUniversity, about my research on the history of white college sororities, as well as my own involvement in a college sorority.
Real sorority history
Do you have a sorority story to share? I welcome your comments and questions! Please use the form on the Contact page.
