I was saddened to learn that occasional TAC contributor Mark Royden Winchell died last Thursday. Winchell is perhaps best known for his studies of Southern literary figures such as Donald Davidson and Cleanth Brooks, though he was also the author of a highly regarded volume about William F. Buckley Jr. ISI had just brought out his latest book, God, Man, and Hollywood, last month. (A posthumous work, The Cause of Us All: Cultural Politics and the South, is forthcoming.) He had been a professor of English literature at Clemson University since 1985. He was an impressive scholar and by all accounts a true representative of the Southern gentlemanly ideal.

(There’s a very good interview with Winchell, promoting God, Man, and Hollywood, here.)