Dr. Nicole Maurantonio, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies and American Studies, discusses her book, Confederate Exceptionalism: Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century, published recently by the University Press of Kansas. In a time of contentious debates and protests surrounding the removal of Confederate monuments, this book considers how so-called “neo-Confederates” can distance themselves from the actions of white supremacists while also clinging to the very symbols and narratives that tether the Confederacy to histories of racism and oppression in the United States.