Harry Crews, Donald Justice, Padgett Powell, Joy Williams.

Austin, Wade. Harry Crews: The Atmosphere of Failure. Doctorial dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University, 1983.

From abstract: "When he talks and when he writes, Harry Crews has a strong 'sense of place' for the South. Out of that 'sense of place,' he develops his major theme the failure of the New South to offer its people a sense of value in its religion, rituals and ceremonies, and in its community life."

Casey, Roger Neal. The Driving Machine: Automobility and American Literature. Doctorial dissertation, Florida State University, Tallahassee, 1991.

From abstract: "The Driving Machine explores how this magical object [the automobile] has been appropriated into the myth of American literature by foregrounding and scrutinizing the presence of the automobile in the works of selected writers: principally, Lewis, Fitzgerald, Sinclair, Steinbeck, Caldwell, Faulkner, Kerouac, O'Connor, Updike, Bontemps, Ellison, Wright, Doctorow, Crews, and Joy Williams." Major professor: Fred L. Standley.

"Works such as Harry Crews' Car and Joy Williams's Escapes present the paradoxical role automobility assumes in our present lives."

Creel, Thomas Gill. Harry Crews on America: Drinking, Violence, and the American Dream in His Journalistic Essays. Unpublished master's thesis, Tulane University, New Orleans, 1991.

Guinn, Matthew W. Agrarian Prophecy and the Displaced Southerner: The Grit Emigre in Harry Crews' Fiction. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Mississippi, 1995.

Holston, Loretta J. Race, Class and Sex in the "White Trash" Novels of Dorothy Allison and Harry Crews. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Southern Mississippi, 1996.

Judas, Frank P. Survival is Triumph Enough: Harry Crews and the Portrait of the Poor White Southerner. Unpublished master's thesis, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, April 2000.

An introductory guide for students and scholars unfamiliar with Crews's work.

Kich, Martin. Everyone Goes around Acting Crazy: A Study of Recent American Hard-Core Naturalists (West, Caldwell, Purdy, Kosinski, Sheen). Doctoral dissertation, Lehigh University, 1989.

From abstract: "Hard-Core Naturalism is a movement including such writers as Nathaniel West, Erskine Caldwell, John O'Hara, James Purdy, Hubert Selby, Jr., Harry Crews, Jerzy Kosinski, and Barbara Sheen . . ." Chairperson: James R. Frakes.

"These writers have been ignored unfairly because what is relentless in their visions has been read as remorseless, and because any limitations that they have as craftsmen have been read as the result of their trying to depict too little of what characterizes us, rather than as a result of their trying to depict what so consistently prevents us from being more than ourselves."

Lamb, Carol E. A Comical Treatment of the Grotesque by Three Southern Writers: Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor and Harry Crews. Unpublished master's thesis, Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts, 1983.

Held at the Master's Thesis Collection, Clement C. Maxwell Library.

Lynskey, Edward C. Harry Crews' South. Unpublished master's thesis, George Mason University, 1984.

Patty, Steve Lawrence. Binary Tensions in the Nine Novels of Harry Crews: A Thesis. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Alabama, Huntsville, 1987.

Sauve, Damon. Harry Crews: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography. Unpublished master's thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1996 December.

Abstract: "This bibliography, a comprehensive and annotated listing of works written by and about the author Harry Crews, is intended to aid scholars and the general enthusiast in the pursuit of Crews's work. A partial biography of Crews provides a brief introduction to the author. Two previous bibliographies, Daniel H. Gann's "Harry Crews: A Bibliography" and Michael Hargraves' Harry Crews: A Bibliography, are examined to establish their respective strengths and weaknesses and to assess the viability of a third bibliography. A discussion of the search methodology indicates which print sources and electronic databases were accessed in the bibliography's compilation. The bibliography is composed of twelve sections: Novels, Non-Fiction, Periodical Contributions, Anthologized Works, Multi-Media, "Blood Issue," Book Blurbs, Interviews, Critical Literature, Theses and Dissertations, Reference, and Miscellany. A discussion preceding the bibliography explains each section's contents, relation to the earlier bibliographies, selection criteria, and provides any background information not explicated in the annotations."

Advisor: Elfreda A. Chatman. 81 pages

[This Harry Crews Bibliography is the electronic counterpart, perpetually updated, to the master's thesis.]

Watkins, James Hull. Locating the Self: Southern Identity, White Masculinity, and the Autobiographical "I" (White Men). Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1995.

From abstract: "Southern white men have long embraced a regional identity that is marked by 'difference' from other forms of American masculinity. A specific set of cultural assumptions has played a part in constructing this difference . . ."

"In the 1970s, 'redneck' autobiographers Harry Crews and Will Campbell deployed their class identification to authorize their accounts and to expand the definitions of the South and the southerner." Chairperson: Anne Goodwyn Jones.

Weaver, Angela Kaye. Sexual Salvation: Men, Women, and Identity in Three Novels by Harry Crews. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Georgia, 1995.

Director: James Kilgo.

Ysaguirre, Angel Michell. Movement toward Continuity: The Body's Ordeal in the Novels of Harry Crews. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Mississippi, 1996.