Back Talk from Appalachia (eBook)

Confronting Stereotypes

Dwight B. Billings, Katherine Ledford, Gurney Norman (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
368 Seiten
The University Press of Kentucky (Verlag)
978-0-8131-4334-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Appalachia has long been stereotyped as a region of feuds, moonshine stills, mine wars, environmental destruction, joblessness, and hopelessness. Robert Schenkkan's 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play The Kentucky Cycle once again adopted these stereotypes, recasting the American myth as a story of repeated failure and poverty--the failure of the American spirit and the poverty of the American soul. Dismayed by national critics' lack of attention to the negative depictions of mountain people in the play, a group of Appalachian scholars rallied against the stereotypical representations of the region's people. In Back Talk from Appalachia, these writers talk back to the American mainstream, confronting head-on those who view their home region one-dimensionally. The essays, written by historians, literary scholars, sociologists, creative writers, and activists, provide a variety of responses. Some examine the sources of Appalachian mythology in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. Others reveal personal experiences and examples of grassroots activism that confound and contradict accepted images of "e;"e;hillbillies."e;"e; The volume ends with a series of critiques aimed directly at The Kentucky Cycle and similar contemporary works that highlight the sociological, political, and cultural assumptions about Appalachia fueling today's false stereotypes.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.7.2013
• Verlagsort: Lexington
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Bildbände
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: Affrilachia • American History • appalachia in popular culture • Appalachian culture • appalachian history • Appalachian language • appalachian literature • Appalachian stereotypes • Coal Mining • labor activism • Labor Movement • mountain South • rural activism • rural sociology • sociology of rural areas
• ISBN-10: 0-8131-4334-9 / 0813143349
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-4334-7 / 9780813143347