The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture

All Too Familiar

Karen E. Hayden (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

134 Seiten

2020
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-4760-4 (ISBN)

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The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture: All Too Familiar studies how the mythology of the primitive rural other became linked to evolutionary theories, both biological and social, that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. This mythology fit well on the imaginary continuums of primitive to civilized, rural to urbanormative, backward to forward-thinking, and regress versus progress. In each chapter of The Rural Primitive, Karen E. Hayden uses popular cultural depictions of the rural primitive to illustrate the ways in which this trope was used to set poor, rural whites apart from others. Not only were they set apart, however; they were also set further down on the imaginary continuum of progress and regress, of evolution and devolution. Hayden argues that small, rural, tight-knit communities, where “everyone knows everyone” and “everyone is related” came to be an allegory for what will happen if society resists modernization and urbanization. The message of the rural, close-knit community is clear: degeneracy, primitivism, savagery, and an overall devolution will result if groups are allowed to become too insular, too close, too familiar.

Karen E. Hayden is professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Merrimack College.

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture

Chapter 2: Inbreeding, Cousin Marriage, and the Rural Primitive in Nineteenth Century America

Chapter 3: Inbred Horror and the Rural Primitive in Twentieth Century American Popular Culture

Chapter 4: Inbred Horror Revisited: The Rural Primitive in Twenty-First Century Horror Films

Chapter 5: Murder Comes to Town: The Rural Primitive on True Crime Television

Chapter 6: Not So Familiar: Thinking Beyond Rural Stereotypes

Erscheinungsdatum	10.05.2021
Reihe/Serie	Studies in Urban–Rural Dynamics
Verlagsort	Lanham, MD
Sprache	englisch
Maße	161 x 230 mm
Gewicht	395 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-4985-4760-5 / 1498547605
ISBN-13	978-1-4985-4760-4 / 9781498547604
Zustand	Neuware