Back Talk from Appalachia : Confronting Stereotypes

by Norman, Gurney

• ISBN13: 9780813190013
• ISBN10: 0813190010
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-16
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

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 ""hillbillies."" 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.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Ronald D Eller
Acknowledgments	xii
I. (Re)Introducing Appalachia: Talking Back to Stereotypes
Introduction	3	(18)
Dwight B. Billings
Beyond Isolation and Homogeneity: Diversity and the History of Appalachia	21	(26)
Ronald L. Lewis
II. Speaking of ``Hillbillies'': Literary Sources of Contemporary Stereotypes
A Landscape and a People Set Apart: Narratives of Exploration and Travel in Early Appalachia	47	(20)
Katherine Ledford
``Deadened Color and Colder Horror'': Rebecca Harding Davis and the Myth of Unionist Appalachia	67	(18)
Kenneth W. Noe
The Racial ``Innocence'' of Appalachia: William Faulkner and the Mountain South	85	(13)
John C. Inscoe
A Judicious Combination of Incident and Psychology: John Fox Jr. and the Southern Mountaineer Motif	98	(21)
Darlene Wilson
Where ``Bloodshed Is a Pastime'': Mountain Feuds and Appalachian Stereotyping	119	(19)
Kathleen M. Blee
Dwight B. Billings
Where Did Hillbillies Come From? Tracing Sources of the Comic Hillbilly Fool in Literature	138	(15)
Sandra L. Ballard
III. Speaking More Personally: Responses to Appalachian Stereotypes
The ``R'' Word: What's So Funny (and Not So Funny) about Redneck Jokes	153	(8)
Anne Shelby
Appalachian Images: A Personal History	161	(13)
Denise Giardina
Up in the Country	174	(10)
Fred Hobson
On Being ``Country'': One Affrilachian Woman's Return Home	184	(3)
Crystal E. Wilkinson
Appalachian Stepchild	187	(4)
Stephen L. Fisher
If There's One Thing You Can Tell Them, It's that You're Free	191	(12)
Eula Hall
IV. Sometimes Actions Speak Louder than Words: Activism in Appalachia
The Grass Roots Speak Back	203	(12)
Stephen L. Fisher
Miners Talk Back: Labor Activism in Southeastern Kentucky in 1922	215	(13)
Alan Banks
Coalfield Women Making History	228	(23)
Sally Ward Maggard
Paving the Way: Urban Organizations and the Image of Appalachians	251	(16)
Phillip J. Obermiller
Stories of AIDS in Appalachia	267	(16)
Mary K. Anglin
V. Recycling Old Stereotypes: Critical Responses to The Kentucky Cycle
America Needs Hillbillies: The Case of The Kentucky Cycle	283	(17)
Finlay Donesky
The View from the Castle: Reflections on the Kentucky Cycle Phenomenon	300	(13)
Rodger Cunningham
Regional Consciousness and Political Imagination: The Appalachian Connection in an Anxious Nation	313	(14)
Herbert Reid
Notes on The Kentucky Cycle	327	(6)
Gurney Norman
Contributors	333	(3)
Index	336