Back Talk from Appalachia Confronting Stereotypes

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.

Introduction: Dwight B. Billings -- Beyond isolation and homogeneity: diversity and the history of Appalachia / Ronald L. Lewis -- A landscape and a people set apart: narratives of exploration and travel in early Appalachia / Katherine Ledford -- "Deadened color and colder horror": Rebecca Harding Davis and the myth of Unionist Appalachia / Kenneth W. Noe -- The racial "innocence" of Appalachia: William Faulkner and the mountain south / John C. Inscoe -- A judicious combination of incident and psychology: John Fox Jr. and the southern mountaineer motif / Darlene Wilson -- When "bloodshed is a pastime": mountain feuds and Appalachian stereotyping / Kathleen M. Blee and Dwight B. Billings -- Where did hillbillies come from? Tracing sources of the comic hillbilly fool in literature / Sandra L. Ballard -- The "r" word: what's so funny (and not so funny) about redneck jokes / Anne Shelby -- Appalachian images: a personal history / Denise Giardina -- Up in the country / Fred Hobson -- On being "country": one Affrilachian woman's return home / Crystal E. Wilkinson -- Appalachian stepchild / Stephen L. Fisher -- If there's one thing you can tell them, it's that you're free / Eula Hall -- The grass roots speak back / Stephen L. Fisher -- Miners talk back: labor activism in southeastern Kentucky in 1922 / Alan Banks -- Coalfield women making history / Sally Ward Maggard -- Paving the way: urban organizations and the image of Appalachians / Phillip J. Obermiller -- Stories of AIDS in Appalachia / Mary K. Anglin -- America needs hillbillies: the case of The Kentucky cycle / Finlay Donesky -- The view from the castle: reflections on The Kentucky cycle phenomenon / Rodger Cunningham -- Regional consciousness and political imagination: the Appalachian connection in an anxious nation / Herbert Reid -- Notes on The Kentucky cycle / Gurney Norman.