Synopses & Reviews
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
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.