Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Monograph from the Society of Lesbian and Gay AnthropologistsWinner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Sexualities Section
Winner of the 2010 Congress Inaugural Qualitative Inquiry Book Award Honorable Mention
From Wal-Mart drag parties to renegade Homemaker's Clubs, Out in the Country offers an unprecedented contemporary account of the lives of today's rural queer youth. Mary L. Gray maps out the experiences of young people living in small towns across rural Kentucky and along its desolate Appalachian borders, providing a fascinating and often surprising look at the contours of gay life beyond the big city. Gray illustrates that, against a backdrop of an increasingly impoverished and privatized rural America, LGBT youth and their allies visibly—and often vibrantly—work the boundaries of the public spaces available to them, whether in their high schools, public libraries, town hall meetings, churches, or through websites. This important book shows that, in addition to the spaces of Main Street, rural LGBT youth explore and carve out online spaces to fashion their emerging queer identities. Their triumphs and travails defy clear distinctions often drawn between online and offline experiences of identity, fundamentally redefining our understanding of the term 'queer visibility' and its political stakes. Gray combines ethnographic insight with incisive cultural critique, engaging with some of the biggest issues facing both queer studies and media scholarship. Out in the Country is a timely and groundbreaking study of sexuality and gender, new media, youth culture, and the meaning of identity and social movements in a digital age.
Review
“In this deft, smart ethnography, Gray not only brings to life the intricacies of rural queer existence, but also dislodges conventional assumptions about gay media visibility, queer identities, and the closet. As friendly, articulate, and challenging as its subjects,
Out in the Country is a major contribution to both sexuality and media scholarship.”
- Joshua Gamson, author of The Fabulous Sylvester: The Music, the Legend, the Seventies in San Francisco
Review
“Grays ethnography allows us an in-depth look at GLBT young people in the southeastern United States. Grays book should be read by anyone who works with rural GLBT youth, and those interested in learning about an under-represented, but not invisible, population.”
- PopMatters.com
Review
“Out in the Country promises to excite and ignite our critical imaginations as it pushes us to reckon with the complexity of queer lives away from the urban spotlight. Gray has done a stupendous job in bringing these stories to light, and in analyzing them with such warmth, humor, and insight.”
-Suzanna Danuta Walters,author of All the Rage
Review
“In this deft, smart ethnography, Gray not only brings to life the intricacies of rural queer existence, but also dislodges conventional assumptions about gay media visibility, queer identities, and the closet. As friendly, articulate, and challenging as its subjects, Out in the Country is a major contribution to both sexuality and media scholarship.”
- Joshua Gamson, author of The Fabulous Sylvester: The Music, the Legend, the Seventies in San Francisco
“Young queer people living in rural areas face numerous challenges, to be sure. But they creatively use new media and other strategies to find one another, as Gray shows so well."Out in the Country challenges preconceptions"about both gender and sexual nonconformity in rural America.”
- Arlene Stein, author of The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights
“We still know far too little about the experiences of queer youth, especially those who live in small towns and farming communities. Grays pioneering work will do much to cure our ignorance, as she takes us along on an engaging exploration of queer teenagers caught in the crosswinds of commercial media culture and local societal and political beliefs.”
- Larry Gross, author of Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America
“Out in the Country promises to excite and ignite our critical imaginations as it pushes us to reckon with the complexity of queer lives away from the urban spotlight. Gray has done a stupendous job in bringing these stories to light, and in analyzing them with such warmth, humor, and insight.”
- Suzanna Danuta Walters, author of All the Rage
“Grays ethnography allows us an in-depth look at GLBT young people in the southeastern United States. Grays book should be read by anyone who works with rural GLBT youth, and those interested in learning about an under-represented, but not invisible, population.”
- PopMatters.com
Review
“Out in the Country gives hope that times are changing, highlighting the lives of today's rural queer youth through a series of case studies focusing on the efforts of advocates to increase gay visibility. Informative and insightful--you'll be surprised by what you find!”
"Mary Gray's ambitious new ethnography, Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America, explores how youth in the rural United States "lay claim to LGBT identities" and "confront the politics of gay visibility, expectations, and constraints" (p. 3) in these communities, most notably in her fields sites in rural Kentucky. "It's inspiring to hear that rural kids aren't just running away: they are courageously creating their own organizations and utilizing social media to promote queer-awareness - and for this revelation alone, it is an important book... Gray's work reveals to us that keeping country roots intact as a queer person is not impossible, and is in fact necessary for the greater equality movement. Out in the Country teaches us - via a mixture of ethnographic understanding and cultural critique - that queer visibility in rural spaces isn't unfeasible as much as it is under-represented." "Gray's work, particularly with its focus on queer youth, is a welcome addition to this scholarship [of LGBT life in rural areas], and with good reason it was awarded the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize by the American Anthropological Association for outstanding monograph."
“Out in the Country promises to excite and ignite our critical imaginations as it pushes us to reckon with the complexity of queer lives away from the urban spotlight. Gray has done a stupendous job in bringing these stories to light, and in analyzing them with such warmth, humor, and insight.”
Review
"Christian Joppke's study of the East German dissidents deserves to be a classic in political sociology. The author's mastery of the relevant theoretical literature is dazzling. Add to this his meticulous research and complete command of a complex empirical case, and you have all the ingredients for a truly exceptional book. Joppke's work is as relevant to the student of modern Germany as it is to those interested in the comparative politics of social movements, the European left and nationalism. Rarely have I seen a case study of such far-reaching theoretical as well as political implication as Joppke's." -Andrei S. Markovits,Professor and Chair Board of Studies in Politics University of California, Santa Cruz
Review
"An excellent book. Joppke not only succeeds in presenting a very nuanced, and clearly written, account of the social and intellectual forces that led to the GDR's fall. He also provides an admirable synthesis of much of what we know about the East European expression of Leninism, from the big experiments of the 1950s to the big bang of 1989." -A. James McAdams,University of Notre Dame
Review
"It's inspiring to hear that rural kids aren't just running away: they are courageously creating their own organizations and utilizing social media to promote queer-awareness - and for this revelation alone, it is an important book... Gray's work reveals to us that keeping country roots intact as a queer person is not impossible, and is in fact necessary for the greater equality movement. Out in the Country teaches us - via a mixture of ethnographic understanding and cultural critique - that queer visibility in rural spaces isn't unfeasible as much as it is under-represented."-Krista Houstoun, Blogout.com,
Review
"Gray's work, particularly with its focus on queer youth, is a welcome addition to this scholarship [of LGBT life in rural areas], and with good reason it was awarded the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize by the American Anthropological Association for outstanding monograph."-Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review,
Synopsis
An unprecedented contemporary account of the lives of today's rural queer youth.
Synopsis
While the dissident movements of Eastern Europe were abandoning communism in pursuit of visions of liberal democracy, the East German movement continued to struggle for reform within the communist movement. In
East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989, Christian Joppke explains this anomaly in compelling narrative detail. He argues that the peculiarities of German history and culture prevented the possibility of a national opposition to communism. Lured by the regime's proclaimed antifascism, East German dissidents had to remain in a paradoxical way loyal to the opposed regime.
The definitive study of East German opposition, Joppke's work also presents an overview of opposition in communist systems in general, providing both a model of social movements within Leninist regimes and a balance to current revisionist histories of the GDR. East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989 will be of interest to scholars and students of social movements, revolution, German politics and society, the East European transformation, and communist systems.
About the Author
Christian Joppke is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California and the author of Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States.