Vol. 23, No. 1: Appalachia

Vol. 23, No. 1: Appalachia

Country Queers in Central Appalachia. Icon and Identity at Dollywood. The Soundscape of Harlan County, U.S.A. A Hindu temple in West Virginia, and more. Our Appalachia issue is guested edited by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt.

Front Porch: Appalachia

by Harry Watson

“Appalachia is still itself, even as it changes, even as so many of us have gotten it wrong.”

Trying to Get Appalachia Less Wrong: A Modest Approach

by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt

“Regularly, Appalachia is imagined to need a funeral, to be already gone, to cry out for remembrance.”

Documentary Noise: The Soundscape of Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, U.S.A.

by Grace Hale

“In Harlan County, U.S.A., sound anchors, explains, and makes ‘authentic’ visual imagery compromised by the long history of documentary work in Appalachia.”

Almost Heaven

by Aaron Blum

"The culture at New Vrindaban, though at odds with the traditional context of Appalachia, does not exist in a vacuum; familiar cultural markers are juxtaposed with the anomalous—traditional Krishna robes paired with steel-toed boots and blue-collar workwear.”

Icon and Identity: Dolly Parton’s Hillbilly Appeal

by Graham Hoppe

“They portray mountain people like we are all these dumb barefoot hillbillies. I think country people are the smartest people in the world, and I’ve been everywhere.”

Banjo Boy: Masculinity, Disability, and Difference in Deliverance

by Anna Creadick

“I’d like to say it’s nobody’s fault, but it is. It’s James Dickey’s fault. Or John Boorman’s. Or both.”

“Well, We’re Fabulous and We’re Appalachians, So We’re Fabulachians”

by Rae Garringer

"You don’t have to look outside the region to find a place where you belong." —Ivy Brashier

In-Between the Color Lines with a Spy Camera

by Darin Waters, Gene Hyde, Kenneth Betsalel

“We don’t know nothin’ but what we see . . .” —Zora Neale Hurston

Pearl S. Buck, It’s Not You, It’s Me

by Jolie Lewis

“I’m not feeling it anymore. I tried. For years, I tried. You know I did.”

Semantic Relations

by Adrian Blevins

“My people are not killers—they are romantics— they like to sit around on porches and tell false stories…”

The Art of the Saltville Centennial Cookbook

by Ronni Lundy, Amy C. Evans

"I took the cookbook home with the same anticipation I would have for a new novel."

There’s More of It, But I’m Still Hungry

by Courtney Balestier, Elaine McMillion Sheldon

"It was as ex-pats that we started talking about creating a textual/visual conversation about our home’s history, our histories within it, and the future that could be."