A space on the side of the road : cultural poetics in an ¿7Fother" America

__A Space on the Side of the Road__ vividly evokes an "other" America that survives precariously among the ruins of the West Virginia coal camps and "hollers." To Kathleen Stewart, this particular "other" exists as an excluded subtext to the American narrative of capitalism, modernization, materialism, and democracy. In towns like Amigo, Red Jacket, Helen, Odd, Viper, Decoy, and Twilight, men and women "just settin'" track a dense social imaginary through stories of traumas, apparitions, encounters, and eccentricities. Stewart explores how this rhythmic, dramatic, and complicated storytelling imbues everyday life in the hills and forms a cultural poetics. Alternating her own ruminations on language, culture, and politics with continuous accounts of "just talk," Stewart propels us into the intensity of this nervous, surreal "space on the side of the road." It is a space that gives us a glimpse into a breach in American society itself, where graveyards of junked cars and piles of other trashed objects endure along with the memories that haunt those who have been left behind by "progress." Like James Agee's portrayal of the poverty-stricken tenant farmers of the Depression South in __Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,__ this book uses both language and photographs to help readers encounter a fragmented and betrayed community, one "occupied" by schoolteachers, doctors, social workers, and other professionals representing an "official" America. Holding at bay any attempts at definitive, social scientific analysis, Stewart has concocted a new sort of ethnographic writing that conveys the immediacy, density, texture, and materiality of the coal camps. __A Space on the Side of the Road__ finally bridges the gap between anthropology and cultural studies and provides us with a brilliant and challenging experiment in thinking and writing about "America." A Space On The Side Of The Road Vividly Evokes An 'other' America That Survives Precariously Among The Ruins Of The West Virginia Coal Camps And 'hollers'....[it] Uses Both Language And Photographs To Help Readers Encounter A Fragmented And Betrayed Community, One 'occupied' By Schoolteachers, Doctors, Social Workers, And Other Professionals Representing An 'official' America. -- Back Cover. List Of Photographs -- Acknowledgments -- The Space Of Culture -- A Space Of Critique -- Subjects And Objects In The Space Of An Immanent Critique -- The Space Of Story -- The Space On The Side Of The Road -- An Ethnographic Space -- Mimetic Excess In An Occupied Place -- An Other America -- An Occupied Place -- The Hills As A Social Imaginary -- Being Caught -- The Spectacle Of Impacts -- A Lost Homeland -- Unforgetting: The Anecdotal And The Accidental -- Unforgetting -- A Near Miss -- The Diacritics Of Interruptions -- An Other Interruption, Or An Interruption From The Other Side -- Chronotopes -- Roaming The Ruins -- The Shock Of History -- Riley's Last Ride -- Mr. Henry's Sticks -- Encounters -- The Bourgeois Imaginary -- Spaces Of Encounter -- Encountering Alterity -- The Sign Of The Body -- Hollie Smith's Encounter -- Afterthought -- The Space Of The Sign -- The Social Semiotics Of Signs -- Signs Of Sociality -- The Space Of The Gap -- The Space Of Performance -- A Visit(ation) -- The Accident -- A Visit(ation) -- A Postcard -- The Place Of Ideals -- The Space Of Mediation -- Claims And Counterclaims -- Ideals In The Space Of Desire -- In The Realm Of Negations -- Placing People -- A Space On The Side Of The Road -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. Kathleen Stewart. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [217]-238) And Index. "A Space on the Side of the Road vividly evokes an 'other' America that survives precariously among the ruins of the West Virginia coal camps and 'hollers' ... [It] uses both language and photographs to help readers encounter a fragmented and betrayed community, one 'occupied' by schoolteachers, doctors, social workers, and other professionals representing an 'official' America."--Back cover This text portrays an "other" America that survives among the ruins of the West Virginia coal camps and "hollers". It paints a picture of a fragmented and betrayed community, excluded from the narrative of capitalism, and occupied by professionals, representing official America.