Inhabiting Contemporary Southern and Appalachian Literature : Region and Place in the Twenty-First Century

"The idea of place--any place--remains one of our most basic yet slippery concepts. It is a space with boundaries whose limits may be definite or indefinite; it can be a real location or an abstract mental, spiritual, or imaginary construction. Casey Clabough's thorough examination of the importance of place in southern literature examines the works of a wide range of authors, including Fred Chappell, George Garrett, William Hoffman, Julien Green, Kelly Cherry, David Huddle, and James Dickey. Clabough expands the definition of "here" beyond mere geography, offering nuanced readings that examine tradition and nostalgia and explore the existential nature of "place." Deeply concerned with literature as a form of emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic engagement with the local and the regional, Clabough considers the idea of place in a variety of ways: as both a physical and metaphorical location; as an important factor in shaping an individual, informing one of the ways the person perceives the world; and as a temporal as well as geographic construction. This fresh and useful contribution to the scholarship on southern literature explains how a text can open up new worlds for readers if they pay close enough attention to place." --Publisher description This book poses fundamental and timely existential questions stemming from the query, how might one articulate the aspects of one's formative place particularly when one is struck with the task of conveying it in and/or against an impersonal global society? Considering the idea of place, Albert Einstein noted that because "its relations with psychological experience is less direct, there exists a far-reaching uncertainty of interpretation." Identifying, through a number of contemporary literary considerations, some of the intricate elements which lie behind the "less direct" constitutes the primary aim of this book. While recognizing that place may sometimes function unfavorably as a political variable in the workings of nostalgia, comfort, and tradition, it nonetheless remains an embarking point we never really leave over the course of our various physical journeys, as well as the mighty odyssey toward ourselves that is the great yearning endeavor of our lives. In delineating various understandings of our places, we necessarily enrich our comprehension of the variabled equations that conspire to create others. In this sense, appreciating and reading for place possesses the capacity to perceive the world passionately and deeply. It teaches us ourselves by virtue of where we are and what we read Getting back there: an introduction and a case study Why read for place? an introduction To blend in the place you're in, but with a mind to do something?: The practice of merging in James Dickey's to the White Sea A matter of context: region and place One writer's place: the south of George Garrett Representing urban Appalachia: Fred Chappell's the gaudy place The truths of William Hoffman's southern Appalachian places: the critics and his own Southern Appalachian montage: reviewing books across regions (a collection) Looking closer: a state of place Out of space, out of time?: the Virginia novels of Julien Green Hanging on to place: the self-reflexive depths of Kelly Cherry's fiction Here, there, where: David Huddle's Appalachian Virginia Epilogue: Writing for a place: a writers workshop for Mcdowell County, West Virginia.