Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
From John Fox, Jr. to Fred Chappell to Barbara Kingsolver: Identity Politics and Environment in Appalachian Literature
Session Abstract or Summary
This panel is comprised of four exceptional undergraduate students from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Each presenter was a student in my Appalachian literature class during the spring 2016 semester and their presentations are drawn from final papers they wrote for my class. The panel begins with Ryan McGinn’s unique interpretation of The Trail of Lonesome Pine through a Shakespearean lens, one which evaluates Fox’s portrayal of John Hale as both savior and predator. Next, Marcy Pedzwater continues the discussion of identity politics in Appalachian literature with her discussion of how Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier’s concept of the Marvelous Reality functions in Fred Chappell’s I Am One of You Forever to defend regional identity. Chelsea Walker will follow with an exploration of how identity politics merge with environmental activism in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, asking tough questions about intervention and local action. Finally, the panel concludes with Dana Schlanger, who explores the many different paths to activism Kingsolver offers in Flight Behavior, contending that the novel functions as an effective call to action for readers. All of these students will benefit from the opportunity to share their work with a larger audience, and I feel certain that their participation in the conference will be a positive experience for both my students and audience members alike.
Presentation #1 Title
Shakespearean Reference and Disdain for the Protagonist of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
John Fox Jr.’s widely read novel The Trail of The Lonesome Pine has been criticized for its depiction of the central protagonist, John Hale, an investor who makes his way from urban Virginia to the Appalachian Mountains. In some ways Fox portrays Hale as a positive influence who brings law and civility to a land stereotypically lacking in both at turn of the twentieth century. Upon close reading, however, there are textual references to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, clues that encourage readers to see John Hale’s character as a deeply problematic one. When read with this Shakespearean context in mind, John Hale’s relationship with June, a young girl he meets and later marries, appears incestuous. Likewise, if we apply critic Sherman Hawkins’ concept of “the two worlds of Shakespearean Comedy,” to the novel, readers understand Hale’s entrance into June’s world as tragic, since Hale brings the “closed world” of his upbringing into June’s otherwise “green world” of the Appalachian mountains. Considered in this way, Fox’s novel seems to criticize Hale’s entrance at the same time it venerates it.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Ryan McGinn is a third-year undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. An Honors student majoring in English and Minoring in Psychology, Ryan has also held academic interest in Theatre and Art. Originally from Charlotte, Ryan has enjoyed what Asheville has to offer, especially the nearby hiking trails and the prominent social dance scene.
Presentation #2 Title
The Marvelous Reality of Appalachia: the Role of Fantasy as a Defense of Regional Identity in Fred Chappell’s I Am One of You Forever
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Fred Chappell’s I Am One of You Forever is a collection of vignettes steeped in rich details of the narrator Jess’ native Appalachia, as he navigates identity and adolescence. Jess has multiple encounters with the fantastic, from unveiling his mysterious Uncle Gurton’s mystical and endlessly flowing beard, to hearing a mysterious voice speak during the climax of a powerful storm. However, as Jess grows closer to his male role models in the story, his father Joe Robert, his adopted brother Johnson Gibbs, and his Uncle Luden, Jess loses access to the fantastic, as his formerly otherworldly visions become tarnished and qualified. I argue that we can read Jess' three role models as examples of assimilation of Appalachian identity into the larger US culture, and consequently, Jess' loss of the fantastic as he aligns himself with these characters functions as a critique of assimilation. Moreover, when considering the novel's references to Latin America which, like Appalachia, also suffers from a history of marginalization, I posit that I Am One of You Forever can be read as not just a defense of Appalachian identity, but a larger critique of the Western imperialist structures that threaten regional cultures. Specifically, I consider Jess’ experience of the fantastic to qualify as an experience with Lo Real Maravilloso¸or the Marvelous Reality, a term which the Cuban Avant-garde novelist Alejo Carpentier coined in 1949. By considering the framework of the Marvelous Reality in conversation with the connections Mark Banker draws between Appalachia and Hispanic New Mexico, I contend that I Am One of You Forever clearly functions as a defense of regional identity.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Marcy Pedzwater is a senior at the University of North Carolina Asheville, where she is pursuing her B.A. in both Literature and Spanish. She currently serves as the President of the Eta Omicron chapter of Sigma Tau Delta and is a writing consultant at the UNC Asheville University Writing Center. After graduating she plans to begin graduate work with a focus on American and Latin American literatures.
Presentation #3 Title
“Sorry as Hell They Ever Landed Here:” Inescapable Identity and Appalachian Dependency in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
The great irony in modern sentiments of Appalachia as an “untouched” and “isolated” slice of American culture lies in the fact that the Appalachian region has, particularly in the past century, been formatively shaped by intervention, aid, and exploitation by cultural and regional outsiders. The changing identity of Appalachian education, environment, and lifestyle lies incongruous, however, with the restricted realities of many in the region who, due to poverty, social expectations, and the destruction of their land, become trapped in damaging social and environmental spheres. The question then becomes whether or not this intervention from outsiders functions to provide escape, to help a region that lacks the resources to help itself, or whether it, in fact, creates and sustains the cycles of poverty and environmental destruction taking place in the region today. Through analysis of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Flight Behavior, this paper will examine the effectiveness of “outsider” intervention and activism in healing the internal issues faced by Appalachian natives and their land. It will specifically address the potential dependency of the Appalachian region in preventing environmental devastation and allowing a mode of escape or upward mobility for those “trapped” by their cultural and geographical position in Appalachia. In studying how Kingsolver addresses these concerns through the plight of main character Dellarobia and the rare migration of millions of Monarchs to her land, this paper explores how Kingsolver’s novel depicts “inescapable” Appalachian identity, how it addresses the question of inner-Appalachian capability in resolving personal and regional conflict, as well as its applicability to recent concerns facing Appalachia today.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Chelsea Walker is a senior literature student at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. With roots spread in Tennessee, West Virginia, and North Carolina, she has never quite been able to shake the grit of the South from her teeth, and her literary tastes followed suit. In her free time she enjoys writing poetry, plotting to remain in academia for the rest of her life, sleeping on piles of books, and sticking her hands in the dirt.
Presentation #4 Title
This is What God Intended: A Call to Action on Climate Change in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Barbara Kingsolver, in her 2012 novel Flight Behavior, addresses major environmental themes, particularly climate change, an issue that is inextricable from modern life. Set in contemporary Appalachian Tennessee, Kingsolver broadens and complicates our understanding of climate change by portraying a variety of groups and individuals within a complex social web, including religious folks, scientists, corporate journalists, the poor and the privileged, formally educated and formally uneducated individuals, and gender-nonconforming individuals. I bring scholars such as Anita Puckett, Patrick D. Murphy, and Adam Trexler into conversation with Flight Behavior to analyze Kingsolver’s portrayal of collaboration and discord within the climate change movement. Although they possess varying perspectives and understandings of climate change as well as each other, this diversity of individuals confront each other and eventually cooperate in ways that facilitate understanding, thus overcoming many barriers and misperceptions that initially halt vital action on climate change within the text.
Like climate change, which does not have one simple cause or effect, Kingsolver makes clear that implementing action also requires complex solutions, in both scientific and greater social communities. Kingsolver both positively portrays pathways that individuals can follow in the field of environmental activism and also negatively portrays actions that are harmful and antagonistic to the environmental movement. When considering the collaboration and cooperation of Flight Behavior’s characters on a larger scale, we can interpret the novel as a call to action. The floods, the mudslides, the alternation of extremely warm and cold weather, and the departure of the butterflies, are all warning signs that Kingsolver deploys at the novel’s conclusion which tell us that we must act on climate change now. The purpose of this presentation will be to demonstrate that Flight Behavior is an instruction manual for addressing differences within climate change discourse and ultimately a call to action: for climate change, there is no time to wait.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Dana is a senior at UNC Asheville who will graduate in December with a B.A. in Literature and a minor in Environmental Studies. She is pursuing a career in high school education as an English teacher and is currently a volunteer tutor for the Literacy Council of Buncombe County in Asheville, North Carolina.
Shakespearean Reference and Disdain for the Protagonist of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
John Fox Jr.’s widely read novel The Trail of The Lonesome Pine has been criticized for its depiction of the central protagonist, John Hale, an investor who makes his way from urban Virginia to the Appalachian Mountains. In some ways Fox portrays Hale as a positive influence who brings law and civility to a land stereotypically lacking in both at turn of the twentieth century. Upon close reading, however, there are textual references to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, clues that encourage readers to see John Hale’s character as a deeply problematic one. When read with this Shakespearean context in mind, John Hale’s relationship with June, a young girl he meets and later marries, appears incestuous. Likewise, if we apply critic Sherman Hawkins’ concept of “the two worlds of Shakespearean Comedy,” to the novel, readers understand Hale’s entrance into June’s world as tragic, since Hale brings the “closed world” of his upbringing into June’s otherwise “green world” of the Appalachian mountains. Considered in this way, Fox’s novel seems to criticize Hale’s entrance at the same time it venerates it.
