Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Pragmatic Appalachia: Communication Ethics and the Extremes of Appalachian Studies
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper interrogates this year’s conference theme, Extreme Appalachia! and the communication ethic that it promotes and protects. Specifically, I contend that Extreme Appalachia! promotes a communication ethic of contested monologues, which undermine the Appalachian Studies Association’s stated mission: “to promote and engage dialogue.” Grounding my work in the field of communication ethics, I will argue that this year’s conference theme does not presuppose a dialogic ethic. Rather, the call for participation to this year’s Appalachian Studies Conference presents Appalachia as a series of contested monologues, such as “extreme economics” versus “community activism” and “exploitative pop culture products” versus “the countering power of the region’s visual, performance, and literary arts.” This positioning weakens the potential for a dialogic communication ethic to foment by reducing contestations within the region to monolithic binaries and, therefore, moves the community into a communicative cul-de-sac in which we talk to ourselves and no one else. In an effort to move the community away from this space, I offer the notion of a Pragmatic Appalachia. Based on the pragmatic philosophy of Richard Rorty, a Pragmatic Appalachia seeks to give meaning to the multiplicities of everyday existence, and, as I will show, these multiplicities are central to dialogic ethics. Consequently, this paper and the articulation of a Pragmatic Appalachia seeks to reclaim the raison d’etre of Appalachian Studies Association’s stated mission.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Ryan McCullough is an Assistant Professor of Communication at West Liberty University (West Liberty, WV).
Pragmatic Appalachia: Communication Ethics and the Extremes of Appalachian Studies
This paper interrogates this year’s conference theme, Extreme Appalachia! and the communication ethic that it promotes and protects. Specifically, I contend that Extreme Appalachia! promotes a communication ethic of contested monologues, which undermine the Appalachian Studies Association’s stated mission: “to promote and engage dialogue.” Grounding my work in the field of communication ethics, I will argue that this year’s conference theme does not presuppose a dialogic ethic. Rather, the call for participation to this year’s Appalachian Studies Conference presents Appalachia as a series of contested monologues, such as “extreme economics” versus “community activism” and “exploitative pop culture products” versus “the countering power of the region’s visual, performance, and literary arts.” This positioning weakens the potential for a dialogic communication ethic to foment by reducing contestations within the region to monolithic binaries and, therefore, moves the community into a communicative cul-de-sac in which we talk to ourselves and no one else. In an effort to move the community away from this space, I offer the notion of a Pragmatic Appalachia. Based on the pragmatic philosophy of Richard Rorty, a Pragmatic Appalachia seeks to give meaning to the multiplicities of everyday existence, and, as I will show, these multiplicities are central to dialogic ethics. Consequently, this paper and the articulation of a Pragmatic Appalachia seeks to reclaim the raison d’etre of Appalachian Studies Association’s stated mission.
