Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Running Appalachia: An Eco-Phenomenology of Extreme Enactment
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Running Appalachia: An Eco-Phenomenology of Extreme Enactment Distance running is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, including an increase in destination courses of distances surpassing one hundred miles. The trail-running community in Virginia’s highlands has emerged as leading eco-conscious hosts in their homeplace to this extreme activity. At the 2016 ASA conference, I began a line of inquiry focused on what may be revealed of Appalachia within our bodies, movement, and gesture in the archival documentation of “body schema” and the enactment of culture (dance, music-making, theater). This research drew on foundational philosophical research in post-Cartesian phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty; Butler; Noë) filtered through notable Appalachian research collections. For this year’s conference, I extend the frame to include a different physicality (the contemporary activity of ultra-distance running in the highlands of Virginia) further investigated by extended applications of phenomenological thought. Most notable among these new trajectories are the scholarly literature in eco-phenomenology (Abram; Brown; Toadvine; Zealand) and long-distance running (Koski; Hockey; Allen-Collinson). Through multifaceted means (participant-observation, interviews, and review of “race reports”), I engage with a more direct and extreme form of sensual experience in the mountainous spaces of Appalachia. Central to the research are questions that investigate the ways this particular, and arguably unusual, physical human activity generates intercommunication and a sense of reciprocal objective being between the enacting runner and the living Appalachian environment. Is ultra-running . . . culture? And, does it reveal something new to us about embodying Appalachia?
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
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Running Appalachia: An Eco-Phenomenology of Extreme Enactment
Running Appalachia: An Eco-Phenomenology of Extreme Enactment Distance running is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, including an increase in destination courses of distances surpassing one hundred miles. The trail-running community in Virginia’s highlands has emerged as leading eco-conscious hosts in their homeplace to this extreme activity. At the 2016 ASA conference, I began a line of inquiry focused on what may be revealed of Appalachia within our bodies, movement, and gesture in the archival documentation of “body schema” and the enactment of culture (dance, music-making, theater). This research drew on foundational philosophical research in post-Cartesian phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty; Butler; Noë) filtered through notable Appalachian research collections. For this year’s conference, I extend the frame to include a different physicality (the contemporary activity of ultra-distance running in the highlands of Virginia) further investigated by extended applications of phenomenological thought. Most notable among these new trajectories are the scholarly literature in eco-phenomenology (Abram; Brown; Toadvine; Zealand) and long-distance running (Koski; Hockey; Allen-Collinson). Through multifaceted means (participant-observation, interviews, and review of “race reports”), I engage with a more direct and extreme form of sensual experience in the mountainous spaces of Appalachia. Central to the research are questions that investigate the ways this particular, and arguably unusual, physical human activity generates intercommunication and a sense of reciprocal objective being between the enacting runner and the living Appalachian environment. Is ultra-running . . . culture? And, does it reveal something new to us about embodying Appalachia?
