It'll Be Fine: Identifying What Home Means in Appalachia
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Start Date
19-4-2019 10:45 AM
End Date
19-4-2019 12:00 PM
Keywords
Appalachia, Non-fiction, Identity
Biography
Joseph Phipps is a Literary Studies and Creative Writing major from Chapmanville, WV. He is a junior at Marshall university who focuses his research mostly on various forms of mass media leading to him also declaring minors in Film Studies and Digital Humanities. Joseph, or Joe as he prefers it, is the oldest child of Mary and Chad Phipps who have been very supportive of his desire to consume most of the media around him. He hopes to continue exploring his and the world’s relationship with popular media through creative and research projects.
Major
Literary Studies & Creative Writing
Advisor for this project
Daniel O'Malley
Abstract
Appalachian is a region that has come to be stereotyped as a place that festers misery, and because of this several young people cannot wait for their chance to leave. In leaving they hope to escape what they see as a place that can only increase their sadness for somewhere better, even a move as small a move to a city instead of a small town. In my non-fiction essay “It’ll Be Fine” I look at my own experience with this feeling, including my lingering thoughts on having made the first step of my escape. I did this by braiding various aspects of my own hometown, Chapmanville, in order to build a large picture of what it was I was leaving, but in doing so I evoke the complicated love and hate relationships many people have with their former homes. I choose to focus on some of what I see of the large problems that inhabit small town Appalachia while also lingering on the small details that seem to make that same Appalachian life worth living to so many individuals. In doing so I build a greater understanding of small-town Appalachian life. I make people ask themselves what they leave behind when they leave their original home and have them contemplate on if it is worth it like I have in my piece.
It'll Be Fine: Identifying What Home Means in Appalachia
Appalachian is a region that has come to be stereotyped as a place that festers misery, and because of this several young people cannot wait for their chance to leave. In leaving they hope to escape what they see as a place that can only increase their sadness for somewhere better, even a move as small a move to a city instead of a small town. In my non-fiction essay “It’ll Be Fine” I look at my own experience with this feeling, including my lingering thoughts on having made the first step of my escape. I did this by braiding various aspects of my own hometown, Chapmanville, in order to build a large picture of what it was I was leaving, but in doing so I evoke the complicated love and hate relationships many people have with their former homes. I choose to focus on some of what I see of the large problems that inhabit small town Appalachia while also lingering on the small details that seem to make that same Appalachian life worth living to so many individuals. In doing so I build a greater understanding of small-town Appalachian life. I make people ask themselves what they leave behind when they leave their original home and have them contemplate on if it is worth it like I have in my piece.
