Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes by Dwight B Billings: Product Information Appalachia has long been stereotyped as a region of feuds, moonshine stills, mine wars, environmental destruction, joblessness, and hopelessness. Robert Schenkkan's 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play The Kentucky Cycle once again adopted these stereotypes, recasting the American myth as a story of repeated failure and poverty--the failure of the American spirit and the poverty of the American soul. Dismayed by national critics' lack of attention to the negative depictions of mountain people in the play, a group of Appalachian scholars rallied against the stereotypical representations of the region's people. In Back Talk from Appalachia, these writers talk back to the American mainstream, confronting head-on those who view their home region one-dimensionally. The essays, written by historians, literary scholars, sociologists, creative writers, and activists, provide a variety of responses. Some examine the sources of Appalachian mythology in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. Others reveal personal experiences and examples of grassroots activism that confound and contradict accepted images of ""hillbillies."" The volume ends with a series of critiques aimed directly at The Kentucky Cycle and similar contemporary works that highlight the sociological, political, and cultural assumptions about Appalachia fueling today's false stereotypes. Product Identifiers Publisher University Press of Kentucky ISBN-10 0813190010 ISBN-13 9780813190013 Product ID (ePID) 1729005 Product Key Features Format Trade Paperback Language English Publication Year 2000 Genre Psychology, History, Social Science, Juvenile Nonfiction Number of Pages 368 Pages Dimensions Item Length 9in. Item Height 0.7in. Item Width 6in. Item Weight 17.6 Oz Additional Product Features Lc Classification Number F210.C66 2001 Edition Description Reprint