This course is a survey of Appalachia’s social history from the colonial era to the present. We will engage with environmental, cultural, economic, and political history as well. Through texts, seminars, and lectures, we will examine changing patterns of culture, land use, economy, politics, and social structure in the mountains with an eye toward understanding contemporary Appalachia in local and global contexts. We will examine differing historical interpretations of Appalachia, but special emphasis will be placed upon the interaction of mountain residents with broader forces of social change at work in America. Many of our readings will address the key topic of dispossession, and we will study the cultural, economic, political, and social implications of this topic. Appalachia is often stereotyped as isolated and atypical, but the same forces of political concentration, capitalist transformation, mass society, and the bureaucratic state that have created modern America have influenced Appalachian history. Therefore, the study of Appalachian history will shed light on the national experience and on the global process of modernization.
- Teacher: Jeffrey Keith