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Rurality, Class and Whiteness in U.S. Dominant Discourse and Counter-Narrative

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Rurality, Class and Whiteness in U.S. Dominant Discourse and Counter-Narrative Rurality, Class and Whiteness in U.S. Dominant Discourse and Counter-Narrative, Postwar to Present Stacy Denton A Thesis In the Department Of Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Humanities) at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada October 2012 © Stacy Denton, 2013 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Stacy Denton Entitled: Rurality, Class and Whiteness in U.S. Dominant Discourse and Counter-Narrative, Postwar to Present and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Humanities) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Dr. D. Salée External Examiner Dr. R. Rimstead External to Program Dr. A. Arshad Ayaz Examiner Dr. R. Maule Examiner Dr. S. Weber Thesis Supervisor Dr. B. Freiwald Approved by Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director Dr. E. Manning, Graduate Program Director December 7, 2012 Dr. N. Esmail Dr. B. Lewis, Dean Faculty of Arts and Science ABSTRACT Rurality, Class and Whiteness in U.S. Dominant Discourse and Counter-Narrative, Postwar to Present Stacy Denton Concordia University, 2012 In present U.S. society, there persists the conception that rurality — particularly that of the white working-class and working poor — is a spatially, temporally and culturally regressed space. In this “dominant discourse on rurality,” white working- and poverty- class (WWCPC) rural subjects are considered retrograde because they appear to deviate from the norms of progress and development that most reflect the “mainstream,” or the "middle-classless" and sub/urban. Although this phenomenon is not unique to the U.S., the forms in which this society continues to understand rural "locations" are uniquely American and have roots in the recent past, the postwar period. However, as we see in representations of the "sense of place" of those subjects who are intimate with rural locations in both the postwar and the present, there exists a counter-narrative to such unwarranted notions. Following Marc Angenot’s Social Discourse Analysis, this thesis analyzes a “discursive topology” that includes a wide array of written and visual materials from the postwar (defined as 1945-1970) and the post-1980s, including an analysis of the “topoi” employed to represent rurality in both dominant discourse (here, primarily found in the social sciences and journalistic reportage) and WWCPC rural iii counter-narratives as found in autobiography, literature, and filmic adaptations. The study of representations of rurality across diverse discourses gives a fuller understanding of the role of rurality in American society in these time periods. Further, by studying WWCPC rural counter-narratives as portrayed in autobiographical, literary and filmic representations of memory, we can access a voice that is critical of the middle-classless sub/urban norms of progress and development that continue to dominate American society. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The journey towards the completion of this intensive and personal project was long and hard. And, as with all such projects, there are a lot of people to thank for helping me along the way and not enough room to directly name them all. First, I would like to thank the core of my thesis committee: Bina Freiwald, Rosanna Maule and Sandra Weber. They have offered invaluable guidance, both intellectual and editorial, since the beginning of my doctoral work and have done so with great patience and understanding. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the English and WORLD programs at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY. There were some stressful moments as I balanced teaching and writing, and their encouragement and support meant a lot along the way. In a similar vein, I would like to thank my friends and family, especially my parents, who may never see this but were instrumental in their support of me from the very beginning. The deepest gratitude of all is reserved for my husband, Doug Van Nort. His love has seen me through the frustrations, disappointments and victories in all things life, this project being just one part. Thank you. As a final note, some of the work in Chapter Three has already been presented or published, albeit appearing differently from its presentation here: presented at the Working-Class Studies Association Conference: Class Matters (“Thruways, Byways and Off-Road Consciousness,” University of Pittsburgh, June 2009); published in Journal of American Studies (“Nostalgia, Class and Rurality in Empire Falls,” 45(03). August 2011) v and Peer English (“The Meaning of Local Hierarchies in Contemporary US Rural Fiction,” 6. Summer 2011). This list does not include any articles that draw on other chapters of this thesis and that are still under consideration at the time of this thesis submission. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction: Non-Existent Places . 1 I. Considering Rurality . 10 II. Class and Rurality . 29 III. Social Discourse Analysis . 40 IV. Image and Discourse . 49 V. Discursive Topology . 62 VI. Memory and Agency in Fictional and Autobiographical Narrative 74 VII. Looking Back on Postwar U.S. 81 Chapter 2: Postwar Progress and Development: Conceptions of Space, Time and Culture . 86 I. Rural past-in-present: postwar U.S. 91 II. Distinguishing Between the Sub/urban and the Rural . 99 i. Class Distinction in the Rural and the Working-Class Suburb 107 II. The Look of Upward Mobility . 120 i. Upwardly Mobile Deviance . 131 ii. Rural-to-Urban Mobility . 136 III. Culture . 148 i. Recognizing Rural/Urban Difference . 156 IV. Culture Clash and the Counterculture . 166 V. Conclusion: Rurality Disappears . 195 Chapter 3: Literary Representations of WWCPC Rurality . 202 I. Postwar in Present . 210 i. Postwar setting . 210 ii. Using the Personal to Critique the Past . 223 iii. Past Inhering in the Present . 241 II. “Bad Locations” . 262 III. Evolution of Progress and Development . 266 i. Index of culture — Roads . 273 IV. College education — here versus there . 276 i. Upward Detachment . 277 ii. Upward Mobility and Nostalgia . 284 Chapter 4: The Role of WWCPC Rurality in Popular Film . 291 I. Contextual Literature . 292 i. Key Observations from Adaptation Studies . 292 ii. WWCPC Rurality in American Cinema . 294 iii. The Past in Popular Cinema . 301 iv. Memory Devices . 305 V. Analysis of WWCPC Rurality in Adaptation . 308 i. Cinematic Imaginary of WWCPC Rurality . 311 ii. WWCPC Rurality and Critique of Progress . 328 iii. WWCPC Rurality and the Cinematic Spectator . 342 iv. WWCPC Rural Perspectives in Film . 347 v. WWCPC Rurality and the Past/Present . 354 Chapter 5: Conclusion: WWCPC Rurality in the Present . 367 I. Modern day limit cases . 368 II. Farm Crisis: Get big or get out . 370 III. Regressed Rural Areas Still “Left Behind” . 376 IV. Cultural Regression: A Red/Blue Information Super Highway 390 V. Rural/Urban Distinction and the Decline of Society . 401 VI. Unconsciousness . 411 Works Cited . 414 Chapter 1: Introduction: Non-Existent Places Months before the 2006 New York gubernatorial election, democrat Eliot Spitzer made a comparison between Upstate New York and Appalachia. Spitzer stated, “You drive from Schenectady over to Niagara Falls, you see an upstate economy that is devastated. It looks like Appalachia. This is not the New York we dream of” (quoted in LeBrun). The statement became controversial in the following weeks, largely due to the cultural connotations of this comparison between Upstate New York and an economically disenfranchised, rural “Appalachia.” For some commentators, as we see in Robert LeBrun’s Times Union editorial, the “economic devastation” associated with Upstate is linked to a rural/urban division (as represented by “Upstate” and “Appalachia” versus “NYC”): according to this logic, the seemingly undeveloped rural spaces Upstate are predictably also marked by a lower socioeconomic status. LeBrun then links this division between “Upstate” rurality/low-socioeconomics and “Downstate” urbanity/prosperity to a cultural division by alluding to an iconic American film. “Maybe it is time to buy a banjo,” LeBrun writes, alluding to the dueling banjos sequence involving an upper-class urbanite and a local Appalachian boy in the early 1970s film Deliverance (dir. John Boorman, 1972). This reference draws on a commonly held perception that there exists an inherent cultural division between low-socioeconomic rurality and the rest of mainstream, urban America, so that economic difference is in part explained through the inherently regressive cultural character of rurality itself. 1 While LeBrun reinforces this view of rurality as culturally regressive, editorials in other publications directly contest such representations. For example, another 2006 editorial found in the right-leaning publication Observer Dispatch (based in Utica) takes a critical line towards Spitzer’s statement: “Spitzer’s disparaging remarks not only reinforce the argument that downstaters have no clue about upstate, but they also suggest that he’s out of touch with reality” (“Let’s Hope”). According to this article, the “reality” with which New York City native Spitzer is out of touch does not concern Upstate’s flailing economy, which this editorial also notes. Rather, the writer takes issue with the cultural devaluation of the rural Upstate experience. For this writer these rural communities, despite their economic problems, are “certainly not synonymous with total despair,” and he points to the natural beauty, the sense of tradition and the local pride of their inhabitants. Like LeBrun, this editor also draws on larger cultural conceptions to make sense of the continuing existence of lower socioeconomic rural places, but in this case what is invoked is an idealized vision of rurality characterized by a great strength of spirit. In so doing, the editor seeks to give voice to the people living in these rural communities, to their awareness of their cultural place within the larger U.S.
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