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Karen E. Hayden - Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2020

Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture

All Too Familiar

Av Karen E. Hayden

Del i serien Studies in Urban–Rural Dynamics

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Beskrivning
The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture: All Too Familiar studies how the mythology of the primitive rural other became linked to evolutionary theories, both biological and social, that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. This mythology fit well on the imaginary continuums of primitive to civilized, rural to urbanormative, backward to forward-thinking, and regress versus progress. In each chapter of The Rural Primitive, Karen E. Hayden uses popular cultural depictions of the rural primitive to illustrate the ways in which this trope was used to set poor, rural whites apart from others. Not only were they set apart, however; they were also set further down on the imaginary continuum of progress and regress, of evolution and devolution. Hayden argues that small, rural, tight-knit communities, where “everyone knows everyone” and “everyone is related” came to be an allegory for what will happen if society resists modernization and urbanization. The message of the rural, close-knit community is clear: degeneracy, primitivism, savagery, and an overall devolution will result if groups are allowed to become too insular, too close, too familiar.
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Karen E. Hayden is professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Merrimack College.

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In The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture, Hayden unpacks the mythology that depicts rural America as either a curiosity or monstrosity. The author's easily digestible prose moves through various elements of popular culture throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries to examine this myth of rural primitiveness. This slender volume's six chapters focus on the shifting evolutionary and social conceptions of close marriage, or "inbreeding"; the symbolism of the backward rural within horror films; true crime television; and the consequences of rural stereotypes and oversimplifications. Hayden argues that the trope of the rural primitive acts against rural populations in dehumanizing and othering their communities. The myth of degeneration is used as a cautionary tale against resisting modernity and urban normativity, and such stereotypes justify the ongoing inequalities felt by rural peoples. Writing from a criminology and sociology background, Hayden's study contributes to discussions on pop culture, criminality, rural studies, media studies, and place. Easy to read and filled with engaging examples, this book crosses disciplinary lines between anthropology, sociology, geography, art, and law, and will be of interest to both students and scholars. Recommended.

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