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Inhabiting Contemporary Southern and Appalachian Literature: Region and Place in the Twenty-First Century

Online ISBN:
9780813043944
Print ISBN:
9780813041735
Publisher:
University Press of Florida
Book

Inhabiting Contemporary Southern and Appalachian Literature: Region and Place in the Twenty-First Century

Published online:
24 January 2013
Published in print:
26 August 2012
Online ISBN:
9780813043944
Print ISBN:
9780813041735
Publisher:
University Press of Florida

Abstract

This book poses fundamental and timely existential questions stemming from the query, how might one articulate the aspects of one's formative place particularly when one is struck with the task of conveying it in and/or against an impersonal global society? Considering the idea of place, Albert Einstein noted that because "its relations with psychological experience is less direct, there exists a far-reaching uncertainty of interpretation." Identifying, through a number of contemporary literary considerations, some of the intricate elements which lie behind the "less direct" constitutes the primary aim of this book. While recognizing that place may sometimes function unfavorably as a political variable in the workings of nostalgia, comfort, and tradition, it nonetheless remains an embarking point we never really leave over the course of our various physical journeys, as well as the mighty odyssey toward ourselves that is the great yearning endeavor of our lives. In delineating various understandings of our places, we necessarily enrich our comprehension of the variabled equations that conspire to create others. In this sense, appreciating and reading for place possesses the capacity to perceive the world passionately and deeply. It teaches us ourselves by virtue of where we are and what we read.

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