I propose to analyze and categorize the interpretations of the "hillbilly" stereotype in twenty-first century films (in both "art" films and in mainstream studio productions). In his seminal 1995 study of the portrayal of the "hillbilly" stereotype in twentieth century films (_Hillbillyland_), J. W. Williamson viewed that particular stereotype as being a rural American rather than specifically an Ozark and/or Appalachian phenomenon, and thus he identified films set in rural sections of various rural regions of the U.S. as having been equally involved in the proliferation of manifestations of the "hillbilly" stereotype. By incorporating my own research into the history of the "hillbilly" stereotype, I plan to challenge Williamson's argument by suggesting that in his effort to defend Appalachian culture from negative stereotyping (he was an Appalachian studies scholar at Appalachian State University) Williamson misinterpreted the true nature of that stereotype, which was indeed an effort by mainstream American culture, from before the American Revolution through the late twentieth century and arguably into the new millennium, to identify a distinctively "other" sectional culture within the United States--one that in its very "otherness" rendered mainstream American culture (which historically suffered from a kind of inferiority complex when it compared itself to European cultures) as inherently more "cultured" by comparison. After I critique Williamson's study, I plan to suggest the emergence of a new strain of postmodern, indeed post-"hillbilly," stereotyping practiced in certain newer, late twentieth century and early twenty-first century films, even as other twenty-first century films have rehashed old "hillbilly" stereotyping tropes borrowed from an earlier era.

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Bluegrass is a music form often considered to be necessarily or uniquely connected to Appalachia. Significant popular and scholarly discourses (Malone, Negus, etc.) support the sense of a homological relationship (Middleton, Born, Murphy) linking certain rural spaces with country musics. At the same time, bluegrass has a broad and varied global appeal. Abroad, bluegrass is often a part of "Americanism," the negotiation of cultural elements from the United States--and is subject to an array of different cultural politics. This presentation presents an analysis and contextualization of three Czech bluegrass-related songs to indicate some ways in which bluegrass music makers can create a sense of place far afield from the music's putative geographic roots. During their long history of Americanism Czechs have inscribed "real imaginary" elements of Americana on their environment, laying a foundation for the current interest in bluegrass music. Czech articulations of this imagined "Amerika" in translated, newly-created, and recontextualized bluegrass songs reveals a playful ambiguity. Czechs have cultivated this music and sense of place through Americanisms that blur boundaries between what is American and what is Czech. These cases challenge homologies of sound and geography, and provide new ways to consider music and place in Appalachia.

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Excerpt: Proc ty housle? ("Why the fiddle?") - "Fiddlers are all bad here - Why not write about the banjo or something else that Czechs are good at?"These questions about my ethnographic fieldwork came from musician colleagues with whom I working in researching bluegrass music in the Czech Republic, during a jam circle around a table. While these colleagues were mainly banjo and guitar players, these critiques of Czech fiddling are common even among Czech fiddlers, who are in many cases not as accomplished (in technical skill or musicality) as are their banjo-playing and mandolin-picking compatriots.

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Performances of old time string band and bluegrass music today often include participants' sense of a deeply "emplaced" sensibility, often with specific place references to Appalachia. How do people outside the United States perform versions of these spaces as they engage in these Appalachia-related music making practices? To address this question I draw mainly on my long-term ethnographic research on bluegrass-related music-making in the Czech Republic, including insights I have gleaned from encounters with musical participants in similar scenes from other countries. I start my inquiry in my own identity as an outsider in Appalachia, and frame issues of genre and regional identity using ideas about place and country music from Negus (1999) and Murphy (2014). The sense of in-between-ness and ambiguity that my field colleagues have expressed challenge homological linkings of place and country music (Carney 1974, 1996), leading me to conclude by posing these views with ideas about"place" as a flexible concept from geographer Doreen Massey (2005).

Excerpt: During the urban folk revival of the 1950s and early 1960s, Elektra Records was one of the leading companies that specialized in recordings of revivalist folk music. By the mid-1960s, however, Jac Holzman, who founded Elektra in 1950, was charting a new direction for the label.