Recounts the story of the Overmountain Men and the battle of King's Mountain, a tide-turning battle in the American Revolution. This title includes the stories of native Americans, settlers, explorers, and revolutionaries of early America. / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1018/thumbnail.jpg

Excerpt: Seventy-five years ago this month the definitive ‘Appalachian’ novel was published—James Still’s River of Earth. ‘Appalachian’ literature did not exist then. Still and his novel essentially spawned the phenomenon of people writing consciously and reflexively about Appalachia, a storied if misunderstood American region.

Excerpt: Seventy-five years ago this month the definitive “Appalachian” novel was published — James Still’s “River of Earth.” “Appalachian” literature did not exist then. Still and his novel essentially spawned the phenomenon of people writing consciously and reflexively about Appalachia, a storied if misunderstood American region.

Excerpt: April is also National Poetry Month, and this column will focus on an April-themed poem—not one of the many April poems evincing sincere religiosity or forced sentimentality, and not that famous poem that cynically asserts that “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land.

Excerpt: James Still (1906-2001) wrote “Heritage,” his signature poem, in 1935, and he continued to read it before audiences large and small into the 21st Century.

Theses (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains v, 149 pages. Bibliography: p. 142-149.

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Patriarchal Trauma in Appalachian Literature examines the effects of subjugation on women as it is represented in three novels set in Appalachia. I define patriarchal trauma as an act causing mental anguish to a woman and perpetrated against her because she is a woman. I use the term to encompass violent, catastrophic harms but more particularly to pinpoint the traumatic effects of the quotidian, systemic deprivation of women’s autonomy. Reconsidering classic texts such as James Still’s River of Earth and Robert Morgan’s Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage as narratives of women’s trauma establishes a lineage on the subject, which culminates in Lee Smith’s more recent Guests on Earth. This project eschews authenticity as an analytical tool, turning instead to modes of argument in feminism’s toolkit to delineate the potentially grim outcomes for women whose agency is constricted or usurped. While patriarchal control mechanisms such as domestic violence and sexual abuse inflict readily observable injuries on women, I argue that common, everyday subordination to men can exact a similar emotional toll, especially on women who strenuously defy male dominance. These traumatic states, I further contend, have previously been read as inevitable acquiescence or a genuine desire for subjugation in River and Gap Creek, respectively, while experiences of trauma in Guests are directly portrayed as mistaken interpretations of madness. Reassessing women characters’ numb, compliant, depressed, or enraged emotions as responses to patriarchal trauma challenges the practice of pathologizing women’s rebellion.

The rural health physician narrative is one of the most understudied genres in non-fictional Appalachian literature. Physician narratives are significant in the historical, social, and political contexts of twentieth-century Appalachian representation. These accounts provide insight into the social contexts in which physicians lived as they wrote about healthcare and Appalachian communities. New Historicism is an analytical tool used to better understand the complexity surrounding Appalachian representation, particularly in terms of the politics of representation, gender, and race that influenced these narratives in the twentieth century. I engage in close readings of narratives written by or about rural health physicians who practiced in Appalachian communities during the early and mid-twentieth century. The physicians include Drs. Mary Martin Sloop, Gaine Cannon, A.W. Roberts, and Anne A. Wasson. I provide a nuanced discussion of the emergence and reiteration of Appalachian stereotypes in physician narratives and consider the lessons they provide for current physicians.

James Still remains one of the most beloved and important writers in Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Stillhonors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including his stories from On Troublesome Creek (1941), Pattern of a Man and Other Stories (1976), and The Run for the Elbertas(1980), as well as twelve prose pieces originally published as short stories and later incorporated into River of Earth. Also included are several lesser-known stories and ten never-before-published stories. Recognized as a significant writer of short fiction in his day―many of his stories initially appeared in The Atlantic and The Saturday Evening Post and were included in The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories and The Best American Short Stories collections―Still's short stories, while often overshadowed in recent years by his novels and poetry, are among his most enduring literary works. Editor Ted Olson offers a reassessment of Still's short fiction within the contexts of the author's body of work and within Appalachian and American literature. Compiling all of James Still's compelling and varied short stories into one volume, The Hills Remember is a testament to a master writer. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1166/thumbnail.jpg