Analyses the fraught location of Appalachians within the southern and American imaginaries, building on studies of race in literary and cinematic characterizations of the American South. Not only do we know what ""rednecks"" are, Meredith McCarroll argues, we rely on the use of such categories in fashioning our broader sense of self and other.

Analyses the fraught location of Appalachians within the southern and American imaginaries, building on studies of race in literary and cinematic characterizations of the American South. Not only do we know what ""rednecks"" are, Meredith McCarroll argues, we rely on the use of such categories in fashioning our broader sense of self and other.

The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.