Interviewing Appalachia

• Author(s): Williamson, J.W.
• Series:
• Imprint: Univ Tennessee Press
• Publication Date: 1994-04-19
• Status: Active
• Available in Paper: Price $22.50 | Buy Now

Over the past two decades, the Appalachian Journal has established itself as the leading scholarly publication devoted to the study of Appalachia in all its cultural, historical, and social manifestations. Since 1978, the interview has been one of the publication’s major features, allowing authors, songwriters, filmmakers, educators, and others to voice their views on the changing social and cultural climate of both Appalachia and the nation.

For this volume, J. W. Williamson and Edwin T. Arnold have collected some of the best of those interviews, which, taken together, provide a rich picture of the region’s creativity, diversity, and vitality. The editors have arranged the interviews by the subjects’ dates of birth, thus illustrating the interconnection of generations and ideas while underscoring the changes that have taken place in twentieth-century Appalachia. In some cases, new material has been added to bring the interviews up to date. Most of the interviews have been edited to eliminate the original questions and thus allow each subject to tell his or her own story in a monologue that focuses the reader’s attention on the speaker rather than the interviewer.

Challenging many common perceptions, these interviews do much to define the past, present, and future of Appalachian society and culture as they reveal the growth of regional self-awareness.

The Editors: J. W. Williamson, professor of English at Appalachian State University, is the founding editor of the Appalachian Journal. Edwin T. Arnold, professor of English and assistant dean of arts and sciences at Appalachian State University, is a past associate editor of the Appalachian Journal.