Full Description
Flyover Fictions critically engages the history and contemporary use of the "flyover country" trope in American culture and repurposes the concept as an abstract tool for cultural studies. The term "flyover" arose in the 1970s with variations-"flyover country," "flyover states"-mainly used as synonyms for the American Midwest in intranational banter regarding cultural differences from the dominant urban centers of New York City and Los Angeles. In recent years, the trope has shifted away from this playfulness and its traditional geographic reference points to indicate larger political and cultural developments that speak of a deepening polarization in the United States.
Flyover Fictions is an exploration of the trope's current politicization, historical contexts, and general proliferation of meanings. Instead of resolving the ambiguities inherent in the concept, the volume considers what can be done with these ambiguities, and how precisely their fuzziness might be used to create an analytic tool to describe, understand, and critique processes of cultural hierarchization. The contributors show how flyover fictions may operate in different national contexts and also internationally or transnationally, not only providing a fresh perspective on historical and contemporary American culture but also supplying a conceptual toolbox for broader use.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: What Are Flyover Fictions?
Cornelia Klecker and Sascha PÖhlmann
Part 1. Flyover Fictions and Contemporary U.S.-American Politics
1. Rethinking "Flyover Country" in the Age of American Hyperpolarization
Anthony Harkins
2. Flyover Fiction as Republican Identity Politics
Cornelia Klecker
Part 2. Constructing Flyover Fictions in and with Film
3. "If You Build It . . .": The Sports Experience Economy and Heartland Dreams
Victoria E. Johnson
4. Flying over the "Forgotten Man": Affective Affordances, Sentimentalism, and White Working-Class Masculinity in Contemporary U.S. Cinema
Stefan Schubert
5. The Midwestern Gothic in It Follows and Only Lovers Left Alive: Acceleration, Vacancy, and Insiders/Outsiders
Adam R. Ochonicky
Part 3. Flyover Fictions in Twentieth-Century Literature
6. The Literary Beginnings of Flyover Fiction in the 1920s
Sascha PÖhlmann
7. Writing the Midwest in Exile: Robert McAlmon's Village: As It Happened through a Fifteen Year Period and Queer Distance
Ben Robbins
8. Flying over a Lynching: Constructions of Group Identity in Ralph Ellison's "A Party Down at the Square"
Martin Holtz
Part 4. Flyover Fictions in Twenty-First-Century Literature
9. Aerial Views, Pedestrian Ways: Fragmentation in D. J. Waldie's Holy Land
Dominika Ferens
10. "A Little Agony Was Just What This Place Needed": Looking for California in Claire Vaye Watkins's Gold Fame Citrus and Lydia Kiesling's The Golden State
Michael Docherty
11. Destination Flyover State: The Transnational Perspective of Joachim Meyerhoff's All the Dead Fly Up: America
Sandra Tausel
Part 5. Finding Flyover Fictions (in Unusual Places and Unusual Ways)
12. Looking Back to Move Forward? Constructing Medieval Heritage in the Midwest
Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand and Kristan Cockerill
13. Straight TikTok as Digital Flyover Country
Mark Nunes
Literary Epilogue
Watchmaking: A Short Story
Tom Drury
Contributors
Index
