Barbara Ching

Gerald W. Creed

Knowing Your Place directs groundbreaking attention to the role of rural and urban places in identity construction. Written to redress the longstanding neglect and denigration of the rural, this book argues that the cultural dominance of the city has been reinforced by postmodern theory's near fixation on the urban and the sophisticated. The essays explore rural identity in a number of cultures and situations, and look at issues of contemporary interest. Topics covered include the uses of popular and high culture, the explosion of high technology, the social and economic impact of ecological policy, the role of labor in the global marketplace, museum curatorship, and post-colonial politics. Throughout, the essays address the many ways in which place identity alters and influences the experience of race, class, gender and ethnicity.

Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy

Knowing Your Place

Jennifer A Wagner-Lawlor

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) spoke of the promiscuity of art and literature& mdash;the willingness of great artists and writers to scandalize their spectators through critical frankness, complexity, and beauty. Sontag's life and thought were no less promiscuous. She wrote deeply and engagingly about a range of subjects& mdash;theater, sex, politics, novels, torture, and illness& mdash;and courted celebrity and controversy both publicly and privately. Throughout her career, she not only earned adulation but also provoked scorn. Her living was the embodiment of scandal. In this collection, Terry Castle, Nancy K. Miller, Wayne Koestenbaum, E. Ann Kaplan, and other leading scholars revisit Sontag's groundbreaking life and work. Against Interpretation, "Notes on Camp," Letter from Hanoi, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, I, Etcetera, and The Volcano Lover& mdash;these works form the center of essays no less passionate and imaginative than Sontag herself. Debating questions raised by the thinker's own images and identities, including her sexuality, these works question Sontag's status as a female intellectual and her parallel interest in ambitious and prophetic fictional women; her ambivalence toward popular culture; and her personal and professional "scandals." Paired with rare photographs and illustrations, this timely anthology expands our understanding of Sontag's images and power.

The Scandal of Susan Sontag

Assistant Professor of English Barbara Ching

"Barbara Ching defines the features that make certain country songs and artists hard. She compares hard country music to high American culture, arguing that hard country deliberately focuses on its low position in the American cultural hierarchy. The artists sing of failures to live up to American standards of affluence. The songs are set apart from mainstream country music, which focuses on nostalgia, romance, and the patriotism of regular folk. Ching demonstrates that hard country's bad puns, sad stories, and unsavory characters are not as simple as we want them to be. In a style that demands both devotion and alienation from its fans, hard country ultimately seeks out the extreme and the objectionable, and in doing so, shows us the darker side of ourselves."--BOOK JACKET.

Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture

Wrong's What I Do Best

Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) spoke of the promiscuity of art and literature?the willingness of great artists and writers to scandalize their spectators through critical frankness, complexity, and beauty. Sontag's life and thought were no less promiscuous. She wrote deeply and engagingly about a range of subjects?theater, sex, politics, novels, torture, and illness?and courted celebrity and controversy both publicly and privately. Throughout her career, she not only earned adulation but also provoked scorn. Her living was the embodiment of scandal. In this collection, Terry Castle, Nancy K. Miller, Wayne Koestenbaum, E. Ann Kaplan, and other leading scholars revisit Sontag's groundbreaking life and work. Against Interpretation, "Notes on Camp," Letter from Hanoi, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, I, Etcetera, and The Volcano Lover?these works form the center of essays no less passionate and imaginative than Sontag herself. Debating questions raised by the thinker's own images and identities, including her sexuality, these works question Sontag's status as a female intellectual and her parallel interest in ambitious and prophetic fictional women; her ambivalence toward popular culture; and her personal and professional "scandals." Paired with rare photographs and illustrations, this timely anthology expands our understanding of Sontag's images and power.

Barbara Ching

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