Graduation Year
2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Womens Studies
Major Professor
David Rubin Ph.D.
Committee Member
Diane Price-Herndl Ph.D.
Committee Member
Aisha Durham Ph.D.
Keywords
Intersectionality, Appalachia, Affrilachian Poetry, Autoethnography
Abstract
This thesis examines selections of Appalachian women’s personal narrative as well as Affrilachian Poetry written by Kentuckians Bianca Spriggs and Nikki Finney. This project’s goal lies in resisting oppression and erasure of Appalachian culture’s heterogeneity. Contrary to constructions of Appalachians as lazy, complacent, and white, many Appalachians organize communities of resistance from within the region itself. Challenging these representations, I argue that Appalachian feminists as well as Affrilachian poets create countercultures that disrupt monolithic, colonialist, and unquestioned constructions of Appalachia.
Scholar Commons Citation
Carpenter, Sandra Louise, ""The Afro that Ate Kentucky": Appalachian Racial Formation, Lived Experience, and Intersectional Feminist Interventions" (2016). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/6200
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other International and Area Studies Commons
