Reimagining Rural

This book is essential reading for those seeking a richer social scientific understanding of contemporary rural life. It is destined to stimulate much thoughtful debate and it is a useful tool for those seeking to challenge hurtful stereotypes of rural people and the communities in which they live. -- Walter S. DeKeseredy, West Virginia University At times, it seems that the image of 'rural' is a giant contradiction-it is either a safe, idyllic landscape of highly cohesive communities, or a dark place of dangerous and violent people who prey on outsides with a repertoire of sadistically inspired instruments of pain and death. Sometime those images are reinforced by social scientists who poorly frame their conceptual frameworks and shortcut their research by avoiding the complexities and nuances of the real 'rural'. This is why Fulkerson and Thomas' book is a great service to both the scholarly and journalistic communities. It debunks both the rural idyll and the rural-as-evil, and offers alternatives that are more befitting of the rural realities of America today. -- Joseph F. Donnermeyer, editor of "The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology"

Gregory M. Fulkerson is associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Alexander R. Thomas is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Need to Reimagine Rural, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Alexander R. Thomas Part I: Popular Media Representations of Rural Chapter 2: Representations of Rural in Popular North American Television, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Brian M. Lowe Chapter 3: Portrayals of Rural People and Places in Reality Television Programming: How Popular American Cable Series Misrepresent Rural Realities, Karl A. Jicha Chapter 4: Inbred Horror Revisited: The Fear of the Rural in Twenty-First Century Backwoods Horror Films, Karen Hayden Chapter 5: Reconsidering the Rural in the End: Rural Representations in Post-Apocalyptic Settings, Brian M. Lowe Part II: The Sources of Rural Meaning and Knowledge Construction Chapter 6: Urbanormativity in News Coverage of Rural Life, Pilar Erin McKay Chapter 7: Cow College and Critical Rural Knowledge, Barbara Ching Chapter 8: Common Core, STEM, and Rural schools: Views from Students and States, Leanne M. Avery & John W. Sipple Chapter 9: Conclusion: Reimagining Rural, Gregory M. Fulkerson & Alexander R. Thomas