The Southern Family Farm as Endangered Species: Possibilities for Survival in Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer

Jones, Suzanne W.

doi:10.1353/slj.2007.0007

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…see Hanson, 2010;Jacobson, 2010;Jones, 2006;Leder, 2009;Wenz, 2003). It is absolutely essential to emphasise (not least because of that inherent indeterminacy of the text) that these are not necessarily the most important moments.…”

Section: Scale Causality and Literary Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…see Weis, 2007). It is, in short, the struggle of the so-called family farmer versus capitalist agriculture, a struggle over whether agriculture is going to be treated like other forms of capitalist production (see also Jones, 2006). The prospects of just such a scenario going global from the farms of the United States generates nightmarish fears among critics such as Samir Amin (2003), whose perspective seems to connect with Kingsolver's rural imaginary:…”

Section: Lusa's Trapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, The Poisonwood Bible (1998), her most popular book, forces readers to consider how life in rural Zaire/Congo changes a missionary family from the US; in so doing, she confronts the complicity of the US government in some of the most horrific changes that occurred in Congo in the 1960s and helped set in motion that country's violent last half-century. Flight Behaviour and The Poisonwood Bible (as well as some of her nonfiction, in particular Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) certainly raise important issues about the making of rural space, but Prodigal Summer (2000) is perhaps the most relevant to scholars of rural studies (for commentary on this novel, see Hanson, 2010;Jacobson, 2010;Jones, 2006;Leder, 2009;Wenz, 2003) and is the focus of this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The rural geographies of Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer

Fraser

2014

Journal of Rural Studies

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Academics are undoubtedly at the forefront of efforts to understand and communicate the sorts of far-reaching contemporary changes that make rural space so heavily contested.However, numerous other writers are engaged in contemporary debates about rurality and, among them all, Barbara Kingsolver stands out as particularly important. As such, this paper uses her novel Prodigal Summer to consider how Kingsolver imagines and portrays contested rural geographies. Analytically, the approach develops current ideas in literary geography by asking about the "scalar" poetics and underlying, unwritten causal geographies of Prodigal Summer. Via a careful consideration of these issues in the novel, the paper discusses how the world Kingsolver imagines and depicts overlaps with contemporary debates in rural studies.

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Section: Scale Causality and Literary Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lusa's Trapmentioning

confidence: 99%