Books published by West Virginia University Press

Shortly after his mother dies of breast cancer when he is ten years old, Michael Blumenthal discovers that she was not his biological mother, and that his aunt and uncle, immigrant chicken farmers living in Vineland, New Jersey, are really his parents. As fate would have it, his adoptive father, a German-Jewish refugee raised by a loveless and embittered stepmother after his own mother died in childbirth, has inflicted on his stepson a fate uncannily--and terrifyingly--similar to his own: Having first adopted Michael, in part, to help his dying wife, he then imposes on him the same sort of penurious and loveless stepmother whom he himself had had to survive. With these revelations, the "mysteries" that seem to have permeated Michael's childhood are laid bare, triggering a quest for belonging that will infiltrate the author's entire adult life.

It's the 1960s. The Vietnam War is raging and protests are erupting across the United States. In many quarters, young people are dropping out of society, leaving their urban homes behind in an attempt to find a safe place to live on their own terms, to grow their own food, and to avoid a war they passionately decry. During this time, West Virginia becomes a haven for thousands of these homesteaders--or back-to-the-landers, as they are termed by some. Others call them hippies. When the going got rough, many left. But a significant number remain to this day. Some were artisans when they arrived, while others adopted a craft that provided them with the cash necessary to survive. Hippie Homesteaders tells the story of this movement from the viewpoint of forty artisans and musicians who came to the state, lived on the land, and created successful careers with their craft. There's the couple that made baskets coveted by the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery. There's the draft-dodger that fled to Canada and then became a premier furniture maker. There's the Boston-born VISTA worker who started a quilting cooperative. And, there's the immigrant Chinese potter who lived on a commune. Along with these stories, Hippie Homesteaders examines the serendipitous timing of this influx and the community and economic support these crafters received from residents and state agencies in West Virginia. Without these young transplants, it's possible there would be no Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia, the first statewide collection of fine arts and handcrafts in the nation, and no Mountain Stage, the weekly live musical program broadcast worldwide on National Public Radio since 1983. Forget what you know about West Virginia.Hippie Homesteaders isn't about coal or hillbillies or moonshine or poverty. It is the story of why West Virginia was--and still is--a kind of heaven to so many.

Argues that you can be honest and unflinching in your teaching about racism while also providing a compassionate learning environment. Cyndi Kernahan provides evidence for how learning works with respect to race and racism along with practical teaching strategies rooted in that evidence to help instructors feel more confident.

Presents a collection of stories that imagines trauma as a space in which language fails us and narrative escapes us. These stories play with form and explore the impossibility of elegy and the inability of our culture to communicate grief, or sympathy, outside of cliche.

Focuses on the slavery writings of three of Brazil's literary giants - Machado de Assis, Castro Alves, and Euclides da Cunha. Wood finds that all three writers responded to the memory of slavery in ways that departed from their counterparts in Europe and North America, where emancipation has typically been depicted as a moment of closure.

Features nearly fifty writers from across Appalachia sharing their place-based fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. Much of the work collected here engages current issues facing the region and the planet and provides readers with insights on the human-nature relationship in an era of rapid environmental change.

This is a recently recovered novel written by William Anderson and Walter Stowers, two of the editors of the Detroit Plaindealer. Drawing heavily on nineteenth-century print culture, the authors tell the story of John Saunders, a college-educated black man living and working in Detroit.

In this often-surprising book of essays, Krista Eastman explores the myths we make about who we are and where we are from. The Painted Forest upends easy narratives of place, embracing tentativeness and erasing boundaries.

Arguing that teaching and learning goals should drive instructors' technology use, not the other way around, Intentional Tech explores seven research-based principles for matching technology to pedagogy.

Traces the recent history of geography, information, and technology through the biography of Edward A. Ackerman, an important figure in geography's ""quantitative revolution"". The book argues that Ackerman's work helped encode the hidden logics of a distorted philosophical heritage into the network architectures of surveillance capitalism.

A funny, evidence-based, pragmatic, readable guide to the process of learning and relearning how to be an effective college teacher. This is the first college teaching guide that encourages faculty to embrace their inner nerd, inviting readers to view themselves in light of contemporary discourse that celebrates increasingly diverse geek culture.

An innovative, hybrid work of literary nonfiction, Lowest White Boy takes its title from Lyndon Johnson's observation during the civil rights era: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."

This collection, the first of its kind, gathers fiction and poetry from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors from Appalachia. It confronts the problematic and complex intersections of place, family, sexuality, gender, and religion with which LGBTQ Appalachians often grapple.

These thirteen essays depict a woman coming to terms with her adoration for the wilds of the West and will resonate with all of us longing to better understand ourselves and our relationships to the places and people we love most.

Asks whether revenue generated by wind power can be put to community well-being rather than corporate profit. Through case studies of a North Dakota wind energy cooperative and an investor-owned wind farm in Illinois, Keith Taylor examines how regulatory and social forces are shaping this emerging energy sector.

The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.

The twenty-first century has witnessed a resurgence of artisanal distilling, as both connoisseurs and those reconnecting with their heritage have created a vibrant new culture of moonshine. The first interdisciplinary examination of the legal moonshine industry, this book probes the causes and impact of the so-called moonshine revival.

The twenty-first century has witnessed a resurgence of artisanal distilling, as both connoisseurs and those reconnecting with their heritage have created a vibrant new culture of moonshine. The first interdisciplinary examination of the legal moonshine industry, Modern Moonshine probes the causes and impact of the so-called moonshine revival.

The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.

Questions of class and gender in Appalachia have, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the runaway success of Hillbilly Elegy, moved to the forefront of national conversations about politics and culture. From Todd Snyder, a first generation college student turned college professor, comes a passionate commentary on these themes in a family memoir set in West Virginia coal country.12 Rounds in Lo's Gym is the story of the author's father, Mike "Lo" Snyder, a fifth generation West Virginia coal miner who opened a series of makeshift boxing gyms with the goal of providing local at-risk youth with the opportunities that eluded his adolescence. Taking these hardscrabble stories as his starting point, Snyder interweaves a history of the region, offering a smart analysis of the costs--both financial and cultural--of an economy built around extractive industries.Part love letter to Appalachia, part rigorous social critique, readers may find 12 Rounds in Lo's Gym--and its narrative of individual and community strength in the face of globalism's headwinds--a welcome corrective to popular narratives that blame those in the region for their troubles.

A manual to identify trees and shrubs in winter when the lack of leaves, fruits, and flowers makes them least identifiable, Woody Plants in Winter has become a classic for naturalists, botanists, gardeners, and hobbyists.

Community leadership development programmes are designed to increase the capacity of citizens for civic engagement. This volume presents the results of a five-year study tracking community-level effects of community leadership development programs drawn from research conducted in Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Brings together key essays by Imre Szeman, a leading scholar in the field of energy humanities and a critical voice in debates about globalization and neoliberalism. Szeman's most important and influential essays, in dialog with exciting new pieces written for the book, investigate ever-evolving circuits of power in the contemporary world.

Darrick MacBrehon, a government auditor, wakes among the dead. Bloodied and disoriented from a gaping head wound, the man who staggers out of the mine crack in Redbird, West Virginia, is much more powerful - and dangerous - than the one thrown in. An orphan with an unknown past, he must now figure out how to have a future.

Provides an ambitious history of pigs and pig products from the Columbian exchange to the present, emphasizing critical stories of production, consumption, and waste in American history. J.L. Anderson examines different cultural assumptions about pigs to provide a window into America's regional, racial, and class fault lines.