Description
Book SynopsisAn overdue examination of the Midwest's long influence on nationalism and white supremacy. Though many associate racism with the regional legacy of the South, it is the Midwest that has upheld some of the nation's most deep-seated convictions about the value of whiteness. From Jefferson's noble farmer to The Wizard of Oz, imagining the Midwest has quietly gone hand-in-hand with imagining whiteness as desirable and virtuous. Since at least the U.S. Civil War, the imagined Midwest has served as a screen or canvas, projecting and absorbing tropes and values of virtuous whiteness and its opposite, white deplorability, with national and global significance. Imagining the Heartland provides a poignant and timely answer to how and why the Midwest has played this role in the American imagination. In Imagining the Heartland, anthropologists Britt Halvorson and Josh Reno argue that there is an unexamined affinity between whiteness, Midwestness, and Americanness, anchored in their shared o
Trade Review"Informatively enhanced for the reader . . .
Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest is a timely and invaluable contribution to our on-going national discussions concerning racism and discrimination." * Midwest Book Review *
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Reflections 1
Section 1: Challenging Ideas of the Midwest
1. The Midwest and White Virtue
Reflections 2
2. Heartland Histories
Section II : Regional Mythmaking
3. Inside Out: The Global Production of Insular Whiteness
Reflections 3
4. No Place Like Home: The “Ordinary” Midwest through
Popular Fiction and Fantasy. Coauthored with Jada Basdeo
Reflections 4
5. Theater of Whiteness: Mass Media Discourse on the
Midwest Region. Coauthored with Lena Hanschka
Reflections 5
Conclusion
Appendix A: Filmography in Chapter 4
Appendix B: Bibliography of Media Articles in Chapter 5
Notes
References
Index
