Description
Book SynopsisAdam R. Ochonicky gives a critical overview of the Midwest's symbolic and often contradictory meanings in film and literature. Starting with the frontier writings of Frederick Jackson Turner, this book examines Midwestern film and literary texts stretching from the late-19th century through the beginning of the 21st century.
Trade Review"This is a page-turner in the best sense of the word, for each new page reveals some fresh insight about the period that simply hasn't been examined before."—Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Synthetic Cinema: The 21st Century Movie Machine
"Adam Ochonicky presents an important reading of how nostalgia shapes the Midwest in the American imagination as a place of identity and violence. Past and present slip in this compelling and well researched approach to the workings of contemporary culture."—Vera Dika, author of Recycled Culture: The Uses of Nostalgia in Contemporary Art and Film
"By centering the concept of region, Adam Ochonicky provides an insightful and refreshing reading of American popular culture. In texts ranging from Richard Wright's Native Son to John Carpenter's Halloween, Ochonicky demonstrates the complex terrain of the Midwest in our cultural imaginary and the diverse memories and meanings we project upon it."—Kendall R. Phillips, author of A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema, Syracuse University
"Describing the Midwest as a 'nostalgia museum,' Ochonicky approaches it as a container or showcase for aspects of the nation's self-fashioning (88). As this book thoughtfully shows, certain foundational texts have clearly enabled the forgetting of inconvenient facts and the imposition of more romantic myths. Ochonicky's book reminds us how powerful – and seductive – such regional place stories can be."—Brigid Magner, RMIT University, Literary Geographies
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Nostalgia and Regionalism
PART 1: Twentieth-Century Narratives of Nostalgia and the Midwest
1. Nostalgic Spatiality
2. Spatial Constriction, Race, and Midwestern Stagnation
3. Nostalgic Violence, Nebulous Spaces, and Blank Identities
PART 2: The Millennial Midwest on Film
4. Masculinity, Race, and Violence
5. Locating Sincerity, Disillusionment, and Paranoia
6. Nostalgic Atonement
Conclusion: Nostalgic Frontiers
Afterword: Regionalism and Politics
