Appalachian studies is the

area studies Area studies, also known as regional studies, is an interdisciplinary field of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/ federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what a ...

field concerned with the

Appalachia Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...

n region of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Scholarship

Some of the first well-known Appalachian scholarship was done by Cratis D. Williams. His 1937 MA thesis in English from the University of Kentucky focused on 471 ballads and songs from eastern Kentucky and his 1961 PhD dissertation at New York University was called "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction" with part of it appearing in ''The Appalachian Journal'' 1975–76.

Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. It was integrated from as early as 1866 ...

president W.D. Weatherford received a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

grant in 1957 to underwrite an exhaustive regional study, ''The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey'', published in 1962, which many see as the beginning of the modern Appalachian studies movement. In 1966,

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

librarian Robert F. Munn noted that "more nonsense has been written about the Southern Mountains than any comparable area in the United States." He also observed that there was "distressingly little in the way of useful primary and secondary materials" available for historical research on Appalachia". Over the four decades since Munn's comments, a wealth of excellent Appalachian scholarship has been published. Appalachian Studies is interdisciplinary, as befits the study of a complex and diverse region and people. Appalachian Studies includes such disciplines as

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

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education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, environment,

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

and folk customs, labor issues, women's issues,

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

community organizing Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community buil ...

economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

demography Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...

, migration, and urban & rural planning. Appalachian scholarship has addressed – and continues to address – various issues within all of these academic disciplines. Several academic journals are dedicated to Appalachian Studies, including ''Appalachian Journal'', published by

Appalachian State University Appalachian State University (), or App State, is a Public university, public research university in Boone, North Carolina, United States. It was founded as a normal school, teachers' college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and th ...

, ''Journal of Appalachian Studies'', published by the Appalachian Studies Association, ''Now & Then'', published by

East Tennessee State University East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. It was historically part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee under the Tennessee Board of Regents, but since 2016, ...

, and ''Appalachian Heritage'', published by Berea College. Much of the scholarship and research about Appalachia is done by scholars who are members of the Appalachian Studies Association.

Academics

A number of colleges and universities in and around Appalachia offer courses and degrees in Appalachian Studies. These range from a Master of Arts in Appalachian Studies offered at Appalachian State University, Shepherd University, and East Tennessee State University, to undergraduate minors at a dozen schools. Many schools also have Appalachian Studies collections and archives in their libraries.

Brief bibliography

The following is a brief list of important books in the Appalachian Studies canon that would serve as a good introductory reading list. These titles were culled from a poll of members of the Steering Committee of the Appalachian Studies Association taken in the Spring of 2007. * * * * * * * * * * *

References

Sources

* Appalachian Studies Association
"Appalachian Libraries and Archives,"
Appalachian Studies Association Website. 2007. Accessed May 4, 2007 * Appalachian Studies Association
"Appalachian Studies Syllabi,"
Appalachian Studies Association Website. 2007. Accessed May 9, 2007 * Appalachian Studies Association
"Marie Tedesco's Selected Bibliography,"
Appalachian Studies Association Website. 2007. Accessed April 22, 2007 * Appalachian Studies Association
"Programs in Appalachian Studies,"
Appalachian Studies Association Website. 2007. Accessed May 22, 2007

External links

For a list of Appalachian Studies journals and magazines, refer t
Marie Tedesco's Selected Bibliography
on the Appalachian Studies Association website. For more detailed bibliographies, refer to th
Bibliography section
of the ASA website. For teachers who would like to incorporate Appalachian Studies content into their classroom, the ASA website includes a list of Appalachian Studie
syllabi
for college and university teachers, as well as a list of resources for K-12 teachers.
Appalachian Studies
at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

Digital Library of Appalachia

"Space, Place, and Appalachia"

University of Kentucky Appalachian Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Appalachian Studies American studies Appalachia Appalachian culture Society of Appalachia