The American Pastoral and the Conquest of Space

Terraforming ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 56-97
Author(s):  
Chris Pak
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Final Section ◽  
American South ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
Moral Systems ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The American South

This chapter analyses the American Pastoral in the first terraforming boom of the 1950s. Referencing Ernest J. Yanarella’s discussion of terraforming in The Cross, the Plow and the Skyline: Contemporary Science Fiction and the Ecological Imagination, this chapter begins with the image of the pioneer farmer that attracted westward expansion and its obverse, the portrayal of dystopian societies where the promise of the pastoral is co-opted. This section recalls the “Garden of the Chattel” image of American colonialism, in which pastoral themes sublimate and so conceal the historic fact of slavery that underlay agricultural production in the American South. The final section considers the propensity to extend human moral systems to aliens and how the pastoral and elements of the sublime converge to offer counter-narratives highlighting the ecological devastation caused by the human expansion into space.

scholarly journals When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (3) ◽  
pp. 963-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hornbeck ◽  
Suresh Naidu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
American South ◽  
Capital Intensity ◽  
Black Population ◽  
Black Migration ◽  
The Status ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Impact

In the American South, postbellum economic development may have been restricted in part by white landowners' access to low-wage black labor. This paper examines the impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 on black out-migration and subsequent agricultural development. Flooded counties experienced an immediate and persistent out-migration of black population. Over time, landowners in flooded counties modernized agricultural production and increased its capital intensity relative to landowners in nearby similar non-flooded counties. Landowners resisted black out-migration, however, benefiting from the status quo system of labor-intensive agricultural production. (JEL J15, J43, N32, N52, N92, Q54, R23)

scholarly journals Structural Change and the Fertility Transition

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 806-822
Author(s):  
Philipp Ager ◽  
Benedikt Herz ◽  
Markus Brueckner
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
American South ◽  
Fertility Transition ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Raising Children ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Relationship

This paper provides new insights into the relationship between structural change and the fertility transition. We exploit the spread of an agricultural pest in the American South in the 1890s as plausibly exogenous variation in agricultural production to establish a causal link between earnings opportunities in agriculture and fertility. Households staying in agriculture reduced fertility because children are a normal good, while households switching to manufacturing reduced fertility because of the higher opportunity costs of raising children. The lower earnings opportunities in agriculture also decreased the value of child labor, which increased schooling, consistent with a quantity-quality model of fertility.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Slusser
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
San Diego ◽  
American South ◽  
Military Family ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
The Social ◽  
The American South ◽  
The University

This book explores the life and work of Gregory Benford. Born in 1941 in Mobile, Alabama, Benford has strong roots in the American South. But as member of a military family, he spent much of his adolescence in other countries such as Germany and Japan. In the process he developed a cosmopolitan perspective, which gave rise to a lifelong fascination with “alien” cultures. Benford earned a doctorate in physics at the University of California, San Diego, and received his PhD in 1967. This book examines Benford's distinguished career as science fiction writer as well as his ideas on science and scientists “doing science,” the writing of science fiction, and the social and cultural issues raised by science. It also considers Benford's literary production in terms of its main categories.

Slavery and Class in the American South

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
American South ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
Harriet Jacobs ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
William Wells Brown ◽  
The American South ◽  
Work Family

In this study of an entire generation of slave narrators, more than sixty mid-nineteenth-century narratives reveal how work, family, skills, and connections made for social and economic differences among the enslaved of the South. Slavery and Class in the American South explains why social and economic distinctions developed and how they functioned among the enslaved. Andrews also reveals how class awareness shaped the views and values of some of the most celebrated African Americans of the nineteenth century. Slave narrators discerned class-based reasons for violence between “impudent,” “gentleman,” and “lady” slaves and their resentful “mean masters.” Status and class played key roles in the lives and liberation of the most celebrated fugitives from US slavery, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, and William and Ellen Craft. By examining the lives of the most- and least-acclaimed heroes and heroines of the African American slave narrative, Andrews shows how the dividing edge of social class cut two ways, sometimes separating upper and lower strata of slaves to their enslavers’ advantage, but at other times fueling convictions among even the most privileged of the enslaved that they deserved nothing less than complete freedom.

The Sociology of Country Music

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
American South ◽  
The United States ◽  
Country Music ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Race And Ethnic Relations ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The American South ◽  
Political Realignment

How can a sociological approach improve our understanding of country music? This chapter answers this question by focusing on the intersections between country music history and the core sociological theme of modernity. Challenging standard interpretations of country music as folk culture, it shows how the emergence of the popular commercial genre corresponds to the increasing modernization of the American South. The genre’s subsequent growth and evolution tracks central objects of sociological study including industrialization, geographic mobility, race and ethnic relations, the changing social class structure, political realignment in the United States, and (paradoxically) urbanization. Country music is comparatively understudied in the sociology of music despite its rich history and massive popularity; this chapter shows that the genre and the discipline nevertheless mutually illuminate one another in robust and often surprising ways.

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