Rust Belt Blues

Alison Stine's Rust Belt Blues is a book-length work of linked creative nonfiction essays set in former manufacturing towns in Ohio, Indiana, and upstate New York. In pieces that range from autobiography to literary journalism, she focuses on abandoned places and people in the area known as the Rust Belt--a section of ex-industrial centers stretching from New York to Chicago--covering such topics as feral houses, graffiti, and the blues. She researches the Westinghouse factory that once employed a third of her hometown, explores a shuttered amusement park, re-visits a neglected asylum, and writes of rural poverty. In her critical introduction “The Abandoned Houses are All of Us: Toward a Rust Belt Persona,” Stine examines the work of contemporary nonfiction writers born in and / or concerned with the Rust Belt, finding that their work shares traits of deflection, obsession, lying, dark subject matter, and stubborn optimism--what she calls the defining characteristics of the emerging Rust Belt persona.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English (Arts and Sciences)

Grantor dc:publisher

Ohio University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Stine, Alison

Contributors dc:contributor

• Moore, Dinty

• Fine Arts
• Literature
• Creative nonfiction
• essays
• Rust Belt
• Ohio
• factory towns
• poverty
• blues
• Westinghouse
• graffiti
• abandonment
• artists
• art
• crime

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365151197

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:ohiou1365151197