Ozarkers
OZARKERS/HNRC 301VH-001
THURSDAYS, 2-3:15 p.m., Fall 2022
GEAR 258
Note: No application required. This is a one-credit course. Only register for one hour of credit.
The Ozarks is a place often described by outsiders: hillbillies, moonshiners, regressive, insular, and more. But how have Ozarkers thought about themselves over the years? What are these assumptive descriptions really saying? And how is this region redefined in the age of Walmart and Netflix? By joining classic texts from the Arkansas and Missouri uplands (spanning folklore to science fiction) with healthy doses of history, nature writing, and anthropology, students will explore how Ozarkers have been engaged in meaning-making in this place during the American Century--and maybe help redefine these old hills.
About Jared Phillips:
A fifth generation Ozarker, Jared Phillips and his wife Lindi use draft horses to
run an old fashioned Ozark farm on the western edge of the Arkansas Ozarks where they
raise heritage sheep, hogs, and forage. In addition to farming, Jared teaches on rural
development, human rights, and food security at the University of Arkansas in the
International and Global Studies Program. Among his other projects, Phillips helped
found the Ozarkansas Tool Library, and is the author of Hipbillies: Deep Revolution in the Arkansas Ozarks (University of Arkansas Press, 2019). His current projects examine the negotiation
between modernity and tradition in the cultural landscapes of the Arkansas Ozarks
and the British Lake District.