Flyover Fictions critically engages the history and contemporary use of the "flyover country" trope in American culture and repurposes the concept as an abstract tool for cultural studies. The term "flyover" arose in the 1970s with variations-"flyover country," "flyover states"-mainly used as synonyms for the American Midwest in intranational banter regarding cultural differences from the dominant urban centers of New York City and Los Angeles. In recent years, the trope has shifted away from this playfulness and its traditional geographic reference points to indicate larger political and cultural developments that speak of a deepening polarization in the United States. Flyover Fictions is an exploration of the trope's current politicization, historical contexts, and general proliferation of meanings. Instead of resolving the ambiguities inherent in the concept, the volume considers what can be done with these ambiguities, and how precisely their fuzziness might be used to create an analytic tool to describe, understand, and critique processes of cultural hierarchization. The contributors show how flyover fictions may operate in different national contexts and also internationally or transnationally, not only providing a fresh perspective on historical and contemporary American culture but also supplying a conceptual toolbox for broader use.
Cornelia Klecker is an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Innsbruck. She is the author of Spoiler Alert! Mind-Tricking Narratives in Contemporary Hollywood Film and the editor in chief of the Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies. Sascha POEhlmann is a professor of American literature and culture at Technical University Dortmund. He is the author of Future-Founding Poetry: Topographies of Beginnings from Whitman to the Twenty-First Century and Vote with a Bullet: Assassination in American Fiction.
List of Illustrations Introduction: What Are Flyover Fictions? Cornelia Klecker and Sascha POEhlmann Part 1. Flyover Fictions and Contemporary U.S.-American Politics 1. Rethinking "Flyover Country" in the Age of American Hyperpolarization Anthony Harkins 2. Flyover Fiction as Republican Identity Politics Cornelia Klecker Part 2. Constructing Flyover Fictions in and with Film 3. "If You Build It . . .": The Sports Experience Economy and Heartland Dreams Victoria E. Johnson 4. Flying over the "Forgotten Man": Affective Affordances, Sentimentalism, and White Working-Class Masculinity in Contemporary U.S. Cinema Stefan Schubert 5. The Midwestern Gothic in It Follows and Only Lovers Left Alive: Acceleration, Vacancy, and Insiders/Outsiders Adam R. Ochonicky Part 3. Flyover Fictions in Twentieth-Century Literature 6. The Literary Beginnings of Flyover Fiction in the 1920s Sascha POEhlmann 7. Writing the Midwest in Exile: Robert McAlmon's Village: As It Happened through a Fifteen Year Period and Queer Distance Ben Robbins 8. Flying over a Lynching: Constructions of Group Identity in Ralph Ellison's "A Party Down at the Square" Martin Holtz Part 4. Flyover Fictions in Twenty-First-Century Literature 9. Aerial Views, Pedestrian Ways: Fragmentation in D. J. Waldie's Holy Land Dominika Ferens 10. "A Little Agony Was Just What This Place Needed": Looking for California in Claire Vaye Watkins's Gold Fame Citrus and Lydia Kiesling's The Golden State Michael Docherty 11. Destination Flyover State: The Transnational Perspective of Joachim Meyerhoff's All the Dead Fly Up: America Sandra Tausel Part 5. Finding Flyover Fictions (in Unusual Places and Unusual Ways) 12. Looking Back to Move Forward? Constructing Medieval Heritage in the Midwest Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand and Kristan Cockerill 13. Straight TikTok as Digital Flyover Country Mark Nunes Literary Epilogue Watchmaking: A Short Story Tom Drury Contributors Index
"Flyover Fictions contributes to its field with its warning: 'Coastals' insulting 'Flyovers' (or vice versa) have practically become the muzzle flashes that Yank versus Johnny Reb and that Yankee versus Tory once were. An eclectic discussion, the volume's scholarship is cutting-edge. Flyover Fictions should serve advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and specialized readers."-Russell Burrows, author of Reading Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose" "The recent politicization of the term 'flyover' is one of the reasons the subject is particularly important at the moment. The balancing act between an examination of flyover country as a place connected at least tangentially to a particular geography and an exploration of flyover country as a broader concept with multiple applications is well done. This is a well-thought-out collection that reads as a cohesive whole."-Michael K. Johnson, author of Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre
