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Rust Belt Blues

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

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
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.
Dinty Moore (Advisor)
234 p.
Fine Arts; Literature
Creative nonfiction; essays; Rust Belt; Ohio; factory towns; poverty; blues; Westinghouse; graffiti; abandonment; artists; art; crime

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Stine, A. (2013). Rust Belt Blues [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365151197

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Stine, Alison. Rust Belt Blues. 2013. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365151197.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Stine, Alison. "Rust Belt Blues." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365151197

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.