Imagining the Heartland

White Supremacy and the American Midwest

Britt E. Halvorson, Joshua O. Reno

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English

University of California Press
21 June 2022

Archaeology

An overdue examination of the Midwest's long influence on nationalism and white supremacy.

Though many associate racism with the regional legacy of the South, it is the Midwest that has upheld some of the nation’s most deep-seated convictions about the value of whiteness. From Jefferson’s noble farmer to The Wizard of Oz, imagining the Midwest has quietly gone hand-in-hand with imagining whiteness as desirable and virtuous. Since at least the U.S. Civil War, the imagined Midwest has served as a screen or canvas, projecting and absorbing tropes and values of virtuous whiteness and its opposite, white deplorability, with national and global significance. Imagining the Heartland provides a poignant and timely answer to how and why the Midwest has played this role in the American imagination.

In Imagining the Heartland, anthropologists Britt Halvorson and Josh Reno argue that there is an unexamined affinity between whiteness, Midwestness, and Americanness, anchored in their shared ordinary and homogenized qualities. These seemingly unremarkable qualities of the Midwest take work; they do not happen by default. Instead, creating successful representations of ordinary Midwestness, in both positive and negative senses, has required cultural expression through media ranging from Henry Ford’s assembly line to Grant Wood’s famous “American Gothic.” Far from being just another region among others, the Midwest is a political and affective logic in racial projects of global white supremacy. Neglecting the Midwest means neglecting the production of white supremacist imaginings at their most banal and at their most influential, their most locally situated and their most globally dispersed.

By: Britt E. Halvorson, Joshua O. Reno
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 318g
ISBN: 9780520387614
ISBN 10: 0520387619
Pages: 234
Publication Date: 21 June 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Reflections 1 Section 1: Challenging Ideas of the Midwest 1. The Midwest and White Virtue Reflections 2 2. Heartland Histories Section II : Regional Mythmaking 3. Inside Out: The Global Production of Insular Whiteness Reflections 3 4. No Place Like Home: The “Ordinary” Midwest through Popular Fiction and Fantasy. Coauthored with Jada Basdeo Reflections 4 5. Theater of Whiteness: Mass Media Discourse on the Midwest Region. Coauthored with Lena Hanschka Reflections 5 Conclusion Appendix A: Filmography in Chapter 4 Appendix B: Bibliography of Media Articles in Chapter 5 Notes References Index

Britt E. Halvorson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Colby College and author of Conversionary Sites: Transforming Medical Aid and Global Christianity from Madagascar to Minnesota. Joshua O. Reno is Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University and author of Waste Away: Working and Living with a North American Landfill and Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness.

Reviews for Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest

"""Informatively enhanced for the reader . . . Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest is a timely and invaluable contribution to our on-going national discussions concerning racism and discrimination."" * Midwest Book Review *"