Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist
In this essay I discuss the short stories of the Appalachian and West Virginian writer Breece D’J Pancake (1952-1979) in order to reflect on the ways in which the experience of peripherality comes to be registered in literature. Taking the cue from recent articulations of world literature as the lit...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Croatian Philological Society
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Umjetnost Riječi |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/418636 |
| _version_ | 1797975441702649856 |
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| author | Sven Cvek |
| author_facet | Sven Cvek |
| author_sort | Sven Cvek |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this essay I discuss the short stories of the Appalachian and West Virginian writer Breece D’J Pancake (1952-1979) in order to reflect on the ways in which the experience of peripherality comes to be registered in literature. Taking the cue from recent articulations of world literature as the literature of the capitalist world system, I argue that Pancake is a peripheral modernist: the formal oscillation between a realism traditionally associated with regionalist writing and “irrealist” elements stands as a mark of his peripherality. Both the class focus of Pancake's stories and their broad environmental theme may be regarded as symptoms of the region’s structural position within the processes of capital accumulation. I maintain that there is a utopian impulse permeating Pancake’s fiction. It can be located in Pancake’s descriptions of the environment and the temporal disjunctions present in his stories. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T04:35:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-345287e22e604876ba24cbf57de9fb54 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0503-1583 1849-1693 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T04:35:35Z |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | Croatian Philological Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Umjetnost Riječi |
| spelling | doaj.art-345287e22e604876ba24cbf57de9fb542022-12-28T14:02:47ZengCroatian Philological SocietyUmjetnost Riječi0503-15831849-16932022-12-0166219921810.22210/ur.2022.066.2/04Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernistSven Cvek0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3330-9421University of ZagrebIn this essay I discuss the short stories of the Appalachian and West Virginian writer Breece D’J Pancake (1952-1979) in order to reflect on the ways in which the experience of peripherality comes to be registered in literature. Taking the cue from recent articulations of world literature as the literature of the capitalist world system, I argue that Pancake is a peripheral modernist: the formal oscillation between a realism traditionally associated with regionalist writing and “irrealist” elements stands as a mark of his peripherality. Both the class focus of Pancake's stories and their broad environmental theme may be regarded as symptoms of the region’s structural position within the processes of capital accumulation. I maintain that there is a utopian impulse permeating Pancake’s fiction. It can be located in Pancake’s descriptions of the environment and the temporal disjunctions present in his stories.https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/418636breece d’j pancakeliterary regionalismcapitalismperipheralitymodernismutopia |
| spellingShingle | Sven Cvek Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist Umjetnost Riječi breece d’j pancake literary regionalism capitalism peripherality modernism utopia |
| title | Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist |
| title_full | Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist |
| title_fullStr | Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist |
| title_full_unstemmed | Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist |
| title_short | Breece D’J Pancake, peripheral modernist |
| title_sort | breece d j pancake peripheral modernist |
| topic | breece d’j pancake literary regionalism capitalism peripherality modernism utopia |
| url | https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/418636 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT svencvek breecedjpancakeperipheralmodernist |