In the 2017-18 school year, BLAST participants explored the culture, history, politics, and economy of eastern Kentucky and the greater Central Appalachian region. They were exposed to a variety of viewpoints, considering both the critical perspectives of writers and thinkers from within the region, as well as how the region is often portrayed by outsiders. BLAST does not necessarily endorse any of these viewpoints. The materials included some of the following:
BOOKS
They’ll Cut Off Your Project by Huey Perry
Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill
The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case by Helen Lewis, et al.
High Mountains Rising: Appalachia in Time and Place
Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll
NEWS ARTICLES & ESSAYS
Reflections on Bringing Justice to the Citizens of Appalachia by John Rosenburg (Founder of AppalReD)
What’s the Matter with Eastern Kentucky? by Annie Lowrey (The NYT Magazine)
Silas House on Eastern Kentucky: ‘I am that smudge’ by Silas House
(A response to “What’s the Matter with Eastern Kentucky?”)
Kentucky is My Fate by bell hooks
Advanced Black Lung Cases Surge in Appalachia (NPR)
What kind of a childhood is that? (Washington Post)
J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America (The New Republic)
Breathless and Burdened (Center for Public Integrity on Black Lung Disease)
The Economic Colonization of Rural America; Increasing Vulnerability in a Volatile World by John Ikerd
FILM & TELEVISION
The Adversity of a Child’s Life in Rural Kentucky