Degraded Heartland by Maria Farland Halli's Picks In the wake of Thayer's

In the wake of Thayer's loss

Equal parts dreamlike and disquieting

and it may be too late

I’m filled with hope for a brighter future

that celebrates messiness

Degraded Heartland by Maria Farland Halli's Picks In the wake of Thayer'sHow did rural America come to be viewed as backward and inferior, and how did literary modernism respond to and critique this perception? What happens when rural Americalong romanticized in pastoral literaturebecomes associated with deficiency, degradation, and decline? Maria Farland's Degraded Heartland is the first critical study of US literary antipastoral, a mode that exposes the stark realities of rural poverty and ecological devastation while