UPIKE faculty, students present at Appalachian Studies Conference
0By Cari Moore
Through camera lenses and writers’ pens, UPIKE professors and students presented pieces of the region at the 37th annual Appalachian Studies Conference (ASC). Organizers packed hundreds of events and speakers into a single weekend, March 28-30, at Huntington, W.Va.’s Marshall University. This year’s theme was “New Appalachia: Known Realities and Imagined Possibilities.”
Attending writers from UPIKE included J. Michael King, Basil B. Clark, Sydney C. England, and Amanda J. Runyon.
Clark, associate professor of speech and theatre, presented poems from his book, “War Wounded: Let the Healing Begin.” He also did a presentation on character acting in the classroom.
“I did Dr. Thomas Walker- an early Kentucky explorer. I did him in costume and showed how you could use this technique to bring the character to life,” Clark said.
Clark felt that the conference could be valuable to students.
“There’s such a wide variety of sessions to learn more in your field or just to experience what is going on in the world of Appalachian Studies,” he said.
He saw the conference as an opportunity to make “new connections with people,” including those “that are concerned with veterans’ issues,” and to “meet other people with a common goal.” It also provides an opportunity to reconnect with people that you know.
“I met someone that I hadn’t seen for 25 years,” Clark said of West Virginia writer, educator and politician, Bob Henry Baber.
The documentary’s presenters and participants included, Dr. John L. Howie, Darrell N. Riffe, and students Jacob Stratton and Brian Dunn. The presentation was entitled, “Revisiting Stereotypes: From Mockumentary to Documentary.”
“A Bucket of Chicken” is a documentary about a mockumentary- “Der Ewige Hillbilly.” The name stands for “The Eternal Hillbilly.” The title is a play on the Nazi propaganda film, “Der Ewige Juden,” which translates to, “The Eternal Jew.” That film grossly exaggerated Jewish stereotypes. The makers of “Der Ewige Hillbilly” sought to do the same with mountain stereotypes, but with a different goal in mind.
“The purpose was to expose the ridiculousness of Appalachian stereotypes,” said Riffe, adjunct instructor of film studies.
Professor of psychology, Howie, who played the part of Leonard Maynard, said that he felt the film’s purpose was “to get the people who participate[d] to not be bothered by [the stereotypes].”
“Der Ewige Hillbilly” was produced and presented 12 years ago when Riffe was still a student.
Riffe played the character, Gabriel Maynard.
“Gabe was the quintessential Appalachian preacher,” Riffe said. “We pushed the stereotypes to the limits and with Gabe, we touched on the over-religiousness, incestuous, and abusive husband.”
Riffe also worked on the first film’s production and editing.
“I did everything, pretty much, for Der Ewige. That’s why it doesn’t look very good,” he said, laughing. “I was basically interviewed in the follow up [“A Bucket of Chicken”], but contributed to the idea and helped the students involved.”
In “A Bucket of Chicken,” students interviewed the first film’s participants about Appalachian stereotypes, the university’s evolution and how their lives had progressed.
“It’s a narrative of transformation,” Howie said of the follow-up film.
“It was really focused on how people can change and how far the university has come…,” said sophomore film student, Dunn.
Dunn and Stratton, who conducted the interviews, also spoke on camera.
“Jacob [Stratton] and I each did our own interview about what we took away from the experience and how it affected our perception of stereotypes,” Dunn said.
According to Dunn and Howie, the name, “A Bucket of Chicken,” was based on the budget of “Der Ewige Hillbilly.”
“That was our budget- a bucket of chicken,” Howie said. Dunn said that it was the only thing purchased for the film.
Riffe said that it taught him “how hard it was to make a film.”
“It is a serious process that takes dedication, craftsmanship and hard work,” he said. “Der Ewige was a great experience for me as a student. It helped me see a side of academia I had yet been exposed to.”
Howie felt that the experience was beneficial to student participants, as well.
“Taking students to the conference is very important because they get out of their comfort zone, they get out of the ‘head of the holler,'” he said.
Participants also gained experience in public speaking during a question and answer session with the audience.
Riffe recalled one particularly memorable moment from the panel discussion.
“There was one gentleman that felt our title for the original film discredited its purpose, because it was taken from a Nazi propaganda piece, Der Ewige Juden (The Eternal Jew). He felt it trivialized what had happened to the Jewish people during the Holocaust. I don’t feel his assessment was accurate of our film. It might have hit close to home for him because he said his wife’s mother was a Holocaust survivor,” Riffe said.
Dunn, Howie, and Riffe revealed that they might be producing another film in the future with a similar bent. They are thinking of producing a film about zombies in the region. The tentative title is “Bloodbillies.”