Professor Pruitt discusses anthology 'Appalachian Reckoning' at North Carolina meeting

Professor Lisa Pruitt participated in a roundtable discussion about the new anthology Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to “Hillbilly Elegy,” at the 46th Appalachian Studies Association meeting, held March 16 in Asheville, N.C.

Pruitt contributed a chapter to Appalachian Reckoning, a response to author J.D. Vance’s portrayal of Appalachia in his best-selling 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis. Dwight Garner, in his New York Times review of Appalachian Reckoning, praised Pruitt’s essay, “What Hillbilly Elegy Reveals About Race in 21st Century America.”

Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at UC Davis School of Law, is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race and ethnicity. Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.