Special Issue: Ron Rash

The essays compiled in this volume are the fruits of American and European scholars invested in exploring the mysteries in Rash’s short fiction. Some of them are familiar to Rash, both the man and the writer; some have been writing about his work for a while; some have worked with him at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee; some live next door to him. Others are new to the recent, yet flourishing, field of Rash studies; not all of them are specialists of Southern writing, and we wish them all a hearty welcome into this sundry collection. This volume therefore intercrosses readings from within and readings from without, which results in a vivid variety of perspectives. Within the following pages, new lights are shed on some of Ron Rash’s most famous stories as “Chemistry,” “Hard Times,” “Back of Beyond,” “The Ascent,” “Into The Gorge,” “Lincolnites,” or “Something Rich and Strange.” But some of our contributors aptly decided to focus on stories that may be less known to Rash’s readers, which may be the case with “Honesty,” “Blackberries in June,” “Not Waving but Drowning,” “Twenty-Six Days,” “A Sort of Miracle,” “Shiloh” or “Cherokee.” Some of the compiled essays develop in traditional form focusing on specific collections; some are single-story readings; some adopt a more thematic approach, highlighting the motifs of traditions and evolutions; the representations of genders, war or death; the motif of vulnerability; the effects of luck, good and bad; or the relentless need for remembrance. Some essays are more inclined to developing poetic aspects of Rash’s short story writing, as his intertextual echoes, the poetics of lights, or his strategic use of narrative gaps, for instance.

https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/3003