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SoSe 21: The Crisis of Rural America

Harald Wenzel

Kommentar

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the vulnerabilities of the rural “heartland” of the United States. Trends like depopulation, loss of jobs, of educational facilities, of health care providers, the rural opioid crisis, the increase of suicide rates all mark a process of deterioration. The course will attempt a diagnosis of the current state of rural America and analyze possible causes – thereby including the historical, political, and economic context. ----- The challenges of the future will be included as well. Fighting the climate change and its immediate and protracted consequences needs a resilient population caring for a sustainable way of life. Conflicting economic and political interests might be seen as -to say the least – complicating the effort to achieve this resiliency. ----- One aspect which will be highlighted in the course is generational change: Particularly the problem how family farms come to terms with this problem might be worth looking onto to evaluate the possible outcome of the effort to increase resiliency. ----- There is a host of additional aspects – e.g., the role of the food industry or of migrant workers – that might be covered in the course as well. It is planned to take the participants’ research interests into consideration. Recommended as an introductory reading: Robert Wuthnow, The Left Behind. Decline and Rage in Rural America, Princeton 2018: Princeton UP (consult the course’s Bb page) Schließen