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PS 456G SPRING 2009
APPALACHIAN POLITICS
TR 9:30AM-10:45AM CB 233
 AppalachianPolitics.pbwiki.com
INTRODUCTION:
Then: “
Almost heaven, West Virginia…
”. Now: “
Almost level, West Virginia…
”. Welcome to theAppalachia of the 21
st
century! This course on Appalachia is designed to gaze Janus-like on thismountainous region, looking at the examples, culture and political struggles of the past as we seek tounderstand its present, and from there to explore the future of the people, politics, culture and economicsof Appalachia. Geographically, we will be focusing on what is commonly referred to as “central”Appalachia – the mountains of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, southeast Ohio, southwest Virginia,northeast Tennessee and western North Carolina. Intellectually, we will be grappling with the followingthemes:
•
 
Understanding the Dynamics of Space and Place and the Construction of Appalachia – What do wemean by the terms Appalachia and Appalachian? How can we conceive of Appalachia as a site ofmultiple and contested spaces and places, and how does this impact our understandings of power,knowledge, culture, community, democracy, economy and environment?
•
 
Power/Knowledge and Resistance – What is power? How is it constructed and used (and by whom)?What role does the construction of knowledge play in this process? What are the sources andmethods of resistance?
•
 
Policy Roads Taken and Not Taken and their impacts on the past, present and future of the region.
•
 
Sustaining Appalachia – Building a region that works environmentally, economically and politically.The lens through which we will explore these themes will be through the conceptual and methodologicalframeworks of futures studies. Harold Lasswell is rightfully recognized as the father of policy studieswithin the discipline of Political Science. Less well-known, however, is Lasswell
ʼ
s interest in future studiesas a legitimate policy analysis and development framework. In Appalachian Politics this semester, we willbe thinking about the possible futures of Appalachia as futurists. To this end, a good deal of our classtime will be spend learning methods of environmental scanning, systems thinking and analysis andscenario building. The goal for the course is that you will complete the course with a good workingknowledge of contemporary Appalachia, it
ʼ
s promises and problems, and a good introductory knowledgeof what it means to be a working political futurist.
If you are looking for a class in the “horse race” approach to local and regional politics,
 
this is not the class for you.
Rather than focusing on local governments and elections and aprocedural/institutional/constitutional approach to studying politics, we will be focusing on the politicalprocesses underlying these phenomena. To do so, we will largely focus on political theoreticalapproaches to the subject, but always grounded in local case studies and histories. If you
ʼ
re interested ininterrogating the “why” and not just the “what” of Appalachian politics, then this is the course for you. Beadvised that the reading level for this course will at times be quite heavy, and how well things go for youindividually, and for the class as a whole, will depend to a large extent on how well you participate inclass, to what extent you keep up with the readings, and how ready you are to discuss and critique thesubject matter and course materials. This will be an active learning environment, so be ready for all thatentails! Welcome aboard!
 
 
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INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION:
Instructor:
Dr. Christopher S. Rice
Email:
Christopher.Rice@uky.edu
Office:
1649 Patterson Office Tower
Telephone:
257-7030
Office Hours:
TR 3:30pm-5pm
Web:
christopherscottrice.com
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Grades and Examinations:
Your final course grade will be based on
four (4)components
:
•
 
Class Preparation & Participation
–
15%
 
•
 
Systems Thinking Take-Home Exam – 15%
 
•
 
Environmental Scanning Journal – 30%
 
•
 
Scenarios Project – 40%
 
Course Readings
:
The following texts are required reading for this course:
•
 
Ronald Eller, Uneven Ground. ISBN:978-0-8131-2523-7
•
 
Andy Hines & Peter Bishop, eds. Thinking About the Future. ISBN: 978-0-9789317-0-4
•
 
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline. ISBN: 978-0-385-51725-6
•
 
Readings Packet (Available @ UK Bookstore in February)
Class Participation & Preparation:
 
Because this course is designed around acollaborative research and learning approach, attendance is absolutely necessary to your success, aswell as that of the course. You will be expected to come to each class session having completed allreadings assigned for that class period and prepared a brief (one-page or less, bullet points optional)summary of key points for that day
ʼ
s readings with a few questions or provocative points to guide ourday
ʼ
s discussion. You must bring two printed copies of this paper with you to each class session (one forme, one for you). If you feel that you cannot devote the time to this course that is expected (2.5 hours in-class + 8-10 hours out of class per week), then you may want to consider dropping the course. For thoseof you willing to invest the time, however, I promise you a rewarding experience! Class participationcounts for 15% of your total course grade.
Systems Thinking Take-Home Exam:
 
There will be a 5-6 page take-home examassessing your understanding of systems thinking and analysis, worth 15% of your total course grade.The exam question will be posted to the course wiki on March 5 and must be turned in to me at thebeginning of class on March 12.
Environmental Scanning Journal:
 
One of the key tasks for any futurist is to performenvironmental scanning. We will discuss this activity in the semester and learn how some professionalfuturists go about it. For purposes of this class, you will need to keep a public record of the sources youacquire during the semester and the open files you build in the interest of contributing to a courseknowledge base for the Scenarios Project (see below). There are many ways to go about this, some morecentralized, some decentralized. Many of you will likely use a tumblelog system, or a blog/socialbookmarking/shared items process. Some of you may elect to keep your notes in a personal wiki. We willreview all of these options in class. Whatever method you choose, you must give me a one-paragraph(word processed) description of your method – including all relevant page links – at the beginning of classon January 27. This assignment should not be terribly onerous. All it requires is that you begin the
 
 
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environmental scanning process related to Appalachia at the beginning of the semester, building thecommon knowledge base that will provide much of the research for the Scenarios Project. I expect goodgrammar and spelling, but I don
ʼ
t wish you to obsess over such things. Essentially, you will be keeping anopen research notebook for the semester, to be contributed to at least weekly. I will be checking yourScanning Journal at least every other week, so you will need to stay up-to-date with your work on thisassignment. Your participation sheets (see above) can also be entered into this journal. This is your placeto store links to websites, articles, data sources, pictures, videos, etc. that are relevant to our explorationof trends analysis in Appalachia. I will explain this requirement in full in class on January 20 and 22. Your journal work will constitute 30% of your total course grade.
Appalachian Futures Scenario Project:
The largest part of your work for the classthis semester will be the production of a scenario or scenarios examining potential policy futures for theAppalachian region. We will decide as a class how to proceed with this project – as one large group or asseveral smaller groups – before Spring Break. At that point I will determine the total requirements for eachclass member. You should, however, expect to contribute at least 3500 words to the text portion of theproject, as well as contributing research, bibliographic work, photos, video, infographics, editing, etc. Yourwork for this project will constitute 40% of your course grade. While you will be graded primarily on yourindividual work, a portion of your grade will be determined by the overall quality of the scenario project. Inother words, both your work as an individual and as a group member is important! All work on thescenario project must be completed and posted to the course wiki by
May 1, 2009
.
Technological Willingness:
This course requires the use of various Internet technologies.At minimum you will be required to use email and set up an account on PBWiki. To do the EnvionmentalScanning Journal properly, you will likely need to set up a social bookmarking account (DeliciousMa.gnolia). a feed reader (Google Reader, Bloglines), and a blogging platform (Tumblr, Blogger,Wordpress). You may even want to use a service like Twitter or Plurk for collaboration with yourclassmates. I will show you how to do this in class. You don
ʼ
t need to be an expert in these things, oreven familiar with them to enroll in this class. However, you must be willing to become familiar with thesetools and get somewhat comfortable using them. Don
ʼ
t Panic! I
ʼ
ll be there to help you, but you must bewilling to try.
COURSE POLICIES:
Classroom Standards:
 
I expect all students to behave in a professional manner during classtime.
This means coming to class on time and being ready to start class at 9:30am.
It isdisrespectful to me and to your fellow students to come late and disrupt class, so be on time. I will nottolerate chronic tardiness, and if you arrive to class more than 5 minutes late, you may be asked to turnaround and leave. Also, unless you have obtained prior approval from me, you may not leave class early.Furthermore, I do not tolerate rude and disruptive classroom behavior. During class, refrain from engagingin non-relevant and distracting side-conversations, reading a newspaper, doing crosswords, sudoku orother puzzles/games, sleeping, text messaging or other cellphone use, or listening to your iPod or other.mp3 players. When in class, turn-off your cell phones – silencing will not suffice when many of yourphones have a “vibrate” function that could crack a walnut. Laptops and other internet access devicesARE permitted in class for taking notes and looking up material relevant to that day
ʼ
s work on the internet.Please do not abuse this privilege by using your internet access device to Facebook, do email shop onlineor play games. I reserve the right to dismiss from class any student in violation of these policies.
Email Policy:
You may always feel free to contact me via email. However, I do have a few generalguidelines you must follow when doing so.
Always begin the subject line of an email to me with “PS456G:”.
This will put your email into the appropriate inbox, allowing me to respond to your email in atimely fashion. Emails that do not have “PS 456G:” at the beginning of the subject line may not receive a
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