Shifting Rurality American Gothic, Iowa Nice, Biotech and Political Expectations in Rural America

Authors

William D. Nichols 890252, Bath Spa UniversityFollow

Abstract

This paper traces the linkage between heritage landscape within the context of the election of Donal Trump. Trump's invocations of heritage riled certain regions of the US which had a distinct connection to Regionalism, both as a political idea and as an aesthetic practice. Focusing on Iowa, home to the quintessential American painting, American Gothic, the paper looks at modernity and agriculture, and how the two categories seem to rely on (but also negate) heritage. By examining what a genetically modified landscape might mean in relation to the historical image of the pastoral/provincial farmer, a network of frictions and tensions emerge. These building dichotomies have both emancipatory and hegemonic potentials especially with the enmeshment of all things in global scale capitalism.

Author Biography

William D. Nichols is an artist and Masters student at Bath Spa University in the Environmental Humanities program. As an artist he worked in New York and Boston with such institutions as the Isabella Gardener Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Knockdown Center and Mobius. His work as an artist informs his research-- both of which revolve largely around his home state of Iowa, the sexual capacities of corn, and disco.

Recommended Citation

Nichols, W. D. (2018). Shifting Rurality American Gothic, Iowa Nice, Biotech and Political Expectations in Rural America. Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language, 8(1).
Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/landscapes/vol8/iss1/22