Demystifying Rural America

It seems everyone has an opinion about rural America. Is it gripped in a tragic decline? Or is it on the cusp of a glorious revival? Is it the key to understanding America today? In this lecture, historian Steven Conn will argue that we’re missing the real question: Is rural America even a thing? Conn will argue that it is not, explaining how we only see what we want to see in the lands beyond the suburbs—fantasies about moral (or backward) communities, simpler (or repressive) living, and what it means to be authentically (or wrongheadedly) American. If we want to build a better future, Conn will argue, we must accept that these visions don’t exist and never did. Drawing from his recent book, The Lies of the Land, Conn will explain how rural America—so often characterized as in crisis or in danger of being left behind—has actually been at the center of modern American history, shaped by the same forces as the rest of the country: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization. Ultimately, Conn will invite attendees to dispense with the common lies and half-truths about rural America and to pursue better solutions to the real challenges we face throughout our nation.

Biography

Steven Conn is the W. E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is the author of many books, including The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is – and Isn’t, Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century, and Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools, as well as many articles, reviews, and essays. In addition, he is the founding editor of the on-line magazine Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective and its spin off Picturing Black History a collaboration with Getty Images. He has lectured all over the country and around the world.

Suggested Readings

• Conn, Steven. The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is and Isn’t. The University of Chicago Press, 2023. 
• Conn, Steven. Americans against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 2016.