MADISON, Wis. -- A UW-Madison professor is revisiting "Hillbilly Elegy"-- JD Vance’s memoir-- eight years after the book was picked by the university as the "Go Big Read" book of the year.
Hillbilly Elegy describes Vance’s experience in Appalachia, Kentucky and upbringing in Middletown, Ohio– diving into concepts such as poverty, addiction, and "hillbilly culture." This was published in 2016, and in 2017 UW-Madison chose to distribute the book through the “Go Big Read” reading program. This program selects one book per academic year to give to all the incoming freshmen and center discussion around the book’s themes, like a massive book club.
“It's our job to help you mix it up,” said previous Chancellor of UW-Madison, Rebecca Blank at the 2017 Fall Convocation. “Hillbilly Elegy is about poverty and about people who have lost hope. It's about the social, economic, and political forces that shaped places like the Ohio steel town and the Appalachian community in Kentucky.”
Hillbilly Elegy was incorporated into the curriculum of some professors and analyzed by academics and students alike. Here and now in 2024, a professor reviews his 2017 notes on Vance's book.
“With the republican vice-presidential pick being JD Vance, you know, I returned to the book and it kind of prompted me to think about what I learned,” said UW Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Humanities, Russ Castronovo.
Castronovo participated in discussions with students and experts in political science, healthcare, and sociology— all for the sake of academic analysis of the book.
“It describes poverty as a personal failing. Right. As really a matter of laziness, and it doesn't really understand there are systemic forces at play,” Castronovo said.
Castronovo says the book oversimplifies poverty and addiction… where Vance draws conclusions on people in society based on his lived experience.
“He really kind of personalizes these issues and making it a matter of one's own responsibility, own agency suggesting, then I think in the book at various points that ‘poor people lack agency,’” Castronovo said.
The professor recalled some of his notes to add quotations— from the book itself— to this claim.
“Quote, 'the rhetoric of hard work conflicts with the reality on the ground,” Castronovo reads off. “He's saying, you know, well, we all talk about how hard work, but the people in rural America or in Appalachia, well, they talk about hard work, but they're not doing it.”
For someone running for a position in office, Vance's book and beliefs don't match up according to Castronovo.
“It's ironic that someone seeking a position in government wouldn't believe or would diminish the role that government has in helping people,” Castronovo said.
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