Deep Routes: The Midwest in All Directions

Deep Routes: The Midwest in All Directions collects essays from the Compass Collaborators and their extended networks of colleagues and conspirators. It is a collection of stories about learning where we are – by inhabiting, traversing, and exchanging narratives in the expansive region that some people call the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor. Emerging from a geologic territory shaped by retreating Pleistocene ice sheets and further carved by generations of plant, animal and human habitation, these essays contemplate another planetary shift that has transformed our very existence: global neoliberal capitalism. The authors critically reflect on the nature of territory, citizenship, mobility and the possibilities for a more just and egalitarian society. Drawing from sites within the the Midwest (such as parts of Minneapolis, Detroit, Rockford, Madison, Southern Illinois) and excursions far beyond it (locales as distant as Togo, China and Argentina) the twenty-seven contributors explore the wealth of associations these many journeys have nurtured. With contributions from: Phil Bellfy, Jen Blai, Rozalinda Borcila, Nicholas Brown, Alan Corbiere, Jill Doerfler, Bonnie Fortune, Ryan Griffis, Abbilyn Harmon, Brian Holmes, Sarah Kanouse, Nicholas Lampert, Sarah Lewison, Jenna Loyd, Don Lyons, Dylan Miner, Faranak Miraftab, Shiri Pasternak, Claire Pentecost, Ryan Rice, Matthias Regan, Sarah Ross, Kristin Schimik, Heath Schultz, Daniel Tucker, Dan S. Wang, and Mike Wolf