American Farm Stories

Author

Kevin J. SarFollow

Year of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis - Campus Access Only

Degree Type

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Name

Environmental Studies

Department or School/College

Environmental Studies

Committee Chair

Mark Sundeen

Commitee Members

Mark Sundeen, Hilary Faxon, Sam McPhee, Paul Guernsey

Subject Categories

American Studies | Asian American Studies | Creative Writing | Development Studies | Environmental Studies | Food Studies | Nonfiction

Abstract

This environmental writing project is composed of three interrelated stories emerging from the confluence of my life, my grandfather’s life, and farming. Topics addressed include relationships with fathers and grandfathers, notions of inheritance, the selection of agricultural technologies, agricultural development in 1950s India, U.S. postwar foreign aid initiatives, and immigration to the U.S.

"It took me far longer than it should have to recognize my grandparents’ overall story as an inescapably agricultural one.  As I grew more curious about a family story that now seemed to pose more questions than answers, I began to work from the loosest and most subjective of hypotheses — if I had in self-conscious contrivance gone back to the land, perhaps my grandparents, two generations and some sixty years earlier, in trading village life for urban centers first in India and then in the US, were the ones who had left the land to begin with."

Recommended Citation

Sar, Kevin J., "American Farm Stories" (2025). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12604.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12604