American Studies Commons^™

Radical Folk Heroes: Anansi & Br’Er Rabbit’S West African Origins & Their Forced Pilgrimages, Sage Adia Swaby

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

African American Literary Traditions In Justina Ireland’S Young Adult Novels Dread Nation And Deathless Divide, Gabrielle Sleeper

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Justina Ireland’s young adult novels Dread Nation (2017) and Deathless Divide (2020) tell the story of a Black girl by the name of Jane living in the aftermath of the Civil War, around 1880.

Despite The Blues: Richard Wright And Ralph Ellison’S Blues Based Works, Miranda Virginia Reale

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Ain't got no mother, ain't got no culture

Ain't got no friends, ain't got no schoolin'

Ain't got no love, ain't got no name

Ain't got no ticket, ain't got no token

Ain't got no god

–Nina Simone, “Ain’t Got No-I Got Life,” from the album Nuff Said (1968).

In between human intention and reality lies a disproportionate space that Albert Camus labels “the absurd.” Modern man’s affliction is thus absurd, as orthodox systems turn obsolete, the traditional virtues of the past cease to be familiar. The epistemology of the absurd may not have developed from American soil; but I …

Moving Foward?: Problematic Ideologies In Twenty-First Century Fairy Tale Films, Alyson Kilmer

All Master's Theses

Fairy tales, as a reflection of our values and belief systems, are crucial in shaping and maintaining cultural ideologies. In the twenty-first century, cinematic fairy tales have the unique position of representing such values in an expansive and expeditious manner. Audiences must therefore be critically conscious of the messages promoted by these tales. An analysis of the five most popular contemporary fairy tale films, Disney’s Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and Disney’s Frozen (2013) and Maleficent (2014), revealed minimal attempts to propitiate critical audiences in regard to changing cultural values, but …

The People Of Bear Hunter Speak: Oral Histories Of The Cache Valley Shoshones Regarding The Bear River Massacre, Aaron L. Crawford

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Cache Valley Shoshone are the survivors of the Bear River Massacre, where a battle between a group of US. volunteer troops from California and a Shoshone village degenerated into the worst Indian massacre in US. history, resulting in the deaths of over 200 Shoshones. The massacre occurred due to increasing tensions over land use between the Shoshones and the Mormon settlers. Following the massacre, the Shoshones attempted settling in several different locations in Box Elder County, eventually finding a home in Washakie, Utah. However, the LDS Church sold the land where the city of Washakie sat, forcing the Shoshones …

"I Put The Tale Back Where I Found It": Feeling The Past Through "The Warmth Of The Human Voice", Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

In this article, I examine my revelations and growth related to folk culture and literature connected to the African American community. I borrow from and play on the Sudanese formulaic ending for the folktale; it seemed to me appropriate - even obligatory- that "I put the tale back where I found it." This maxim is symbolic, reflecting what I find one of the most characteristic elements of Black folklore - that is, the focus on the group, the community, in terms of the source of the historical situation of the tale; the moral lesson; the content, style, and delivery; and …

The World Would Do Better To Ask Why Is Frimbo Sherlock Holmes?: Investigating Liminality In Rudolph Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies, Adrienne Gosselin

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

African-American Proverbs In Context By Sw. Anand Prahlad (Book Review), Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Growing up in Hanover, Virginia, "surrounded by people who cast the world in vibrant and poetic colors," Sw. Anand Prahlad "fell in love with proverbs at an early age" (ix). This lifelong love affair has resulted in a rich collection of African American proverbs that expanded as Prahlad went through college and graduate school, and did postgraduate research. All the while, he was sharpening his critical skills and developing the theoretical framework to establish a model for use in examining the varied components of proverbial speech in the African American community, proceeding on the assumption that in order to understand …

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 45, No. 1, Joan Saverino, Joseph Bentivegna, Nicholas V. De Leo, Catherine Cerrone, Janet Theophano

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• "Domani Ci Zappa": Italian Immigration and Ethnicity in Pennsylvania
• A Study of the San Cataldesi Who Emigrated to Dunmore, Pennsylvania
• A Look at the Early Years of Philadelphia's "Little Italy"
• "An Aura of Toughness, Too": Italian Immigration to Pittsburgh and Vicinity
• Expressions of Love, Acts of Labor: Women's Work in an Italian American Community

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 44, No. 3, Diane Sidener Young, Anne W. Goda, Susan Kalcik, Woodward S. Bousquet, Monica Mutzbauer

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Conservation and Mediation in the Folk and Traditional Arts of Pennsylvania
• Isaac and Thomas Stahl, the Revival Potters of Powder Valley
• The Folk Art of Decorated Eggs
• Jim Popso and His Coal Country Folk Art
• Leaving the Old World for the New: Rules Governing Emigration from Landau in the Palatinate

Various Black Virginians As Told To Daryl Cumber Dance, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Shuckin' and Jivin': Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans, published in 1978, derived from fieldwork done far a doctoral dissertation at Virginia Commonwealth University by Daryl Cumber Dance (the only woman named Daryl I have heard of aside from Daryl Hannah). She gathered stories and verses from black Virginians in colleges, senior citizens' centers, and a penitentiary. Though she doesn't bring to the party an editorial touch as enlivening as Zora Neale Hurston's, she has an ear and-unlike far, far too many assiduous collectors of folktales - knows how to capture vocal rhythms on a page.

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 37, No. 1, Edward W. Chester, Nancy K. Gaugler, Ralph Connor, William T. Parsons, Roger W. Fromm, Hans F. Sennholz, Guy Graybill

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Franklin in Fact and Fiction: The Double Perspective of Leland Baldwin
• Jost Hite: From the Neckar to the Shenandoah
• The Migration and Settlement of Pennsylvania Germans in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina and Their Effects on the Landscape
• Bethesda Evangelical Church in Farmers Mills: Fact and Folklore
• The Tourist Bureau Shuns Me!

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 33, No. 1, Clement Valletta, Yvonne J. Milspaw, Sara L. Matthews, Allen G. Noble, Jean M. Danis

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Ritual and Folklore in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Region: Old to New World Wonder
• Ordinary Architecture of the Pennsylvania Germans: The Turnpike Houses
• "Set thy House in Order": Inheritance Patterns of the Colonial Pennsylvania Germans
• The Literature on Fences, Walls and Hedges as Cultural Landscape Features
• Aldes un Neies

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 32, No. 4, John F. Harnish Jr., Gladys Sweigard, Richard Shaner, John L. Lakatosh, Karen Lemonnier, Herman A. Danenhower, Dave Ehrig, Thelia Jean Eaby, James Petrucelli, Larry L. Rahn, William Dean Wright, Ronald Kunkel, Cindy Kunkel, Robert Nettleton, Cheryl Nettleton, Jane Ann Stinsmen

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Frakturs
• Apple Head Dolls are Unique
• Tableware and Dutch Folklore
• The Pipemaker
• Wheat Weaving
• Beekeeping: Past and Present
• The Pennsylvania Longrifle
• Festival Focus
• Folk Festival Programs
• Quilts
• The Country Butcher
• Stained Glass
• Metal Casting in Sand
• Is This Pure Leather?
• The Horse and Carriage
• Marquetry, Parquetry and Intarsia
• Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 31, No. 3, John D. Kendig, Henry J. Kauffman, Nancy K. Gaugler, W. L. Eckerd, William T. Parsons, John B. Frantz, Robert G. Adams, Jane Adams Clarke

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Jamison City
• Domestic Architecture in Lancaster County
• Conversation with Marguerite de Angeli
• Who Put the Turnip on the Grave?
• Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch un Pfalzer: Dialect Comparisons Old and New
• John Philip Boehm: Pioneer Pennsylvania Pastor
• The Search for our German Ancestors
• Aldes un Neies

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 30, No. 3, Charles A. Stevenson, Robert P. Stevenson, Mac E. Barrick, William Munro, William T. Parsons, Donald E. Byrne Jr.

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The Good Life on Grandfather's Farm
• The Folklore of Local History
• Pennsylvania-Palatinate Informal Folk Cultural Exchanges
• Maria Assunta: Berwick's Italian Religious Festival
• Aldes un Neies / Old & New

"Aunt Sue's Stories": The Use Of Folklore In The Teaching Of Literature, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

This poem by Langston Hughes, one of America's most prolific poets, suggests the appeal of folklore to the young. Aunt Sue's stories inspire the response that every teacher of literature aspires to elicit from his students. I would like to suggest that the most natural thing in the world for the teacher is to capitalize on this appeal of folklore to help develop an interest in and an appreciation for recorded literature. Folklore can do much to help the student bridge the gap between his own world and what seems to many to be the alien world of Shakespeare. Our …

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 27, No. 2, James Moss, Holly Cutting Baker, Robert A. Barakat, Karl J. R. Arndt

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Gentlemen of the Road: Outlaw-Heroes of Early Pennsylvania in Life & Legend
• Patent Medicine in Pennsylvania Before 1906: A History Through Advertising
• Raising a Tobacco Shed
• Bicentennial Exhibitions and Publications in Germany
• Work and Work Attitudes: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 50

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 23, No. 3, Earl F. Robacker, Louis Winkler, Susan Stewart, Eleanor Yoder, W. Ray Sauers, Mac E. Barrick

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Victorian Wall Mottoes
• Pennsylvania German Astronomy and Astrology VIII: David Rittenhouse
• Sociological Aspects of Quilting in Three Brethren Churches of Southeastern Pennsylvania
• Nicknaming in an Amish-Mennonite Community
• Fruit Harvesting and Preservation in Early Pennsylvania
• Folklore in the Library: Old Schuylkill Tales
• Mills and Milling in Pennsylvania: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 33

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 21, No. 3, Wasyl O. Luciw, George Wynnysky, Donald M. Hines, Lester Breininger, Louis Winkler, Mac E. Barrick, C. Lee Hopple, Friedrich Krebs

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The Ukrainian Pysanka and Other Decorated Easter Eggs in Pennsylvania
• The Development of Folklife Research in the United Kingdom
• Just a Bone
• Pennsylvania German Astronomy and Astrology: Almanacs
• Central Pennsylvania Fishing Spears
• Spatial Development of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Plain Dutch Community to 1970: Part II
• 18th-Century Emigrants from the Palatinate, Lower Alsace, and Rheinhessen
• Tobacco and Tobacco Culture: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 23

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 17, No. 1, Alta Schrock, Mac E. Barrick, Phares H. Hertzog, Ruth Hawthorne, Victor C. Dieffenbach, Robert Boyd, Don Yoder, Friedrich Krebs

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The Council of the Alleghenies
• Lewis the Robber in Life and Legend
• Snakes and Snakelore of Pennsylvania
• The Folklore Repertory of a Third-Grade Class
• Weather Signs and Calendar Lore from the "Dumb Quarter"
• Hardships of Circuit-Rider Life on the Pennsylvania-Ohio Frontier
• Eighteenth-Century Emigration from the Duchy of Zweibrucken
• Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 5: The Pennsylvania Folk-Dance Tradition

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 13, No. 3, Earl F. Robacker, Don Yoder, Leo H. Bixler, Edna Eby Heller, Amos Long Jr., Richard Shaner

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Piece-Patch Artistry
• The Horse and Buggy Dutch
• Pine Tar and its Uses
• Much Ado About Cookies
• Folk Festival Program
• Outdoor Privies in the Dutch Country
• Distillation and Distilleries Among the Dutch
• The Folklife Studies Movement

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 11, No. 1, Clarence Kulp Jr., Earl F. Robacker, Vincent R. Tortora, Alfred L. Shoemaker, Roy C. Kulp, John R. Mumaw, Amos Long Jr., John Cummings, Jane Keplinger Burris, Thomas R. Brendle

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• A Dunker Weekend Love Feast of 100 Years Ago
• The Peacock in Pennsylvania
• The Get-Togethers of the Young Amish Folk
• Church and Meetinghouse Stables and Sheds
• Abraham Harley Cassel - Dunkard Bibliophile
• Mennonite Folklore
• Springs and Springhouses
• Finishing Wooden Surfaces
• Early Funeral Notices
• Collecting Dialect Folk Songs

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 10, No. 2, Earl F. Robacker, Samuel P. Bayard, Don Yoder, Ralph S. Funk, Phil R. Jack, Russell S. Baver, Walter E. Boyer

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Cutting-Up for Fancy
• English-Language Folk Culture in Pennsylvania
• The Bench Versus the Catechism: Revivalism and Pennsylvania's Lutheran and Reformed Churches
• Collecting and Indexing Dialect Poetry
• Folk Amusements in Western Pennsylvania
• Of Plows and Ploughing
• The New Year Wish of the Pennsylvania Dutch Broadside

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 10, No. 1, Frances Lichten, Victor C. Dieffenbach, Walter E. Boyer, Earl F. Robacker, Edna Eby Heller, John A. Hostetler, Alfred L. Shoemaker, Jeremiah W. Andreas, Jacob G. Shively, John Butz Bowman, Elsie Smith, Florence Baver

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• "Tramp Work": Penknife Plus Cigar Boxes
• Tramps of My Youth
• The German Broadside Songs of Pennsylvania
• The Rise of Interest in Folk Art
• Dutch Treats for Breakfast
• The Amish, Citizens of Heaven and America
• Collectanea
• My Great-Grandmother
• Old Sweitzer's Ghost
• Pastimes of My Youth
• Battalion Day
• Seven Days Make One Week

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 9, No. 3, Earl F. Robacker, Frances Lichten, William H. Newell, John Cummings, Mary Jane Hershey, Don Yoder

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Pennsylvania Chalkware
• John Landis: "Author and Artist and Oriental Tourist"
• Schuylkill Folktales
• Painted Chests from Bucks County
• A Study of the Dress of the (Old) Mennonites of the Franconia Conference 1700-1953
• Research Needs in Pennsylvania Church History
• About the Authors

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 9, No. 1, William J. Murtagh, Don Yoder, John Butz Bowman, Charles E. Welch Jr., Alfred L. Shoemaker, Elizabeth Clarke Kieffer, Jane Keplinger Burris, Earl F. Robacker

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Half-Timbering in American Architecture
• The Strouse Dance
• Schuylkill Boatmen and Their Ways
• Some Early Phases of the Philadelphia Mummers' Parade
• Fantasticals
• Joseph Henry Dubbs as a Folklorist
• About the Authors
• Horse Companies in Montgomery County
• Books Not for Burning

More Santee-Sioux Indian Legends - Nebraska Folklore, Federal Writers' Project

Special Collections

Produced by the Federal Writers' Project in Nebraska.

Seven Santee-Sioux legends from the files of the Word Carrier.

Statement on Harmful Material: Materials in UNK Archives and Special Collections are historical in nature and reflect the society in which they were produced. As such, they may contain racial, gender, sexual, religious, and other language and imagery that are offensive by today's standards. The documents, images, publications, and other materials have been retained in order to fully represent the materials in their original format. If the offensive text is not in the original, but in a finding aid, catalog record, or …

Santee Sioux Indian Legends - Nebraska Folklore, Federal Writers' Project

Special Collections

Eight Santee-Sioux legends collected from the files of the Word Carrier, a paper published by the Santee Normal Training School.

Statement on Harmful Material: Materials in UNK Archives and Special Collections are historical in nature and reflect the society in which they were produced. As such, they may contain racial, gender, sexual, religious, and other language and imagery that are offensive by today's standards. The documents, images, publications, and other materials have been retained in order to fully represent the materials in their original format. If the offensive text is not in the original, but in a finding aid, catalog …

Indian Ghost Legends - Nebraska Folklore, Federal Writers' Project

Special Collections

Compiled by the Federal Writers' Project in Nebraska

"These Indian tales are reproduced as a result of reconstruction and piecing together. Elderly Indians and early residents, scattered over the State, furnished from their memories the titles and fragments of the stories. A great many other stories exist as titles only, and some others too fragmentary to piece out. Those included in this pamphlet appear to be among the commonest or most generally known and are here reproduced by correlating versions of the same story from different sources. They are not offered as newly found versions of old tales."

Statement on …