American Popular Culture Commons^™

Hodges, Patricia Ann (Morgan), B. 1931 (Fa 59), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folkife Archives Project 59. Collection of questionnaires about Valentine's Day celebrations. Project completed by Patricia Ann Hodges for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Little, Roger A. (Fa 56), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 56. Paper: "Urban Legends," written by Roger A. Little for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Silva, Ann (Fa 53), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 53. “A History of the Logan County Tobacco Festival” Paper written about an annual festival celebrating tobacco culture held in Russellville, Kentucky. Paper was written for a history class at Western Kentucky University.

Peterson, Susan (Fa 54), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 54. "The Witch of Railton, Barren County, Kentucky," a paper written for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Watkins, Dianne (Winkler), B. 1941 (Fa 55), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 55. “Those Old Calliopes,” a paper and interview by Dianne Watkins executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Includes recording of calliopes and other related materials.

Fairleigh Family Papers (Sc 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 349. Class book, 1839-1844, of the Methodist Church, Brandenburg, Kentucky, containing membership list, 1843-44, and some notations of contributions. Also, it contains law and minutes of the Belles Lettres Society, 1849-1850, and of the Union Debating Society, October 1852. The book was kept by Thomas Fairleigh and other Fairleigh family members.

Volkerding Family Papers (Mss 385), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 385. Letters written chiefly by Herman Frederick Wilhelm Volkerding, of Louisville, Kentucky, to his wife Mary Elizabeth (Hauber) Volkerding while traveling as a salesman for the John T. Barbee distillers. Volkerding pines for home and describes the scenery, hotels, amusements and rail travel in the western United States.

Spradlin, James Edward (Fa 51), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 51. Oral history interview with Dwight, Virginia, Bill and Geneva Spradlin conducted by James Spradlin for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1984. Topics include recreation and entertainment in Floyd County, Kentucky during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Autobiographical Sketch Of A Group Based Musician (Fa 48), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 48. “Autobiographical Sketch of a Group Based Musician,” a paper and interview executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Author chose to remain anonymous.

Reed, Margaret (Sc 344), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 344. Letter written by Margaret Reed, Smiths Grove, Kentucky, to Mrs. Charles Porter, Bowling Green, Kentucky, declining her invitation to visit during the fair.

Taft, Ann Celine (Fa 49), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 49. Oral history interview with The Straightway Gospel Singers from Gallatin, Tennessee conducted by Ann Celine Taft for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Subsequent paper titled "The Straightway Gospel Singers" also included.

Wayne County, Kentucky Project (Fa 23), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid for Folklife Archives Project 23. Oral history interviews with various residents of Wayne County, Kentucky, conducted by Western Kentucky University folk studies students. Topics include the oil industry, folk medicine, water witching, one-room schools and banjo playing.

Roberts, Ethel (Sc 2499), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2499. Letter from 16-year-old Ethel Roberts, a student in Big Creek, Kentucky, to Helen Ferenczy, Altgeld School, Chicago, Illinois. Ethel describes Christmas and other activities at her school.

Patterson, F. Youree, 1869-1936 (Sc 246), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 246. Campaign letter, 25 July 1913, written by F. Youree Patterson, Bowling Green, Kentucky, concerning his candidacy for the Warren County Clerk’s office in the primary election on the dry ticket.

Rich, Cordell (Fa 47), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives 47. Interview with Cordell Rich at his home near Jamestown, Tennessee. Topics include gospel hymns, death omens and ghost stories.

Gibbs, Verbina (Fa 45), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 45. Interview with Verbina Gibbs about her work as an obituary writer in Allen County, Kentucky.

Hester, Elizabeth Allen, B. 1956 (Fa 43), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 43. [Flea markets] Collection of typescripts, photographs and cassette tapes concerning the family/personal history and current occupation (flea market seller) of Margie Hawks. Collectioncontains a detailed account of the family history of Mrs. Hawks and their subsistence farming. Project completed by Elizabeth (Beth) Hester for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 10, 2012, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles.
• UNLV is working with new BLM employees Glen Marsh and Audrey Asselin to address continuing deterioration of the ranch house. UNLV has suggested to BLM that they …

Walking Box Ranch Planning And Design Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 10, 2012, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV’s President Smatresk has reiterated his commitment to the WBR project and has further committed full funding for IT and security costs.
• UNLV participated in a one-half day meeting with BLM to discuss the future WBR operating agreement between BLM and UNLV; UNLV participated in a 1.5 day meeting to review the 100% Design drawings.
• UNLV continues to wait on BLM for direction on how to mitigate the continuing deterioration of the ranch house.
• Weather station research continues and has produced the following this past quarter. 1) Ground-source heat pump (GSHP) Vs Photovoltaic (PV) technology: A detailed analysis comparing these …

Whites, Pierce Butler (Fa 32), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan of paper (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 32. Contemporary marijuana cultivation andusage: interviews and documents. Project completed by Pierce Butler Whites concerning illicit marijuana growth and construction of marijuana paraphernalia. Completed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Contains transcriptions, tape logs, photographs and cassette tapes.

Stereotypes Of Contemporary Native American Indian Characters In Recent Popular Media, Virginia A. Mclaurin

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis examines the ongoing trends in depictions of Native American Indians in popular mainstream media from the last two decades. Stereotypes in general and in relation to Native American Indians are discussed, and a pattern of stereotype reactions to colonists’ perceived strains is identified. An analysis of popular television shows, movies, and books with contemporary Native characters will demonstrate new trends which we might consider transformed or emerging stereotypes of Native people in non-Native media. These trends will not only be shown to have emerged from more general national and regional stereotypes of Native identity, but will also demonstrate …

Time In Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality In 21st Century Programming, Melissa R. Ames

Melissa A. Ames

This collection analyzes twenty-first-century American television programs that rely upon temporal and narrative experimentation. These shows play with time, slowing it down to unfold the narrative through time retardation and compression. They disrupt the chronological flow of time itself, using flashbacks and insisting that viewers be able to situate themselves in both the present and the past narrative threads. Although temporal play has existed on the small screen prior to the new millennium, never before has narrative time been so freely adapted in mainstream television. The essayists offer explanations for not only the frequency of time play in contemporary programming, …

A Kitchen Of One's Own: The Paradox Of Dione Lucas, Kathleen Collins

Publications and Research

First appearing on the air in 1947, Dione Lucas was one of the earliest television cooking-show hosts. As a business owner, single mother, influential salesperson, and highly respected professional in her field (Julia Child referred to Lucas as “the mother of French cooking in America”), Lucas was a pioneer and potentially powerful role model. Given this profile, however, she was an anachronism and out of sync with the majority of contemporary women and home cooks. She was likewise out of sync with her television peers, as most homemaking programs were hosted by home economists and were contexts wherein thrift and …

Murrow And Friendly’S Small World: Television Conversation At The Crossroads, Kathleen Collins

Publications and Research

Small World

(1958–60), an Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly television production, brought together political and entertainment figures from around the world, boasting technological innovation and a high level of public affairs discourse. The author discusses critical reception, producers’ ideals, cultural and historical context, and relation-ships to evolving notions of public service broadcasting.

Gag Order: Muting, Mortification, And Motherhood In Eminem’S “Cleaning Out My Closet”, Lynne Stahl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Wonder Woman Wears Pants: Wonder Woman, Feminism And The 1972 'Women's Lib' Issue., Ann Matsuuchi

Publications and Research

This article originally appeared in a special issue of Colloquy, Tights and Tiaras: Female Superheroes and Media Cultures. -- The history of the Wonder Woman comic book character is full of events and personalities as dramatic as the tales detailed in the text. The origins and development of this iconic female superhero demonstrate how competing ideas of what womanhood meant were reflected in popular culture. In this essay, the focus is on a particular issue of the Wonder Woman comic book, with a story by writer and literary critic Samuel R. Delany in 1972. In this issue Wonder Woman takes …

Naming A New Self: Identity Elasticity And Self-Definition In Voluntary Name Changes, Celia Emmelhainz

Celia Emmelhainz

This article considers how personal name changes are situated within their sociological context in the United States. Reviewing both popular and scholarly texts on names and name changes, I draw on recent work on identity and narrative by Oriana Bernasconi (2011) to argue that voluntary personal name changes are made in relation to a sense of narrative elasticity or identity elasticity, and act symbolically to make a shifting identity or self-narrative manifest in the social context. Drawing out these themes through an exploration of name changes for ethnic self-definition or religious purposes, I conclude with a reflection on the unstable …

An American Mess: How Colorblind Racism Prevents An Enlightened Conversation On Race In Television Media, Nathaniel Phillipps

McNair Poster Presentations

This project aims to demonstrate how the current racial ideology in America is portrayed through television media. It is primarily guided by the work of Eduardo Bonita-Silva and his masterful examination of post-civil rights racism in the United States in his book Racism Without Racists. From a firm understanding of the ideology of this new racism -- its frames, styles, and storylines -- the content of two televisions shows are analyzed to identify the racial ideology and the representations of people of color within.

Scandal (ABC) is progressive in the sense that it has a Black female lead, and two …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Mothers At Work: Reconstruction And Deconstruction Of Patriarchy In Gone With The Wind, Catherine Willa Staley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In this thesis, I explore the performances of motherhood in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and how those performances conflict with culturally constructed expectations of that role. An analysis of Scarlett O’Hara and Melanie Wilkes, and how each woman compares to the South’s model for motherhood, reveals implications that extend beyond the novel’s Civil War setting to reveal the ongoing negotiation of modern readers still living within patriarchal conceptions of mothering. In Chapter 1, I outline the novel’s spectrum of motherhood, which is composed of characters who nurture and manage others. Each individual on that spectrum contributes to or …