Appalachian Studies Commons^™

The Red Deeps: A Retelling Of George Eliot's The Mill On The Floss., Emily Denton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The culminating project toward my Ph.D. in Humanities under the Public Arts and Letters track is a combination of creative and scholarly work composed of two parts: a retelling of George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss and a critical introduction outlining the creative concerns to the project. The novel, The Red Deeps, reimagines The Mill on the Floss in the recent past—during the late 1980s in the Copper Basin, the former copper mines in Eastern Tennessee. The critical preface draws broader categories of adaptation, ecocriticism, and climate fiction and incorporates theorists from new southern and Appalachian studies …

I Come Creeping: Remembering The Battle Of Blair Mountain In Graphic Narrative, Ellie James

Senior Honors Theses

Between August 24 and September 4 of 1921, approximately 10,000 West Virginia coal miners marched to Blair Mountain in Logan County in a militant stand for their right to unionize. Despite its status as the largest labor uprising in United States history, few know or understand the impact of the Battle of Blair Mountain today, even within the borders of West Virginia. This creative project aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to memorialize this period of the West Virginia Mine Wars through the creation of a 10-page comic, titled I Come Creeping, which depicts and is informed by the …

“But For Those Of Us Who Live Here”: Performance Of Work And Community By Women Employed In Rural, Predominantly White, Small-Town Schools, Telena M. Turner

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Rural, small towns are incredibly complex cultural centers. Although rural places are consistently portrayed as unchanging, the operation of cultural and identity within these locations is consistently on the move. Using reflexive interviewing, poetic transcription, autoethnographic writing, this project (re)presents poems on community and identity from five women employed in schools in rural, mostly White, small towns in the Central Appalachian region. Analyzing the poems through concepts in performance studies and work on space and place, this project positions movement and change at the center of small towns and examines how notions of rural place and community are performed through …

A Claiming Of Kin: A Linguistic Analysis Of Southern Appalachian English In Melissa Range's Scriptorium: Poems, Jolee White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research studies the Southern Appalachian dialect present in five poems in Melissa Range’s Scriptorium: Poems. The linguistic phenomena characteristic of Southern Appalachian English observed and analyzed in the poems include lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects. The research seeks to bring attention to this Appalachian woman writer as well as to bring understanding of her reasoning behind incorporating the dialect in her poetry. It establishes that the five poems by Range contain the lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects of the SAE dialect. It holds meaning both grammatically and pragmatically within the context of the poem and Appalachia.

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

Castle Building: Contemporary Poetry And Flash Fiction From Appalachia, Sharolyn Shae Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appalachian writing brings a voice to the region that is often obstructed or excluded by popular culture throughout the United States. Crowded with stereotypes, many stories of Appalachian culture are misconstrued or never heard at all. This makes the work of modern Appalachian writers especially significant. Perhaps one of the best ways to reach a broader audience of people in this fast-paced digital time is through shorter writings, and in this thesis I will be presenting my process of writing modern flash fiction and poetry and of sharing the truths of working class, Appalachian people.

Et Cetera, 2019-2021, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

The Barren Springs Songbook, Caroline Grace Sutphin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Barren Springs Songbook is a poetry collection exploring Appalachian themes through the lens of three representative characters and my own experience. The poems presented are in blank verse and lean heavily on musicality, as each poem features an epigraph from my own Great Uncle Henry’s song lyrics. The poetry explores themes of poverty, folklore, feminism, and Christianity within the context of Barren Springs, an insular Appalachian community. The characters of Henry, India, and Myrtle provide a glimpse into how things have been in my family history, and the more modern poems representing myself show the cultural shifts that are …

A Damn Short Prayer, Beth Jane Toren

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This poster presents a transcript poem created with murder tales in oral history recordings. Leveraging the creative arts of storytelling, transcript poetry and visual orality, the poster brings light and music to Appalachian storyteller voices in tales of shady murders.

The handout presents the poem with visual orality methods juxtaposed beside Standard English orthographic transcription, enabling a visual comparison, a link a video with graphic text and the original voice recordings, and brief readings about concepts and methods.

Shadow Smoke: A Nonfiction Collection On Memories Lost, Taken, And Storied, Sarah Ann Canterbury

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Shadow Smoke investigates the neuroscientific nature of memory and memory’s role/ authority in creative nonfiction as an illustration of how the genre lays the process of memory bare and accurately models the mind’s process of memory. The scholarship as well as body of creative works revolve around the understanding and tension of memory being a creative process which is explored through genre discussions, neuroscientific studies, and individual creative works. Shadow Smoke consists of four braided nonfiction essays and five nonfiction vignettes to form a collection on memories lost, taken, and storied framed by a critically researched introduction assessing the collection’s …

Anthropocene Blues By John Lane, Jessica S. Cory

The Goose

Review of John Lane's Anthropocene Blues

Brennan, Mary Kate (Fa 1284), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1284. Student interview conducted by Mary Kate Brennan with renowned Appalachian poet Jim Wayne Miller. Brennan’s focus throughout the interview is on “the cultural sensitivity and awareness that permeates Miller’s poetry.” Miller also touches on what he considers to be the central themes of his work, the struggles and triumphs of communities within the Appalachian region, and pride in cultural heritage. The collection contains a detailed index, interview summary, transcription, index cards with questions, and a reel-to-reel audio tape of the interview.

Series Iii. Folder 6. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains approximately 15 poems and 2 letters: a letter to a parishioner praising her singing voice, and one to Cummings thanking him for making regular payments on his account with the Benson Printing Co., located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Series Iii. Folder 5. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 10 poems. Some of them show Cummings’ political side, criticizing what he saw as the shortcomings of the GOP and warning that “If you vote for Ike you’ll cut your throat.”

Series Iii. Folder 4. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 15 poems. Topics include the dangers of cynicism, the fleeting nature of wealth, and Cummings’ reflections on his long pastoral career.

The Return Of The Dead: Resurrecting Chappell's Family Gathering, Jonathan Moore

Master's Theses

This thesis examines Fred Chappell’s virtually overlooked collection of poetry Family Gathering (2000), and how the poems operate within the mode of the grotesque. I argue that the poems illuminate both the southern grotesque and Roland Barthes’s theory of photography’s Operator, Spectator, and Spectrum. I address Family Gathering as a family photo album full of still shots, snapshots, and even selfies, which illumines how Chappell’s use of the grotesque in this collection derives more from its original association with visual arts rather than only depicting the grotesque typically associated with characteristics deemed explicitly shocking or terrifying. I argue that …

Building Eden, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Ralph Deigh is the most famous vernacular American architect you've never heard of. After a military career spanning two wars and struggles with homelessness and PTSD, he is invited to design an entirely new rural community for the 21st century. Twin disasters (fire and flood) in Dare County, West Virginia, set up the circumstances for him to join with Rosemary Mueller and the wealthy Ohio-based Mueller Foundation and a mysterious group of local Dare County residents led by Adam Sennett, County Clerk of Dare County. Together, they design and build the new town of Eden, West Virginia.

The whole story …

A Poetic Exploration Of Landscape And Negation In Larry Levis's The Dollmaker’S Ghost, Cynthia Mccomas

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The following thesis contains a collection of poetry, which portrays an exploration of landscape through negation and meditation. These poems often describe the region of Appalachia via a speaker who seeks wisdom through thoughtful images of nature and its decay. Prefacing the creative body is a critical introduction which highlights my influences, craft, and methods of writing. These poems were written while studying the poet Larry Levis, who provides an imaginative and thought-provoking perspective of natural landscapes and the people who coexist among them.

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

Book Review Of Robert Morgan's Nonfiction Books, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Robert Morgan's Nonfiction Books

The Longest Night, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The Oxford Book Of American Poetry: The Difficulty Of Anthologizing American Poetry, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Review of The Oxford Book of American Poetry: The Difficulty of Anthologizing American Poetry

Book Review Of Caleb Beissert: Federico Garcia Lorca & Pablo Neruda: Beautiful, Translations From The Spanish, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Review of Caleb Beissert: Federico Garcia Lorca & Pablo Neruda: Beautiful, Translations from the Spanish

Book Review Of Hank Reineke: Arlo Guthrie: The Warner Reprise Years, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Arlo Guthrie: The Warner/Reprise Years. By Hank Reineke. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Pp. xix + 327, series editor's foreword, preface, acknowledgments, discography, bibliography, index, 11 photographs, three illustrations.)

The National Storytelling Festival: Words, Music, And Memories, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Excerpt: A Other acclaimed masters of the spoken word scheduled to appear at this year’s Festival include David Novak, Minton Sparks, Joseph Bruchac, Milbre Burch, and Jackson Gillman. Each year the Festival seeks to represent storytelling from a range of cultural traditions, and this year is no exception. Rev. Robert Jones and Diane Ferlatte will present stories and music relating African American experience, while Festival attendees may also see and hear performances by Yiddish storyteller Shonaleigh, Chinese American storyteller and musician Charlie Chin, and Brazilian performance artist Antonio Rocha. Several special events will be held in Anyone who shares an …

Word-Weaving In Tennessee: The National Storytelling Festival, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Excerpt: Appalachia is a storied land. Every place within the region has its own story, and virtually every person who has spent a significant amount of time in a specific Appalachian place has been affected by—indeed, has become part of—that story.

Robinson Jeffers: Appalachian, Californian, Poet, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Excerpt: April is also National Poetry Month, and this column will focus on an April-themed poem—not one of the many April poems evincing sincere religiosity or forced sentimentality, and not that famous poem that cynically asserts that “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land.

James Still: The Dean Of Appalachian Literature, Ted Olson

Ted Olson

Excerpt: James Still (1906-2001) wrote “Heritage,” his signature poem, in 1935, and he continued to read it before audiences large and small into the 21st Century.

0836: M. Homer Cummings Papers, 1909-1968, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The 31 boxes in this collection contain the following materials by Cummings: college examination papers; sermons and radio addresses; newspaper columns; letters; poems (single copies, booklets, and a spiral-bound book); and songs (single copies, booklets, song books, printing plates, and recordings). There are also letters written to him; newspaper articles about him and his family; materials from the Literary and Bible Training School and McCrum Slavonic Training School (Rev. and Mrs. Cummings’ alma maters); song books and vinyl records from his collection; and various miscellaneous items.

To view materials from this collection that are digitized and available online, search the …

"A Spark" With Critical Introduction "Ore And Lore: Mining, Literature, And Loss", Andrea J. Warren

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the emotional, physical, and familial repercussions of coal mining in the Appalachian region, especially in regards to relationships within the community. The thesis is divided into two parts; a critical essay in which the objective facts, statistics, and histories of coal mining are addressed, and a short story which shares the subjective experience of the Hicks family.