Appalachian Studies Commons^™

“I’Ll Tell You No Lies”: An Exploration Of Trauma, Memory, And Violence Against Women In North Carolina Murder Ballads, Madison Ava Helman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation explores trauma, memory and violence against women in Western North Carolina murder ballads “Tom Dooley,” “Poor Omie Wise,” “Poor Ellen Smith,” “The Ballad of the Lawson Family,” and “Frankie Silver.” I posit that these ballads were influenced by prescriptive societal conceptions of femininity, which in turn influenced societal ideations of violence against women. Using folklore performance theory, I analyze the text and context of these ballads and their subsequent histories, eventually arriving at a template for polyvocality that incorporates multiple ballad variants and encourages diverse performances.

The Appalachian Nostos: Pastoralism And Returning Home In Appalachian Poetry, Henry David Thoreau Kilbourne

Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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.

Shahrazad In Appalachia: Surviving Violence Through Stories And The Support Of “Sisters”, Kaitlyn Hill

Undergraduate Honors Theses

When women are lured away from home, they become vulnerable and cannot survive the violence inflicted upon them by their ‘lovers.’ This thesis explores the ties between two distinct cultural regions, Arabic and Appalachian, to examine the violence against women and what allows these women to escape such situations by using Hanan al-Shaykh’s One Thousand and One Nights: A Retelling and three traditional Appalachian murdered girl ballads.

Many of the women in these stories die at the hands of their ‘lovers,’ regardless of their culture of origin. Once removed from their fellow women, they lack a support system that would …

Colonialism And Globalism In Two Contemporary Southern Appalachian Novels - Serena (2008) By Ron Rash, And Flight Behavior (2012) By Barbara Kingsolver, Jasmyn Herrell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this essay, I investigate how the historic and current economic structures operating in Appalachia from the 1920s to the 2010s are represented in two contemporary Southern Appalachian novels – Serena (2008) by Ron Rash and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver. Through the lens of postcolonial theory, I show how Serena represents Appalachia as functioning under the colonial model outlined by Robert Blauner and Helen Mathews Lewis in 1978. Then, still under the theory of postcolonialism, I explore how Kingsolver’s work depicts regional identity in response to a post-colonial environment and the ever-expanding global economy.

The Powerful Presence Of Dams In Appalachian Poetry, Zoe Hester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary Appalachian poetry offers a lens through which we can see the immense impact that the Tennessee Valley Authority has had in Appalachia. In this thesis, I explore the powerful presence of dams in Appalachian poetry by analyzing three poems. Jesse Graves’s “The Road into the Lake” centers on personal and familial loss, Jackson Wheeler’s “The TVA Built a Dam” mourns the loss of communities, and Rose McLarney’s “Imminent Domain” focuses on the ecological destruction that has occurred in Appalachia and around the globe as the result of the construction of TVA dams. Ultimately, all three poems serve as eulogies …

Anthropocene Blues By John Lane, Jessica S. Cory

The Goose

Review of John Lane's Anthropocene Blues

North Of Ourselves: Identity And Place In Jim Wayne Miller’S Poetry, Micah Mccrotty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jim Wayne Miller’s poetry examines how human history and topography join to create place. His work often incorporates images of land and ecology; it deliberately questions the delineation between place and self. This thesis explores how Miller presents images of water to describe the relationship between inhabitants and their location, both with the positive image of the spring and the negative image of the flood. Additionally, this thesis examines how the Brier, Miller’s most prominent persona character, grieves his separation from home and ultimately finds healing and reunification of the self through his return to the hills. In his poetry, …

The Mountains At The End Of The World: Subcultural Appropriations Of Appalachia And The Hillbilly Image, 1990-2010, Paul L. Robertson

Theses and Dissertations

There is an aversion within the field of Appalachian Studies to addressing the cultural formulations of the Appalachian/hillbilly/mountaineer as an icon of aggressive resistance. The aversion is understandable, as for far too long images of the irrationally and savagely violent mountaineer were integral to the most gross popular culture stereotypes of Appalachia. Media consumers often take pleasure or comfort in these images, which usually occur in a reactionary context with the hillbilly as either a type of nationally necessary savage OR as an unregenerate barbarian against whom a national civilization will triumph and benefit by the struggle.

I bookend my …

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 …

Environmental Deterioration In Contemporary Appalachian Literature: A Biblical Ecocritical Analysis Of Serena And Strange As This Weather Has Been, Alexandria C. Craft

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ron Rash’s Serena and Ann Pancake’s Strange as This Weather Has Been are two contemporary Appalachian novels that have yet to be analyzed from a biblical ecocritical perspective. While some literary scholars acknowledge the environmental aspects of the novels, little of their research goes beyond examining the land and its resources as commodities or metaphorical extensions for the characters. In this thesis, I elaborate on those interpretations by scrutinizing the natural descriptions in both novels and comparing those findings to some of the landscapes and environmental verses located within the Bible. Unlike the pastoral ideal found in a portion of …

Exploitation Of Land And Labor In Appalachia: The Manipulation Of Men In Ann Pancake's Strange As This Weather Has Been, Britani W. Baker

Master's Theses

Ecofeminism is traditionally interested in the relationship between patriarchal domination of women and nature. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange As this Weather Has Been critiques the way the coal mining industry has affected the Appalachian people and land. The novel reflects natural ecofeminism, which views the connection between women and nature in essentialist terms. This outdated mode of ecofeminism leads to a reinforcement of gender stereotypes and a misrepresentation of the relationship between gender, nature, and culture. This study of Pancake’s novel employs a material ecofeminist approach to both critique and develop the novel’s gender politics. Material ecofeminism, even as it …

The American Pastoral Tradition And The Stories Of Breece D'J Pancake, Christopher Blackburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the late twentieth century, Breece Pancake carried on the American pastoral tradition by both featuring and modifying characteristics of early American pastoral literature. Breece Pancake does not directly imitate his predecessors, but instead brings the spirit of the nearly 200-year-old tradition in which he participates to a twentieth-century audience. Part of the enduring relevance of the literature in the American pastoral tradition, including The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, is that at the heart of these stories is a theme that has defined and continues to shape the American experience: the struggle with living in liminal spaces.

Tracing Appalachian Musical History Through Fiction: Representations Of Appalachian Music In Selected Works By Mildred Haun And Lee Smith, John C. Goad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to compare and contrast fictional Appalachian writings by Lee Smith and Mildred Haun to contemporary historical sources in an attempt to trace the development of Appalachian music between the mid-nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. The thesis examines two novels by Lee Smith (The Devil’s Dream and Oral History) and the collection The Hawk’s Done Gone by Mildred Haun, which includes a short novel and several short stories. Contemporary primary sources and scholarly secondary sources were used to compare the fictional works’ depictions of Appalachian music to their historical counterparts. Also included within the …

Jess's Search For An Understanding Of Truth In Fred Chappell's Kirkman Tetralogy, Alex L. Blumenstock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Fred Chappell’s Kirkman tetralogy, narrator Jess Kirkman synthesizes a multiplicity of perspectives for understanding the nature of truth. Blurring the distinction between art and life, Jess's narrative structure mirrors the imaginative reconstruction of experience; the novels are largely non-chronological emotive interactions with and reflections of his most salient memories and imaginings. Synthesizing an impressive cacophony of voices, Jess's stories both describe and apply the wisdom and tales Jess acquires from and with his family members. Each story informs the prior and the next, and the rhizomatic interaction between language, narrative, and reader explores Jess's numerous identities and understandings as …

Unexpected Zeus, Adam Lambert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Seeing Inside The Mountains: Cynthia Rylant's Appalachian Literature And The "Hillbilly" Stereotype, Karen Roggenkamp

Faculty Publications

If Ob, as a West Virginia native, possesses the ability to see The Mysteries where others see only primitivistic whittling or, more pejoratively, tacky wooden trash cluttering the yards of mountain families, then Rylant's Appalachian works likewise depict characters who possess an ability to see beyond external markers and predictable interpretations, and who seek an emotional and spiritual interiority based on family, love, and sense of place. Rylant's words in The Relatives Came, When I Was Young in the Mountains, and Missing May work to restore the integrity of Appalachia as a place of "interior" values, a setting that symbolizes …

"Old Christmas And Other Kentucky Tales In Verse" And "Singing Carr And Other Song Ballads Of The Kentucky Cumberlands": William Aspenwall Bradley's Versified Views Of Turn-Of-The-Century Appalachia, Patricia Jarvis Webb

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Patricia Jarvis Webb on April 10, 1995.

In A Land Of Plenty: A Don West Reader, Don West, Constance Adams West

Copyright-Free Books

Rooted in a particular place, the South and especially the Appalachian hills; in a long time, with poems dating from as early as 1932 and as late as 1981; and in the wide experience of a man who has been a farmer, lineman, preacher, organizer, deck hand, professor, and journalist. Land of Plenty is about America over the last half a century. It is about miners, freedom, racism, sharecroppers, family, love, loss, the South, laughter, labor, hunger, and heroism...Constance Adams West's spare illustrations make Land of Plenty still more beautiful." -Dave Roediger, Dept. of History, Northwestern U.

A Literary Biography Of James Still: A Beginning, Rhonda George England

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Rhonda George England on May 21, 1984.

Contemporary Appalachian Poetry: Sources And Directions, George Ella Lyon

The Kentucky Review

No abstract provided.

Structures Of Dialect In Short Stories And Poetry Of Jesse Stuart, David G. Littleton

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A monograph presented to the faculty of the Department of English at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by David G. Littleton on July 18, 1970.

Correspondence From December Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in December of 1945.

Correspondence From November Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in November of 1945.

Correspondence From October Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in October of 1945.

Correspondence From September Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in September of 1945.

Correspondence From August Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in August of 1945.

Correspondence From July Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in July of 1945.

Correspondence From June Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in June of 1945.

Correspondence From May Of 1945, Multiple Authors.

James Still World War II Collection

Correspondence written to James Still in May of 1945.