Appalachian Studies Commons^™

Anamnesis, Kristian Thacker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

My work examines the duality of living in Appalachia and cherishing its picturesque environment; while being complicit in its ongoing destruction via industry and resource extraction. Composed of my own photographs and selections from the Farm Security Administration archives, this body of work presents a vision of the region that’s purpose extends beyond value judgments. Rather, it considers the manmade and natural environments of Appalachia holistically, each one integral to the experience and understanding of the other. Following the same aesthetic choices I make in my professional practice as a photojournalist, I blur the boundary between art and documentation. In …

Title Panel And Map, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Land, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Landscape, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Home, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Property, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Landless, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Legacy, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Campus, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Place, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgements, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Resources, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Navigating Place And Gender: A Multicontextual Critical Narrative Inquiry Of Rural Trans* Student Experiences, Jessie Lynn O'Quinn

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The purpose of this critical narrative study was to understand how rural West Virginia trans* students navigate cultural norms of their rural home communities and higher education contexts. An essential part of this critical narrative was to provide rural trans* students with an avenue to share their unique experiences and give them a platform to share their voices. The resulting narratives suggested that the normative tensions rural trans* college students experience across contexts stemmed from negative regional experiences that reinforced traditional gender norms. Negative home contexts and experiences forced students to feel like they had to build walls and distance …

Levantine Immigration And Community Building In Charleston, West Virginia, 1900-1930, George P. Jacobs Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Immigrants from the Levant, a region of the middle east made up of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, settled in the United States in large numbers between 1890 and 1920. Many eventually decided to make Charleston, West Virginia their permanent home. When they arrived in Charleston, most Levantine immigrants worked as peddlers, selling modern wares and household goods to families that needed them. This research explains the context for this immigration wave, the important economic niche Levantine immigrants satisfied in the developing economy of southern West Virginia, and how over time Charleston’s Levantine community contributed significantly to the city’s culture.

Source Credibility And Trust Of Media Information Based On Gender Of Reporter, Madison R. Urse

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

An experiment was used for this study to explore if the gender of a reporter impacts perceived source credibility and thus trust in information. Previous research has shown how gender biases can affect how topics are covered, reported on, perceived and marketed in the journalistic world. Modern media and newsrooms are meant to mirror reality as they convey information to the public, yet women continue to be gatekept out of reporting on certain types of news. Further, changes in the mode of delivery of news are also impacting the journalism landscape. Thus, this study employed a digital stimulus to explore …

Narrative Transportation In Documentary Film: How Immersion Into The Documentary Film Hillbilly Affects Viewers' Attitudes, Alayna G. Fuller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

For decades, film has relied on stereotypical misconceptions to depict Appalachian people on screen. Research has demonstrated that visual narratives and the experience of narrative transportation has the power to change individuals’ perceptions about information conveyed implicitly or explicitly within a story. Presently, no empirical research has examined how viewer attitudes form based on their level of immersion into an Appalachian documentary film. To fill this gap, this study offers a quantitative approach to examine if the documentary Hillbilly narratively transports the viewer into the world of Appalachia and shifts audience perceptions of the stereotypical Appalachian persona or “hillbilly.” The …

The Vanishing Frontier: Economic And Social Change In Western North Carolina, 1945-1970, Elisabeth Avery Moore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation works to integrate the growth of regional tourism into the existing historiography of economic development in Appalachia and the postwar American South. Regional leaders introduced an economic transition throughout western North Carolina that emphasized the growth of regional tourism. By centering this study on the growth of regional tourism, this research also analyzes regional boosters’ efforts to manufacture and commodify a racialized and classed folk culture within the region for tourist consumption. In the late nineteenth century, journalists and folklorists had emphasized the deviance of mountain life and simultaneously romanticized the area as a land of rugged, white …

Appalachian Futures Introduction, West Virginia University Libraries, West Virginia University Humanities Center, West Virginia University Reed College Of Media, West Virginia Library Commission, Appalachian State University Libraries, Marshall University Libraries, Arts Monongahela

Exhibit Panels

Appalachian Futures is a look at how people in our region envision a better future for themselves, their communities, and their environment. By thinking about the issues that occupy discussions of Appalachian identity through the eyes of its scholars, writers, workers, and artists, Appalachian Futures wants you to think, “How can optimism about the diversity of our region, our industry and education, our traditional culture, and our most forward-looking arts help us make for better lives?”

Future Of Appalachian Culture, Emily Hilliard, Travis Stimeling, Michael Kline, Carrie Kline, Trevor Mckenzie, Nancy Abrams, Torey Siebart, Chris Haddox, Mehmet Oztan, West Virginia University Press

Exhibit Panels

Appalachia is often associated with its traditional arts and culture, but that does not mean that we are stuck in the past. Local traditions often play a crucial role in galvanizing forward-thinking cultural institutions, involving artists and workers alike in making new futures that are still distinctively Appalachian. This section of the exhibit highlights this kind of work from the West Virginia Humanities Council, Arthurdale Heritage, and more, connecting to a traditional past to new traditions yet to be forged.

The Question, Sharon Ryan

Exhibit Panels

The Question is a project designed to inspire inquiry and respectful discussion about big ideas. WVU Libraries collaborates with The Question to bring relevant interactive elements to the Art in the Libraries exhibits.

thequestion.wvu.edu

Speculative Futures And Futurism In Appalachia, Liz Pavlovic, Jamie Banks, Nicholas D. Bowman, David Smith, Baaria Chaudhary, Ben Babbitt, Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, Daniel Boyd, West Virginia University Press

Exhibit Panels

What if we thought of Appalachia as futuristic? Could the mountains be the setting for imagining better, maybe weirder, futures? Artists, writers, and game designers have been asking just those questions, speculating through science fiction, fantasy, and magic realism to rethink the ways cultural traditions in wildly creative ways. From folktales to videogames, cryptozoology to underground highways, this section asks what a future Appalachian utopia (or dystopia) might look and feel like?

Why Didn't The Dogs Bark?, Roger A. Lohmann, Shirley Stewart Burns

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This study examines patterns of news coverage of five West Virginia mining disasters in local, regional and national news media. It grew out of an effort to follow up an earlier study of relief efforts at the Monongah mine disaster of 1907. One of the principal findings is that local newspapers consistently provided limited coverage of mining disasters and almost no coverage of relief efforts carried on in the wake of disasters. National coverage, by the New York Times and regional coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reveals a number of persistent themes and some important differences.

The Monongah Mines Disaster Relief Committee, Roger A. Lohmann, Craig Johnson

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Four Perspectives On Appalachian Culture And Poverty, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Poverty is as closely associated with the Appalachian region as coal mining and the hammer dulcimer. Appalachian poverty has seldom been portrayed simply as poverty, but as the expression and symbol of something larger. Images of poverty - poorly dressed, sooty, emaciated, barefooted, mostly white, rural children and adults beside cabin porches - are as closely associated with Appalachia as cowboy hats with the West or moss-covered trees and white-columned mansions with the Old South.

West Virginia Folk Music: A Descriptive Guide To Field Recordings In The West Virginia And Regional History Collection, John A. Cuthbert

Bibliographies and Research Guides

West Virginia University's contribution to the foundation of modern folk music scholarship is widely recognized. Due to the pioneering achievements of its faculty, the University became an important center of folksong scholarship in the 1920s and 30s. John Harrington Cox's Folk-Songs of the South' served as both precedent and pattern for the myriad of subsequent publications upon which folksong study is based.Various works by Josiah Combs, who taught at the University for but a few years, and Louis Watson Chappell, who remained throughout his career, are equally notable if less obviously influential. The University's subsequent contributions to the field, however, …