Literature in English, North America Commons^™

A Legacy Of Labor: Maternity Narratives In 1960s And 1970s North American Life Writing, Katelynn Ann Vogelpohl

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Abstract

A Legacy of Labor: Maternity Narratives in 1960s and 1970s North American Life Writing

Katelynn Ann Vogelpohl

The phenomenon of maternity has been repeatedly described as an event that shakes the very foundations of social and physical identity. As the flesh of the pregnant person literally divides to produce new life, one subject becomes enclosed within another, dramatically affecting the pregnant person’s sense of self and causing a confluence of intense, and often conflicting, feelings. In North America, there are two dominant, and seemingly opposing, discourses on pregnancy and childbirth: the institutional medical discourse and the natural childbirth discourse. …

“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.