Folklore Commons^™

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Blacklash: Phenomenological Hermeneutics In Black Dance, Darvejon A. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

The horrors inflicted on Black bodies, souls, and spirits in the United States during the transatlantic slave trade, the Jim Crow era, and the current era (2023) have a lasting legacy of trauma metabolized through the body and transmuted generationally. Jones uses this data to contextualize the work of Black dance artists as hermeneutic phenomena in which the Black dance artist is a hermeneut tasked with delivering a message of the Black body/spirit complex: “I AM HUMAN. DO NOT KILL ME.” This paper examines how Black dance artists frequently petition for their survival — incessantly subjugated to the interpreter’s empathy, …

“A Certain Brauch:” German-Georgian Palatine And Rhenish Immigrant Houses In Columbia County, New York And Their Vernacular Architectural Roots, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this archaeological and architectural survey of 18th Century Palatine and Rhenish immigrant houses in New York's Hudson Valley, specifically in Columbia County, I track the development of three houses from their earliest vernacular forms to those touched by the Georgian influence. The Georgian worldview, stemming from European Enlightenment ideals, began permeating colonial American society in the 18th Century. It's influence first began to touch the wealthy and elite most connected with mother Europe, and then trickled into more common society. I chronicle and analyze Germantown, NY's Reformed Sanctity Church Parsonage, Germantown, NY's Simeon Rockefeller House, and Clermont, NY's "Stone …

Colonial Markets, Consumers, And Trade: A Comparative Analysis Of Historic Ceramics From The Bluefields Bay Area, Westmoreland, Jamaica, Lacy Risner

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The ceramic assemblages from a British colonial settlement in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica, provide a unique window into the market availability, exchange routes, and consumption patterns of the eighteenth century. This study compares the historic ceramics collected from two sites in Bluefields Bay to one another and to other intra-island (Jamaica), intraregional (Lesser Antilles), and international (North America) colonial and postcolonial sites to reveal patterns of individual and global ceramic consumption and distribution in the emergent capitalist networks and markets of the colonial era. Integrating small British colonial sites into the networks of other more extensive studies focusing primarily on plantations …

Victim Impact: The Manson Murders And The Rise Of The Victims’ Rights Movement, Merrill W. Steeg

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Eagle Eye Vs. Gear Jammer, Jessica Danielle Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Where similarities in class struggle have historically operated as a unifying force globally, the American crafted mythos isolates the individual and dehumanizes those that do not fall within the parameters of the cowboy archetype. The national protagonist is turned into a class traitor and an extension of government power.

American Mythology: How Storytelling Shapes Modern Cultural Perceptions, Kristin Maynard

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis will examine the American storytelling tradition, paying particular attention to American folktales and legends that arose as the nation expanded westward, such as the stories of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Billy the Kid, etc. This text will utilize a lens of European narrative tradition (especially those which lent themselves to the written records of oral fairy tales and folktales) and trace the cultural significance and social purpose of these formative American stories. I will discuss the reasons why we so readily recognize the echoes of outside narrative traditions in American storytelling and the ethical implications of these narratives …

A Fat Imposter: The Embodied Intersection Between Race, Body Type And Fatness In Margaret Cho’S Comedy, Julia Cox

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Margaret Cho is a comedic goddess who, in her mockery, serves flaming hot social commentary about race, body image, and fatness. Within this thesis, I used critical discourse analysis to understand how Margaret Cho embodies Asianness, whiteness, and the body types and images prescribed respectively. While working on data analysis, I came across a common media trope of fat women: the use of indexically Southern (United States), Appalachian, and Working class indexicals in speech and lexical items. I connected the ideologies surrounding Southern and Appalachian language to the inequalities that fat women face. This voicing had not previously been written …

The Sacred Circle: Ostension In Native American Hoop Dancing, Emma George

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis examines the role of the semiotic concept ostension in folk dance, specifically in Native American hoop dance. Although the discipline of folklore is well-versed in ostension, folk dance has not been examined through this lens. I argue that dance is a form of ostension, of demonstrating a narrative, and this is especially apparent within Native American hoop dancing. I begin with a brief history of Native Americans in North America before discussing the origins of powwows, intertribal culture, and hoop dance. I then look at both the sacred nature and material culture of the modern hoop dance before …

The Mothman And Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse In Online Social Media Communities, Brenton Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Little work has been conducted on the intersections of queer and Appalachian identities, in part because these two identities are viewed as incompatible (Mann 2016). This study uses a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach to examine the Instagram posts of the Queer Appalachia Project, which represent a substantial body of discourse created by and for queer Appalachians. Of specific interest to this analysis are those posts which employ folkloric figures, such as West Virginia’s Mothman, to do identity work that is queer, Appalachian, and queer-Appalachian. Often, this act is accomplished through juxtaposition with Appalachian imagery and the reclamation of homophobic …

Metal Storytellers: Reflections Of War Culture In Silverplate B-29 Nose Art From The 509th Composite Group, Terri Wesemann

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Most people are familiar with the Enola Gay—the B-29 that dropped Little Boy, the first atomic bomb, over the city of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Less known are the fifteen Silverplate B-29 airplanes that trained for the mission, that were named and later adorned with nose art. However, in recorded history, the atomic mission overshadowed the occupational folklore of this group. Because the abundance of planes were scrapped in the decade after World War II and most WWII veterans have passed on, all that remains of their occupational folklore are photographs, oral and written histories, some books, …

Licentious Legends: A Folklore Podcast, Alexandra L. Haynes

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Licentious Legends was created out of a need to both understand and educate about sexual contemporary legends; not just what they are and what defines them, but the effect that they have on those who experience them. The purpose of this podcast is not to shame, but to take what has been found and educate about the joys and dangers of these legends. These legends range from the everyday (such as "The Hook"), to legends about a young man killing himself with a plunger. In an effort to gather as many examples as they could, Faye interviewed several of their …

The Unsung Hero Character: A Harbinger Device Of Misfortune, Eutimio Talavera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces an obscure storytelling device, The Unsung Hero character, as one way of examining how movies function as stories. This character is often overlooked, as it frequently cloaks its idiosyncrasies, thus it lacks any apparent signs of internal conflict. This analysis foregrounds the character’s overall functionality, found only in rare instances and typically in the story of a movie. With effective implementation in a story, as a functional harbinger device, brief appearances of The Unsung Hero character demonstrate flashpoints or disclosures of a forthcoming misfortune in the story. This movie analysis shows how The Unsung Hero character functions …

The Doyen Of Dixie: A Survey Of The Banjo Stylings Of Uncle Dave Macon, Corbin F. Hayslett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

David Harrison Macon (1870-1952) is often memorialized for his showmanship rather than his banjo playing. To compartmentalize such a significant American musician yields a wide gap within scholarship about Macon, country music history and the banjo. Macon’s banjo playing, documented through over two-hundred and fifty recordings made between the 1920s and 1950s, represents an array of cultures, eras, ethnicities, and styles all preserved in the repertoire of one of the most prolific country musicians of the 20^th century. This study reveals Macon’s playing by considering such factors as influences that preceded his professional tenure, identifying elements within his playing …

Constraints Of Haunted Heritage Tourism In Logan, Utah, Kylie Schroeder

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

It has become common in Salem, Savannah, New Orleans, Edinburg, or Gettysburg, to witness groups of people being led through the darkened streets as part of a ghost tour or haunted history walk. An altered form of commercialized legend tripping, these companies offer guided tours, feature spooky stories, and often showcase local history. However, the trend of haunted heritage tourism, especially in the form of ghost walks and haunted history tours, has spread beyond places with national or international reputations for hauntings and is now growing in small towns whose stories are rarely shared beyond the local populace.

This thesis …

Allowing The Untellable To Visit: Investigating Digital Folklore, Ptsd And Stigma, Geneva Harline

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the introduction of 2012 issue of The Journal of Folklore Research, Diane Goldstein and Amy Shuman issue a “call to arms for folklorists … to concentrate on the vernacular experience of the stigmatized.” (Goldstein and Shuman, 2012:116). Drawing on this call to arms, this thesis investigates how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is portrayed in social media through memes and captioned images. I argue that the genres of memes and captioned images in digital folklore work to help mitigate the stigma of PTSD because the veneer of anonymity in the digital world allows people with PTSD to be willing …

Adapting Skazki: How American Authors Reinvent Russian Fairy Tales, Sarah Krasner

Scripps Senior Theses

Adaptations of works have the potential to bring their subject matter to a new audience. This thesis explores the adaptation of Russian fairy tales into novels by authors Orson Scott Card and Joy Preble by looking at how they present Russian fairy tales, folkloric figures, and fairy tale structure to an American audience.

Of Wolves, Hunters, And Words: A Comparative Study Of Cultural Discourses In The Western Great Lakes Region, Tovar Cerulli

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is a description, interpretation, and comparison of talk about wolves. The study is based on diverse data—including in-depth interviews, instances of public talk, government documents, and letters to the editor—gathered over three years. An overarching research question guides the study: How do hunting communities create and use discourses concerning wolves? The study is situated within the ethnography of communication and, more specifically, the framework of cultural discourse analysis. The study employs cultural discourse analysis methods and concepts to describe and develop interpretations of how participants render wolves symbolically meaningful, and of beliefs and values underpinning such meanings. One …

Moving Foward?: Problematic Ideologies In Twenty-First Century Fairy Tale Films, Alyson Kilmer

All Master's Theses

Fairy tales, as a reflection of our values and belief systems, are crucial in shaping and maintaining cultural ideologies. In the twenty-first century, cinematic fairy tales have the unique position of representing such values in an expansive and expeditious manner. Audiences must therefore be critically conscious of the messages promoted by these tales. An analysis of the five most popular contemporary fairy tale films, Disney’s Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and Disney’s Frozen (2013) and Maleficent (2014), revealed minimal attempts to propitiate critical audiences in regard to changing cultural values, but …

Hotel Bukovyna, Rebecca Ann Bosshart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This collection of short stories and first chapter of a novella take place in the historical area of Bukovyna, the beech tree land, partly located in Chernivetska region, western Ukraine. On the edge of it, or under it, or traveling to and from it, in contemporary time. I've been occupied with "the outsider," represented here, and where the seven stories reside, by the giant grande dame tourist hotel on Main Street, across from Shevchenko Park, in Chernivtsi, the region's city center. The occupants: the outsider looking in and around. Outsiders looking at other outsiders. An outsider being welcomed in. Most …

From The Middle Ages To Modernity: The Intersecting Supernatural Worlds Of Melusine And Today's Popular Culture, Sarah Stark

Honors Theses

While some may scoff at fairy tales as juvenile, primitive, or superstitious, they have always held a special fascination for me, and I am not alone in this- stories about magicians, monsters, and mythical creatures have captivated their audiences' imaginations for thousands of years. Feeling myself consistently drawn toward this type of story, I began several months ago to study supernatural tales from the medieval era as well as those popular today, and I have since discovered numerous worlds in which the natural and supernatural coexist. Creatures seemingly human are, in fact, sometimes more-or less, depending on one's perspective. Families …

Documenting The Oral Narratives Of Transient Punks, Thomas Ross Heffernan

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The uninitiated do not realize the complexity of the punk rock sub-culture. Outsiders may find it hard to distinguish the subtle lines by which differentiation occurs within the so-called subculture. The "punk rock subculture" is a misnomer; it is not a salient community. The experience of being "punk" is fractal; what it means to be punk and what classifies one as punk is in constant redefinition and there are various different communities with varying ideologies and identities. The punk subculture has absorbed various epistemologies in its 40+ years of existence, modified them, and made them their own. Within this milieu …

Buck-Horned Snakes And Possum Women: Non-White Folkore, Antebellum *Southern Literature, And Interracial Cultural Exchange, John Douglas Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The antebellum American South was a site of continual human mobility and social fluidity. This cultivated a pattern of cultural exchange between black, indigenous, and white Southerners, especially in the Old Southwest, making the region a cultural borderland as well as a geographical one. This environment resulted in the creolization of many aspects of life in the region. to date, the literature of the Old South has yet to be studied in this context. This project traces the diffusion of African-American and Native American culture in white-authored Southern texts.;For instance, textual evidence in Old Southwestern Humor reveals a pattern of …

The People Of Bear Hunter Speak: Oral Histories Of The Cache Valley Shoshones Regarding The Bear River Massacre, Aaron L. Crawford

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Cache Valley Shoshone are the survivors of the Bear River Massacre, where a battle between a group of US. volunteer troops from California and a Shoshone village degenerated into the worst Indian massacre in US. history, resulting in the deaths of over 200 Shoshones. The massacre occurred due to increasing tensions over land use between the Shoshones and the Mormon settlers. Following the massacre, the Shoshones attempted settling in several different locations in Box Elder County, eventually finding a home in Washakie, Utah. However, the LDS Church sold the land where the city of Washakie sat, forcing the Shoshones …

Anthropology And Environmental Studies Of The Southwest: The Integration Of People And The Land Through Time, Terri S. Ross

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

The indigenous peoples of the American Southwest are so culturally integrated with their environment that it is impossible to separate the land and the people. Personal interviews with three Navajo women provide an original and native voice illustrating their relationship to the environment. Five different topics chosen from their interviews have been researched to provide academic information for a more complete picture illustrating the integration of the people and the land through time.

I claim to understand the relationship between anthropology and environmental studies of the American Southwest. The people must be viewed in their native environment, and their voice …

John A Lomax: Documenting The Myth Of The American West, Katherine Hinchliffe Gschwend

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Folklore: A Study And Tales From The Ozarks, Sharon Hibbard

Honors Theses

From its inception, folktale research has had a two-pronged aim: it has been interested, on the one hand, in the nature and origins of oral narration not fixed in writing; and it has been interested in folk culture as expressed in the content and form of the folktale. These two points of view have resulted in two different kinds of research methods. One has sprung essentially from comparative literature and has been established as a new branch of that discipline; the other has developed from the French sociological and the British anthropological schools, which consider of folk tradition--to which the …