American Popular Culture Commons^™

Clark, Otis Vernon, Jr., 1926-2006 (Mss 428), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 428. Chiefly letters from Otis Vernon Clark, Jr., while studying in Lexington, Virginia, to his parents Otis and Susie, Bowling Green, Kentucky, detailing university social life. Also included in the collection are miscellaneous photos, postcards, and biographical information.

Social Learning Theory In The Frontline Documentary “The Merchants Of Cool”, Alixe A. Wiley

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

In the Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool, the relationship between major media conglomerates and their hedonistic teenage customers is examined through exploring the different tactics industries use to discover and market the next “cool” thing. Industries maintain what the documentary refers to as a “feedback loop” with their customers, which is a cyclic, supply-and-demand relationship that blurs the line between fiction and reality. It has become impossible to tell which side is imitating the other: who do the products and trends that define popular youth culture belong to? What's more, are the sexual and aggressive hormone-fueled behaviors on …

Miller, Carl Haskell, 1889-1964 (Sc 2587), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2587. Daily diary and journal of Carl Haskell Miller, Tompkinsville, Kentucky. A manager on the Chautauqua circuit, Miller writes in a detailed but lighthearted way of his family, his life at home and of his travels in the United States and Mexico. He also reproduces some of his personal and professional correspondence, and writes of his mother’s death in 1927.

Spraggins, Cody (Fa 585), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding Aid only for Folklife Archives Project 585. Video by Cody Spraggins titled “The Community of Dungeons and Dragons Players as a Folk Group.” The video is a compilation of interviews with three individuals who participate in the role playing fantasy game. The focus of the video is the sentiment that the “gamers” have created distinct folk groups within their community of play. Typescript of abstract only. The project was submitted for the 2011 Folklife Archives Award competition at Western Kentucky University.

Hopkin, Rachel Claire (Fa 586), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding Aid and full text paper (Click on "Additional File" below) for Folklife Archives Project 586. Independent study project conducted by Rachel Hopkin on George R. Gibson, a banjo player from eastern Kentucky. The project, contained on two DVDs, includes photos, audio interviews and transcripts, a paper, bibliography, and field notes. Participating in the interview are Gibson and musicians John W. Haywood and Kevin C. Howard, who describe Gibson’s influence on them. This project was executed for the folk studies program at Western Kentucky University.

Whitaker, Francis J., 1916-1994 (Mss 406), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans of selected items (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 406. Correspondence, research notes and manuscript articles of Francis J. “Thomas” Whitaker, a Benedictine monk who lived and worked at St. Maur’s Priory, formerly the South Union Shaker Village in Logan County, Kentucky, from 1954-1988. He amassed a large collection of photocopied research material on the South Union community as well as other Shaker villages and museums in the United States. Also includes his research on various Catholic topics.

Ferrell Family Papers (Mss 60), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 60. Correspondence of Thomas V. Ferrell, teacher and businessman, and of his wife, Winnie (58 items), and of their daughter Thelma (94 items), of Somerset, Kentucky; Ferrell family legal papers (7 items); notes of Thelma, who worked for the Somerset Journal for years; and miscellaneous receipts, clippings, etc.

Hines, Duncan, 1880-1959 (Mss 410), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 410. Materials relating to Duncan Hines and the marketing of the “Duncan Hines” brand of food products. Includes obituary notices for Duncan Hines, ice cream franchise agreement, stock certificate books for related companies, and a study on marketing the brand to consumers, especially women.

Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth And The Rise Of Popular Premillennialism In The 1970s, Cortney S. Basham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

How people think about the end of the world greatly affects how they live in the present. This thesis examines how popular American thought about “the end of the world” has been greatly affected by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 popular prophecy book The Late, Great Planet Earth. LGPE sold more copies than any other non-fiction book in the 1970s and greatly aided the mainstreaming of “end-times” ideas like the Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, the Rapture, and various other concepts connected with popular end-times thought. These ideas stem from a specific strain of late-nineteenth century Biblical interpretation known as dispensational premillennialism, which …

Chicago: A Movie Musical Mockery Of The Media's Razzle Dazzle Image Of Murder., Emily Sulock

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

This thesis closely examines the adaptation of Rob Marshall’s 2002 movie musical Chicago, specifically how the music and choreography support the mocking tone against the media and criminal justice system. With a storyline that has lasted almost a century, its themes still relate to our society today as it exposes the corrupt industries that hold an unhealthy amount of power over public opinion. By breaking down musical numbers, “Both Reached for the Gun” and “Razzle Dazzle,” I argue that Marshall’s unique concept connects to a modern generation immune to over-publicized and infamous murder trials.

A Postmodern Sense Of Nostalgia: Demonstrating Through A Textual Analysis Of Twin Peaks How Cult Membership Can Be Inculcated., Nicholas G. Albanese

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

This paper explores a “cult” following in television, by looking at various aspects of the program Twin Peaks. It seeks to answer the questions of how a television show that aired for only two seasons over two decades ago was and still is able to garner such a loyal fandom, and is there some primary factor for developing this cult status? In order to answer these questions, aspects of media studies such as narrative complexity, authorship and the cult status of a show, as well as elements from the show itself, such as postmodernism and manufactured nostalgia must be teased …

Dalton, Callie Lou, B. 1965 (Fa 576), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 576. "The Handmade Paper Doll: A Study in Tradition," a paper written by Callie Lou Dalton for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Browning, Jimmy D. (Fa 157), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 157. This collection includes cassette tapes of interviews with eight women used as research for Jimmy D. Browning’s paper “A Tie That Binds: Contemporary Funeral Foodways In A Rural, Central Kentucky Community.” Two copies of the paper are also included in the collection.

Nelson, James S. (Fa 161), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 161. This collection contains a master’s thesis entitled “Hillbilly Music and Early Live Radio Programming In Bowling Green and Glasgow, Kentucky: Country Music as a Local Phenomenon,” written by James Nelson in January 1994 for the department of Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies at Western Kentucky University. Also included is a cassette tape of old-time music from south central Kentucky entitled “Railroad Through the Smoky Mountains,” by Jim Bowles, as well as an obituary for Jonell F. Simunick.

Jackson, Michelle Margie (Fa 159), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 159. This collection contains a paper entitled “Moonshining,” written by Michelle Jackson as a part of a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in the spring of 1994. Also included is a cassette tape of an interview with Jerry Rhoton, sheriff of Clay County, Tennessee, as well as his informant data sheet and four photos of him.

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending July 10, 2012, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles.
• UNLV continues to work with BLM and Condit, supplying content for interpretation at the future Walking Box Ranch museum.
• BLM visited the ranch on July 5 to …

Negrocity: An Interview With Greg Tate, Camille Goodison

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Eclectic Book Club (Mss 407), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 407. Minute book, yearbooks, and financial data of the Eclectic Book Club, a women's literary club in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

The Triumph Of The Passenger Ship - An Exhibition Of The Norman H. Morse Ocean Liner Collection, Osher Map Library

Osher Map Library Exhibition Catalogs

Triumph of the Passenger Ship: Highlights from the Norman H. Morse Ocean Liner Collection, 1870-2010.

May 15, 2012 to August 23, 2012

The experience of life aboard the great vessels that plied the Atlantic, from the introduction of steam to the rise of air travel, is presented through this selection of materials from the Morse Collection of ocean liner ephemera.

Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Certain films and television programs depicting fathers have both enduring popularity and have reflected the advances in the institution of fatherhood. This has happened because of a symbiosis that has delivered positive results: popular films and television shows that earn money for producers and advertisers have depicted fathers who have changed to reflect the popular example. These depictions have contributed in their way to mending the family dynamic, specifically related to the father’s essential role in the family. Such family-oriented films and television shows have effectively showed fathers (and men that would become fathers) that they could be much more …