Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Adelynn, Sari Shuler

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Adelynn follows a princess who is kidnapped from her wedding by rebels. After a failed attempt at escaping, Adelynn realizes a rebel named Kev is pretending to fall in love with her to learn information for the rebellion to use. Adelynn plays along, hoping to eventually take down the rebellion. As time progresses, and Adelynn’s parents don’t rescue her, she develops true feelings for Kev. When the compound is raided, Adelynn and Kev admit their feelings for each other and flee to a nearby city. In the city, Adelynn realizes her idealized perception of her kingdom is false. She chooses …

Chaos, Damon Stone

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Over the duration of the summer and this past semester, I have revised a story which I wrote in middle school, known as ChAos. The story focuses on fictionalized version of friends of mine from middle school, as they survive a zombie apocalypse together, while bringing down the corporate entity that started it, and dealing with the political aftermath of such an event. Throughout this, I have started work on an audiobook as well, consulting with several different voice actors to help with the project.

Throughout this process, several changes had been done to add to the quality of the …

Bibliography, Trish Lindsey Jaggers

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Trish Jaggers.

Creating Community In A Space Of Strangers: Sea Shanties In Theatre, Cassandra Merena

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Theatre is more than watching actors in the present. It can bring a magic into the room that connects us to a tangible ride of emotions. Sea shanties, a widely known variety of maritime singing, is purposely meant to bring its singers together. I wrote and directed an original one-act play structured around its repetitive beats, to create a communal feeling that will deem a sea of strangers a community for that day. The songs curated were specifically chosen to achieve that sense of community–songs that allow moments of reflection, toe-tapping, humming, and recognition. Phantom Pains is about a captain …

Zephyrus, Wku English Department

Zephyrus

The fine arts magazine of Western Kentucky University at Bowling Green.

Beam, Ernie (Sc 3655), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3655. “Home Folks,” a booklet of poems by Ernie Beam, Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Hines, James Arvin, 1926-2017 (Mss 746), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 746. Articles, stories, songs, and two unpublished novels by Ohio County, Kentucky native and prolific freelance writer James Hines.

Eng 300: The Efficacy Of Bacteriophage & Lysin Antimicrobials In Industrial & Commercial Settings, Bella Norman

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Eng 100: Things That Belong In The Garden, Ellen Sego

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Eng 300: How Can Writers Use Aural Media Distractions To Their Advantage?, Madeline Miller

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Eng 200: The Approaches To Grief By Robert Frost & Joy Harjo, Heaven Howard

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Antitype: An Exploration Of Self And Poetry, Faith Harris

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Antitype is a collection of poetry that examines childhood and adolescence through a lens of place and loss, while exploring both poetry and creative processes. The work presented begins by contextualizing antitype within the history of poetry, assessing influences of specific poets and poetic movements on my own work. Next, I share excerpts from my poetry collection to illustrate connections from its five different sections, each investigating facets of this overarching theme: my childhood affected by loss and as it contributes to my development as a poet. Section one examines how my childhood was shaped by place and family heritage. …

Cawein, Madison, 1865-1914 (Sc 3621), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3620. Poem, “The Little Boy’s Thanksgiving,” by Madison Cawein. The typescript of the poem is inscribed by Cawein. Includes a letter from Cawein to Reverend Charles E. Craik, Louisville, Kentucky, expressing pleasure in composing it for children.

Watley, Louanne, B. 1937, Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3606. Correspondence of Watley, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and poet, author and Appalachian studies scholar Jim Wayne Miller regarding writing workshops and grant-funded projects. Includes poems of Watley and a detailed critique by Miller.

Crafting Character: Exploring Elder Identity Through Story, Cameron Fontes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The following thesis is a culmination of several key activities I have engaged in as a creative writer with a single focus: to create fiction that employs the perspectives, the voices, of persons at later stages of their lives, a population vulnerable to disease and, more insidious, loneliness. First, I discuss my experiences reviving the Western Kentucky student organization Companions of Respected Elders. C.O.R.E. allowed undergraduates to work with local residential centers (nursing homes) by engaging their residents in the collaborative act of creating stories from picture prompts and encouraging questions, following the training and paradigm of TimeSlips^TM. …

Zephyrus, Wku English Department

Zephyrus

No abstract provided.

Emmie And The Enchanted Orchid: Portraying Positive Disability Representation In Children's Media, Adrianna Waters

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Disability representation in media and storytelling is often negative or inaccurate, with disability narratives equating disability to evil or lesser than abled bodies. The harmful representation is especially prevalent and dangerous in children’s media as the depiction of characters with disabilities may be children’s first introduction to disability, and thus the portrayal is likely to stay with them, especially as stories for adults continue to perpetuate the inaccurate representation of disabilities. “Emmie and the Enchanted Orchid”: Portraying Positive Disability Representation in Children’s Media seeks to examine the harmful portrayal of disabilities in children’s media while also recognizing how disability can …

Many Miles Away: A Cautionary Tale, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Reporter Kerry Phillips is in for the surprise of her life: her television station has been contacted on a matter so important that 'scarcely anything could be of greater interest,' and she has been asked to follow up on the story. Little does she know just how interesting her job is about to get!

I Love You, Go Away (A Novel), John Matthew Steinhafel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

I Love You, Go Away, a novel set in Milwaukee, tells the story of a twenty-two year-old nobody, Gabriel Driscoll, who meets and befriends a middle-aged, drug addicted, recluse actor, Beau Brooks. But less than six months into their friendship Beau commits suicide. At the funeral Gabriel meets a twenty-nine-year-old corporate executive, Michelle, the daughter of Beau’s long-time girlfriend. Gabriel and Michelle bond over their mutual grief and quickly strike up a romance. At the same time, Gabriel’s semi-estranged mother, Sadie, a recovering heroin addict, reaches out to him in an effort to rebuild their relationship. What follows for Gabriel …

The Language Of Breathing, Brian Wallace Baker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Language of Breathing is an eclectic collection of 18 creative nonfiction essays that capture moments from the author’s life and attempt to give them meaning through narrative and metaphor. They deal with relationships, nature, faith, and often rely on background research to pair art, mythology, current events, and science with personal experience.

The Barren Springs Songbook, Caroline Grace Sutphin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Barren Springs Songbook is a poetry collection exploring Appalachian themes through the lens of three representative characters and my own experience. The poems presented are in blank verse and lean heavily on musicality, as each poem features an epigraph from my own Great Uncle Henry’s song lyrics. The poetry explores themes of poverty, folklore, feminism, and Christianity within the context of Barren Springs, an insular Appalachian community. The characters of Henry, India, and Myrtle provide a glimpse into how things have been in my family history, and the more modern poems representing myself show the cultural shifts that are …

Ua37/2 We Lived Happily During The Plague, Tom C. Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ua37/2 If This Next Apocalypse Gets Canceled Or Postponed, Tom Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during Covid-19 pandemic.

Ua37/2 We Will Survive, Tom C. Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ua37/2 Love As The World Ends, Tom C. Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during Covid-19 pandemic.

Ua37/2 Lockdown Haiku, Tom C. Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Haiku written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during Covid-19 pandemic.

Ua37/2 Autism Isn't Coronavirus, Tom C. Hunley

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hero: The Musical, Owen Mefford

Gatton Academy Student Research Outcomes

Over the past year and a half, I, aided by my research mentor, have undertaken the process of writing the libretto for an original stage musical. The concept is an idea I have somewhat developed for years, that of a musical based on a spoof of the superhero genre and its many tropes. The musical follows Danny, a young college kid who has just moved to the big city and gains the power to freeze time. As he becomes a blossoming super hero, he must balance his romantic interest in his friend Sam, a reporter, with his new duties. Along …

The Memorialist, Lindsey Houchin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Memorialist is a work of creative nonfiction. In this long-form essay, the author digests the memories and secondhand stories unearthed while exploring the junked, rusted, and wrecked life of an eccentric uncle who was preceded in death by his sister, the author’s mother. Through its associative and slippery structure, it follows the author as she untangles two histories halted—connected, contrasting lives disrupted by death. Meditative and metaphorical, the narrative explores both the beauty and burden of death through the eulogy form in a quest to determine how to memorialize a life defined by what death leaves behind.

Old Man Young Man Snake, Bradley Hathaway

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A young man in rural and frigid North Dakota is on the run for committing a crime. He finds refuge at a secluded bible camp from a mysterious old man that may or may not have his best interests in mind, and the young man must decide if the old man’s protection is worth the cost. Exploring ideas of free will, God, nature, and visions, Old Man Young Man Snake, a screenplay, quietly tells their story.