American Literature Commons^™

Ogilvie, Frances, 1902-1942 - Relating To (Sc 3351), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3351. Information about the life and writings of Frances Ogilvie, a Princeton, Kentucky native and author of the novel Green Bondage. The information is contained in a clipping, a letter from a Princeton librarian, and a letter from Ogilvie’s husband, Earle M. Nichols, who recalls the Kentucky “tobacco wars” that provided the inspiration for the novel. Includes a poem of Ogilvie’s titled “Spring Day.”

Davison, Peter Hubert, 1928-2004 (Sc 3346), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3346. Letter written by poet Peter Davison, undated, to Robert Penn Warren in which he thanks Warren for the day which inspired the enclosed poem, “Swimming, 1935,” which he dedicated to Warren on 10 March 1981. It also includes a touching poem by Davison about the death of his mother Natalie (Weiner) Davison. The printed poem was sent to Warren and his wife Eleanor “with regards, Peter Davison, 11/15/[19]61.” The originals of these documents are located in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Ayars, Rebecca Caudill, 1899-1985 (Sc 3348), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3348. Letter, 5 March 1958, of author Rebecca Caudill Ayars, Urbana, Illinois, to WKU faculty member Frances Richards. Owing to a previous engagement, she declines an invitation to WKU’s Leiper English Club dinner.

Creason, Joe, 1918-1974 (Sc 3347), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3347. “Kentuckians: How and Why We’re Different,” a speech delivered by Joe Creason, columnist for the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, to a joint meeting of the Simpson County (Kentucky) Historical Society and the Franklin (Kentucky) Chamber of Commerce, September 1967. The speech reviews Kentucky’s history, geography, settlement, culture, and notable citizens. Includes a “Kentucky mountain version” of the fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914 - Relating To (Sc 3341), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3341. Letter, 7 May 1969, to Frances Richards, Franklin, Kentucky, enclosing photocopy of a handwritten poem by Madison Cawein dated 7 April 1887. The letter writer explains that the poem, titled “Rondeau to You,” was written for and presented to the aunt of a coworker.

Performing Desire In Times Square: Sailors, Hustlers And Masculinity, Kel R. Karpinski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From WWII to the early 1970s, New York City as a port town created a liminal space extending from the piers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard all the way to Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. In Times Square, through interactions on the street, in bars and in hotel rooms, desire and masculinity become a performance between and for men. The queerness of these performances lies in the fact that they fall outside of the norms of society both as same-sex encounters and because sex work is viewed as “deviant.” Further, these interactions eschew traditional labels and limits of desire and …

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …

Modern Charity: Morality, Politics, And Mid-Twentieth Century Us Writing, Matt Bryant Cheney

Theses and Dissertations--English

Scholars over the past two decades (Denning, Szalay, Edmunds, Robbins) have theorized the different ways literature of the Mid-Twentieth Century reflects the dawn of the liberal US welfare state. While these studies elaborate on the effect rapidly expanding public aid had on literary production of the period, many have tended to undervalue the lingering influence on midcentury storytelling of private charity and philanthropy, those traditional aid institutions fundamentally challenged by the Great Depression and historically championed by conservatives. If the welfare state had an indelible impact on US literatures, so did the moral complexity of the systems of charity and …

A Repurposed Narrative: Mary Rowlandson’S Narrative And Pre-Revolutionary Sentiment, Steven F. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations--English

Leading into the American Revolution, Puritan captivity narratives gained a resurgent popularity as nationalized sentiment burned towards political upheaval. Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative (1682) was reprinted six times between 1770-1776, signifying an incredible interest in Puritan stories that seemed to antithetically inspire a progressive and radical revolution against England. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God or A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson enhanced an already fervent revolutionary sentiment, transforming a seemingly straightforward captivity narrative into a totem meant to represent the oppressive struggle between England and her most coveted colony.

Such a literary revival taps …

“I’Ve Known Rivers:” Representations Of The Mississippi River In African American Literature And Culture, Catherine Gooch

Theses and Dissertations--English

My dissertation, titled “I’ve Known Rivers”: Representations of the Mississippi River in African American Literature and Culture, uncovers the impact of the Mississippi River as a powerful, recurring geographical feature in twentieth-century African American literature that conveys the consequences of capitalist expansion on the individual and communal lives of Black Americans. Recent scholarship on the Mississippi River theorizes the relationship between capitalism, geography, and slavery. Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom, Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History, and Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the …

Show Her It's A Man's World: How The Femme Fatale Became A Vehicle For Propaganda, Leann Bishop

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

During World War II women joined the workforce in droves due to propaganda such as Rosie the Riveter. When Soldiers began returning from the war they wanted stability and normalcy. They wanted to return to the America they left where women ran the household and men went to work. Women, however, experienced a new sense of freedom from working and wanted to continue their liberation. It was during this time that femme fatales, the sultry women of film noir became popular. They represented the liberated women of the 1940s. The film industry saw an opportunity to use these women found …

The Prodigal Daughter: An Edition Of An Anonymous Text, Paige Deans

Theses and Dissertations

The Prodigal Daughter (1736) is a poem that, on the surface, appears to be an approachable text that was likely geared towards a children’s audience during New England’s first Great Awakening, within the approachable format of a chapbook. However, when explored further, The Prodigal Daughter reveals a complicated textual history during a time of theological and social revival in New England. This thesis considers the historical context of The Prodigal Daughter’s narrative, as well as the poem’s publication history. The text’s transmission is carefully examined and encapsulated in this edition—giving the reader a transcription that is the result of …

The Intermedial Politics Of Handwritten Newspapers In The 19th-Century U.S., Mark A. Mattes

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Handwritten newspapers appeared in a variety of social contexts in the 19th-century U.S.1 The largest extant portion of 19th-century handwritten newspapers emerged from home and school settings. More far-flung examples include those written aboard ships during exploratory and military voyages. Others were produced within institutions such as hospitals and asylums. Such works were written during times of privation, including life in an army regiment or a prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. At other times, handwritten newspapers accompanied efforts at westward settlement and transcontinental railway journeys. Impromptu papers could follow in the wake of natural disasters that knocked out print-based …

“Your Love Is Too Thick”: An Analysis Of Black Motherhood In Slave Narratives, Neo-Slave Narratives, And Our Contemporary Moment, Kaitlyn M. Spong

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, Kait Spong examines alternative practices of mothering that are strategic nature, heavily analyzing Patricia Hill Collins’ concepts of “othermothering” and “preservative love” as applied to Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, Beloved and Harriet Jacob’s 1861 slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Using literary analysis as a vehicle, Spong then applies these West African notions of motherhood to a modern context by evaluating contemporary social movements such as Black Lives Matter where black mothers have played a prominent role in making public statements against systemic issues such as police brutality, heightened surveillance, and the …

Blotner, Joseph Leo, 1923-2012 (Mss 200), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 200. Research material collected by Joseph Leo Blotner for his literary biography of Robert Penn Warren. Includes Warren’s correspondence (photocopies from various repositories), interview transcripts, notes, news clippings, critical essays, and other documentation about Warren. Also includes drafts, galley proofs, and permissions related to the biography.

Chambliss, Landon Baird "Hank," 1921-1994 (Sc 3295), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3295. Poems by Baird “Hank” Chambliss, Cave City, Kentucky, collected under the title “Yesterday’s” [sic]. Chiefly based on aspects of the lives of Chambliss, his family and of young people he knew, the poems also feature romantic, genealogical and nostalgic themes. Includes an alphabetical list of titles. This collection is in digital format only in TopSCHOLAR.

Kentucky - Poetry (Sc 3271), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3271. "We 'Haint So Bad," a humorous poem by an unknown author that makes use of stereotypes about being a Kentuckian.

Heavy Lies The Crown: The Role Of Common Sense In Shifting Colonial Blame From Parliament To King In 1776, Megan L. Tocci

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

The purpose of this research is to provide an effective analysis of the role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in shaping colonial resentment of the Crown in 1776. The study draws upon primary newspaper sources from across the Atlantic seaboard, as well as books and academic journal articles published by leading historians. While most research of the American revolutionary period recognizes colonial frustration with the British Empire was primarily focused upon the actions of Parliament, little research traces the public’s changing relationship to the King. This analysis showcases the link between Common Sense and changing colonial perception and postulates that …

Clarke, Mary Louise (Washington), 1913-1999 (Mss 634), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 634. Research, correspondence and photographs relating to the scholarly study of Kentucky author Jesse Stuart by WKU English and folklore professor Mary (Washington) Clarke. Includes correspondence with Stuart, editors and other scholars in connection with her book Jesse Stuart’s Kentucky and other publications. Also includes research and correspondence relating to Clarke’s book Kentucky Quilts and Their Makers.

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Tracing Moral Injury In Us Wars And Implications For The Year 2050, Robert A. Jensen

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Throughout conflicts in history, the psycho-spiritual construct known today as “moral injury” can be found. This term was coined in 1994 out of conceptions of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to describe intense shame and guilt aspects resulting from military service. The challenge comes with extrapolating this injury in the wake of nuances in terminology about related symptoms in conjunction with an evolving consciousness in identifying invisible military-related injuries. With current research and a historic pattern of unnamed moral injuries, this study explores the following: How did military chaplains address moral injuries without this construct? What are Unitarian Universalist (UU) military …

An Intersectional Feminist Perspective Of Emmett Till In Young Adult Literature, Claire Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emmett Till’s murder inspired many novelists, poets, and artists. Recently, Till has inspired several feminist young adult novelists who are introducing his case in an intersectional way to a new generation of readers. The works that I have studied are A Wreath for Emmett Till (2003) by Marilyn Nelson, The Hunger Games Trilogy (2008-2010) by Suzanne Collins, and Midnight without a Moon (2017) by Linda Jackson. By examining how the authors employ a feminist perspective, readers can understand how they are striving for a more inclusive, intersectional feminist movement. This is significant because the publishing industry, specifically for Young Adult …

Brother Outsider: Queered Belonging And Kinships In African American Men’S Literature, 1953-1971, Debarati Biswas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brother Outsider: Queered Belonging and Kinships in African American Men’s Literature, 1953-1971 builds on the work of women-of-color feminists since the late 1960s and queer-of-color critique in the works of José Esteban Muñoz, Robert Reid-Pharr, Roderic Ferguson, and Nadia Ellis, in order to chronicle the emergence of a queer tradition in mid twentieth century African American men’s literature. Through literary analysis and archival research on marginal figures of African American culture during this period, this dissertation proposes that the black pulp novels of Chester Himes, Robert Deane Pharr, Clarence Cooper Jr., and Iceberg Slim perform a queer critique of and …

A Blend Of Absurdism And Humanism: Defending Kurt Vonnegut’S Place In The Secondary Setting, Krisandra R. Johnson

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay argues that Kurt Vonnegut blends a unique humanist stance into his absurdist plots and characters, ultimately urging readers to confront the absurd with a kindness and human decency his protagonists often find rare. As a result of this absurd and humanist synthesis, I defend and promote Vonnegut’s place in the secondary English curriculum, despite his rank on many banned books lists, since his characters’ journeys correlate thematically with the growth and process of postmodern adolescents and encourage moral responsibility without sentimental manipulation.

Focusing on Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five as primary sources, specifically …

Clarke, Kenneth Wendell, 1917-2012 (Mss 635), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 635. Manuscripts, notes, publisher’s correspondence, and photographs relating to the scholarly work of WKU English and folklore professor Kenneth W. Clarke, principally "Bud Long: The Birth of a Kentucky Folk Legend" and "The Harvest and the Reapers." Also includes reel-to-reel tape discussing home burial and casket - coffins, African American discussing race relations, singing in Barren County, Kentucky. See also digitized reel-to-reel tape T (T) -7-71-16 discussing cockfighting.

A Slowly Starving Race: Land And The Language Of Hunger In Zitkala-Ša’S "Blue-Star Woman", Adam R, Brantley

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper proposes that the motif of starvation in Zitkala-Ša’s 1921 short story, “The Widespread Enigma Concerning Blue-Star Woman,” is in fact a metaphor for the dispossession of Native American lands and its disastrous effects on Native American livelihood and culture. Though much scholarship has been done on sentimental rhetoric in Zitkala-Ša’s fiction, critics have not yet explored its connection to this the most immediate Zitkala-Ša’s concerns. This essay first unpacks letters from Zitkala-Ša’s personal archives to demonstrate her individual interest in dispossession, and then examines “Blue-Star Woman’s” ever-present language of hunger through this lens of land loss. In doing …

For The Cobweb Club: Mottoes, Margaret J. M. Sweat

Annals of the Cobweb Club

Ribbon-bound booklet containing handwritten mottoes for the Cobweb Club.

The Purloined Letters: A Collection Of Mail Robbery Reports From Ohio Papers, 1841-1850, Marc Cibella

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

Marc Cibella’s essay introduces and explains why nineteenth-century Americans got excited about newspaper reports of mail robbery.

Colonel John Johnston's "Biography Of Tecumtha" (1854), Caitlin Metheny

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

In this installment, we have a biography of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh by Colonel John Johnston (here and, in some sources, spelled Johnson), who worked for decades as an “Indian agent”—an official liaison between the US government and indigenous peoples—at Fort Wayne and Piqua. Johnston's biography is followed by a critical essay by Caitlin Metheny.

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …