American Popular Culture Commons^™

Fairleigh Family Papers (Sc 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 349. Class book, 1839-1844, of the Methodist Church, Brandenburg, Kentucky, containing membership list, 1843-44, and some notations of contributions. Also, it contains law and minutes of the Belles Lettres Society, 1849-1850, and of the Union Debating Society, October 1852. The book was kept by Thomas Fairleigh and other Fairleigh family members.

Volkerding Family Papers (Mss 385), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 385. Letters written chiefly by Herman Frederick Wilhelm Volkerding, of Louisville, Kentucky, to his wife Mary Elizabeth (Hauber) Volkerding while traveling as a salesman for the John T. Barbee distillers. Volkerding pines for home and describes the scenery, hotels, amusements and rail travel in the western United States.

Reed, Margaret (Sc 344), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 344. Letter written by Margaret Reed, Smiths Grove, Kentucky, to Mrs. Charles Porter, Bowling Green, Kentucky, declining her invitation to visit during the fair.

Taft, Ann Celine (Fa 49), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 49. Oral history interview with The Straightway Gospel Singers from Gallatin, Tennessee conducted by Ann Celine Taft for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Subsequent paper titled "The Straightway Gospel Singers" also included.

Spradlin, James Edward (Fa 51), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 51. Oral history interview with Dwight, Virginia, Bill and Geneva Spradlin conducted by James Spradlin for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1984. Topics include recreation and entertainment in Floyd County, Kentucky during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Autobiographical Sketch Of A Group Based Musician (Fa 48), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 48. “Autobiographical Sketch of a Group Based Musician,” a paper and interview executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Author chose to remain anonymous.

Roberts, Ethel (Sc 2499), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2499. Letter, 18 January 1923, from 16-year-old Ethel Roberts, a student in Big Creek, Kentucky, to Helen Ferenczy, Altgeld School, Chicago, Illinois. Ethel describes Christmas and other activities at her school.

Wayne County, Kentucky Project (Fa 23), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid for Folklife Archives Project 23. Oral history interviews with various residents of Wayne County, Kentucky, conducted by Western Kentucky University folk studies students. Topics include the oil industry, folk medicine, water witching, one-room schools and banjo playing.

Patterson, F. Youree, 1869-1936 (Sc 246), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 246. Campaign letter, 25 July 1913, written by F. Youree Patterson, Bowling Green, Kentucky, concerning his candidacy for the Warren County Clerk’s office in the primary election on the dry ticket.

Rich, Cordell (Fa 47), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives 47. Interview with Cordell Rich at his home near Jamestown, Tennessee. Topics include gospel hymns, death omens and ghost stories.

Gibbs, Verbina (Fa 45), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 45. Interview with Verbina Gibbs about her work as an obituary writer in Allen County, Kentucky.

Hester, Elizabeth Allen, B. 1956 (Fa 43), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 43. [Flea markets] Collection of typescripts, photographs and cassette tapes concerning the family/personal history and current occupation (flea market seller) of Margie Hawks. Collectioncontains a detailed account of the family history of Mrs. Hawks and their subsistence farming. Project completed by Elizabeth (Beth) Hester for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 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 is working with new BLM employees Glen Marsh and Audrey Asselin to address continuing deterioration of the ranch house. UNLV has suggested to BLM that they …

Walking Box Ranch Planning And Design Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 10, 2012, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV’s President Smatresk has reiterated his commitment to the WBR project and has further committed full funding for IT and security costs.
• UNLV participated in a one-half day meeting with BLM to discuss the future WBR operating agreement between BLM and UNLV; UNLV participated in a 1.5 day meeting to review the 100% Design drawings.
• UNLV continues to wait on BLM for direction on how to mitigate the continuing deterioration of the ranch house.
• Weather station research continues and has produced the following this past quarter. 1) Ground-source heat pump (GSHP) Vs Photovoltaic (PV) technology: A detailed analysis comparing these …

Whites, Pierce Butler (Fa 32), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan of paper (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 32. Contemporary marijuana cultivation andusage: interviews and documents. Project completed by Pierce Butler Whites concerning illicit marijuana growth and construction of marijuana paraphernalia. Completed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Contains transcriptions, tape logs, photographs and cassette tapes.

Gag Order: Muting, Mortification, And Motherhood In Eminem’S “Cleaning Out My Closet”, Lynne Stahl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mothers At Work: Reconstruction And Deconstruction Of Patriarchy In Gone With The Wind, Catherine Willa Staley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In this thesis, I explore the performances of motherhood in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and how those performances conflict with culturally constructed expectations of that role. An analysis of Scarlett O’Hara and Melanie Wilkes, and how each woman compares to the South’s model for motherhood, reveals implications that extend beyond the novel’s Civil War setting to reveal the ongoing negotiation of modern readers still living within patriarchal conceptions of mothering. In Chapter 1, I outline the novel’s spectrum of motherhood, which is composed of characters who nurture and manage others. Each individual on that spectrum contributes to or …

Time In Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality In 21st Century Programming, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This collection analyzes twenty-first-century American television programs that rely upon temporal and narrative experimentation. These shows play with time, slowing it down to unfold the narrative through time retardation and compression. They disrupt the chronological flow of time itself, using flashbacks and insisting that viewers be able to situate themselves in both the present and the past narrative threads. Although temporal play has existed on the small screen prior to the new millennium, never before has narrative time been so freely adapted in mainstream television. The essayists offer explanations for not only the frequency of time play in contemporary programming, …

Dramatizing Oppenheimer And Reagan: Theatricality And American Historical Memory, Sarah J. Rogers

American Studies Senior Theses

Building on Anthony Kubiak’s analysis of the lack of a theatrical tradition in America, this thesis engages the question of what it means to see figures from American history represented theatrically onstage. Kubiak argues that the lack of a uniquely American theatrical tradition sets the precedent for modern Americans’ inability to identify the theatrical events of our lives and our histories. Can this inability to identify the theatrical be affect by representing historical figures on the modern American stage? Analyzing the text and production of The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Carson Kreitzer will prove that representing historical …

“Fast Food For The Filipino Soul”: Consuming Identity At Jollibee In Queens, Rebecca Gehman

American Studies Senior Theses

On February 13, 2009 in Woodside, Queens an estimated 4,500 Filipino- Americans formed a line outside in thirty five-degree weather. Braving the cold and a nearly four hour wait these Filipino-Americans were desperate for the first east-coast extension of Jollibee to open itʼs doors. The media that covered the opening attempted to understand what was behind this Filipino fervor, one New York Times article was titled “Fast Food for the Filipino Soul”. Filipinos told reporters they were desperate for a “taste of home.” But what is this “taste of home”? The Filipino owned and operated fast food chain serves hot …

Sand, Sun, And Sex Tourism: What Really Happens During College Spring Break, Melissa Lee Brumer

American Studies Senior Theses

College spring break has become a popular event that lasts for a week or two each year in March. The partying and drinking that occur on the beaches of popular North American vacation destinations may seem unrelated to the prostitution found in Amsterdam’s red light district. What, if anything, do travelers to these two different destinations have in common? Recent scholarship has argued that it is necessary to expand the definition of ‘sex tourism.’ Scholars have also researched college students’ behaviors during spring break trips. These studies show that students engage in drinking and sexual behaviors that pose threats to …

An Important Year: Competing Images Of Womanhood In The Ladies’ Home Journal, 1919, Eva Krupitsky

American Studies Senior Theses

This thesis explores the two main images of womanhood found in the editorial and advertising contents of the Ladies’ Home Journal, a popular mass-market magazine from the early 20th century. My specific focus is on the year 1919 because several important events that affected American women were prevalent during this time. I place my research about the two images of womanhood in the magazine within the context of WWI’s end and the proximity of women to reaching voting rights. This is a transitional year during which both historical happenings can be discerned by looking “in between the lines” of …

The New Media Deal: Obama, The Information Age, And The Shadow Of Fdr, Grace Loughney

American Studies Senior Theses

This thesis project focuses on the ways in which American presidents use media to engage the public in political discourse and reassure the masses in times of economic crisis. In a comparative analysis of the different media and political rhetoric employed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the 1933 banking crisis and Barack Obama during the 2009 recession, I explore why Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” proved more successful than Obama’s imitations on YouTube and other media platforms in 2009. By engaging in media theory on how political discourse is shaped by the medium within which it is presented, as well as historical …

Fun, Fearless, Feminist?: Gender And Sexuality In Cosmopolitan, Gabriella Wilkins

American Studies Senior Theses

Magazines, like other forms of popular culture, impact our identities and perceptions of ourselves and of the society that we live in. In my thesis, I seek to draw a connection between a fashion and beauty magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Third Wave feminism. Criticism of the magazine has stemmed from the idea that Cosmo expresses contradicting ideologies and focuses too closely on women’s ability to please men. For my research, I look at the history and motives behind the Second and Third Wave movements and how they differentiate. Then, by considering and applying contemporary feminist theory, I deconstruct and analyze …

From Clayton Bigsby To Stuart Hall: Conceptions Of Blackness And Authenticity In Chappelle’S Show, Andrew O'Connell

American Studies Senior Theses

From the years 2003- 2006, perhaps no one played a bigger a role on the American comedy scene than did Dave Chappelle. From the first episode of his critically acclaimed Chappelle’s Show, in which he depicted Clayton Bigsby, a black, blind white supremacist, to his controversial exit from the show early into season three, Chappelle served as a lightning rod for attention both positive and negative. In this thesis, I argue that in his comedy portrayed on Chappelle’s Show, Dave Chappelle portrays an image of essentialized Blackness through the lens of the “urban Black American experience” as being …

“I Ran My Fingers Through Her Coal Black Hair To Cover Up My Sin” : Violence, Gender And Faith In 19th Century Appalachian Murdered Girl Ballads, Ariadne Blayde

American Studies Senior Theses

My thesis presents a literary and historical examination of the genre of songs known as “Murdered Girl ballads” in the canon of 19th century Southern Appalachian folk music. The Murdered Girl ballad, which tells the story of a young woman murdered by her male lover, became an archetypal narrative in Appalachian folklore in the 1800’s. In my research I examine some of the many Appalachian Murdered Girl ballads and the mountain society they sprang from, drawing connections between the lyrics of the ballads and three specific aspects of Appalachian mountain life: violence, gender roles, and religion. I argue that at …

Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor's office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency's website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any …

Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers And White Trash, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Thrown On Their Own Resources": Collaboration As Survival In Imitation Of Life, Kristi Branham

Gender & Women's Studies Faculty Publications

The article presents an analysis of the film adaptation of "Imitation of Life," a 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst. It states that the repetition of the story across the first half of the twentieth century shows its resonance for U.S. audiences. It mentions that the woman question and the race question are brought together in the passing story in both the 1934 and 1959 film versions of the novel.

Stylizing, Commodifying, And Disciplining Real Bodies: An Examination Of Wwe Wrestling, Isamu Horiuchi

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines professional wrestling in the U.S., in particular, live and television shows produced by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Through the examination, it addresses complex issues of authenticity, audience, commodification, and discipline in contemporary popular culture and media.

I use three approaches in this study. First, I apply the theory of culture industry, developed by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, to understand WWE wrestling. I examine how the WWE thoroughly stylizes its products to attract fans and condition them to repeat the same calculable reactions. However, contemporary fans often refuse to react as the WWE wants them …