Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

At The Crossroads Commercial Music And Community Experience The Quonset Auditorium - A Roadhouse On The Dixie Highway, Amber Ridington

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study of the Quonset Auditorium, one roadhouse among many on the regular tour route of R&B, gospel and country musicians in the post-World War II era (1947- 1959), illustrates the important role of roadhouses during a time of growth and change in popular music. It situates memories and experiences from the Quonset Auditorium in relation to regional and national movements of the day such as highway development, commercial and popular music, and the civil rights movement. With hindsight, we can see that the Quonset Auditorium stood at a crossroads as regards these social and technological movements of the post-WW …

Lucky Pennies And Four Leaf Clovers: Young Children's Understanding Of Superstitions, Christy Bryce

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The development of organized, explanatory systems of knowledge is an integral part of human nature; it allows us to categorize objects and events and to make predictions based on our experiences. In our society, the quest for answers to the questions "How?" and "Why?" begins early in life. By the preschool years, children are actively seeking and providing explanations for an abundance of physical and social events, and they are developing knowledge of causal forces at work in the environment (Bullock, Gelman, & Baillargeon, 1982; Rosengren & Hickling, 1999). Paradoxically, at about the same age at which children demonstrate they …

Paranormal Beliefs And Personality Traits, Heather Auton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The current study examined the non-skeptic view of paranormal belief, suggesting that belief in the paranormal does not indicate psychopathology. This study examines the non-pathological personality traits present in paranormal believers by using a broad personality test. One hundred and one participants completed the Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS) and the Personality Research Form (PRF) in order to examine the differences among the personality traits of high and low paranormal believers. High and low paranormal belief was determined by the participants overall score on the Paranormal Belief Scale. The results indicated that there were only two significant personality differences among high …

Transformations: A Folkloric Exploration Of The Musical Comedy Into The Woods By Stephen Sondheim And James Lapine, Cara Hoglund

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the use of folktales in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1987 award-winning musical Into the Woods. In doing so, I hope to accomplish several directives. First, to enrich understanding of the musical for all audience members, especially those with a folklore or theater background. I feel that understanding the underlying goals and standards that Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine used in creating the musical will provide a much deeper understanding of the genius of their work. I also aim clearly elucidate the merger of folk narrative and popular musical theater form in …

National Powers Of Belief: Folklore, Mythology And Festival In Nazi Germany, Kirsten Anderson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis, I examine the relationship between folklore and nationalism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany. More specifically, I focus on how the Nazis used folklore and the work of folklorists in their propaganda. The first chapter documents the development of nationalism and the creation of the discipline of folklore based on the theories of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) and Wilhelm Riehl (1823-1897). Herder wanted the Germans to rediscover their national heritage through folklore materials, and Riehl argued that folklore and folklorists should serve the Fatherland. In the 1930s, the Nazi Party used the discipline of folklore as a tool …

Farmhouses That Became Boarding Houses In The Catskill Mountains Of New York State, Virginia Scheer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis the author uses oral histories to study vernacular architecture, analyzing the changes in the way people in the Catskills have used buildings, specifically farm dwellings, to make a living, first as farmers and then as proprietors of boarding houses. The Catskills region in upstate New York is well known for its dairy farms and also for its resorts, but little has been researched to trace continuities and discrepancies between the rural residents and urban visitors. Boarding on farms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries showed continuity between the two groups: recent immigrants who lived in …

Beyond Celebration: A Call For The Study Of Traditions Of Dominance, Ann Ferrell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis I examine why and how the focus on aesthetic expression and the avoidance of making certain types of value judgments have shaped the discipline of folklore. In the first chapter I look briefly at some of the major figures and themes in our history in order to ascertain how we arrived at the perspective from which we now work. In Chapter Two I explore and critically examine the limited examples of North American folklore scholarship that examines "dysfunctional" folklore. In Chapter Three I consider the study of belief as an example of an area of folklore scholarship …

"Anything Dead Coming Back To Life Hurts": Ghosts And Memory In Hamlet And Beloved, Rebecca Boyd

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Ghost stories are an ingrained part of most cultures because, typically, humans must be forced to confront those elements of their individual and communal past that they would prefer to ignore. Accordingly, ghosts have embodied weaknesses and hidden evils that must be assimilated and transcended, and writers have embroidered a variety of subtexts upon the traditional fabric of ghostlore. Specifically, both William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Toni Morrison's Beloved employ ghosts as symbols of man's archetypal desire to hide his past. A careful examination of the texts in these ghost stories, of the cultural folklore included, and of the ghosts' influence …

Approaching Fallingwater: An Ethography Of Place, Brian Gregory

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has always been more than just a house. It has also functioned as a workplace, a tourist destination, "the best all-time work of American architecture," and a cultural symbol. By talking to some of the people involved in its history and by examining "autho-ethnographic" texts found within the community, I attempt to use ethnographic methods to understand a complicated site. Nestled in the rural Appalachian foothills of southwestern Pennsylvania, Fallingwater is also isolated. It is tempting for visitors to view it as a work of art "plopped down in the middle of nowhere." And …

Festivals, Function And Context: An Ethnographic Study Of Three Festivals At Holden Village, Andrea Mericle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how three festivals function together to meet the Mission Statement goals of Holden Village, an isolated Lutheran renewal center located in the Cascade mountains in Washington State. The Holden Village Mission Statement states that Holden Village is organized to provide a community for healing, renewal, and refreshment of people through worship, intercession, study, humor, work, recreation, and conversation in a climate of mutual acceptance under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this community is to participate in the renewal for the church and the world by proclaiming the gospel of …

Portraits And Landscapes In Family Narrative, Hayden Roberts

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis works from my interest in how individual perspectives affect family narratives and constructions of family history. Narrative exists chiefly in story form, but it also exists in people's mind, helping them to understand material culture, customs, and other forms of folk expression. These folk ideas define us and bind us socially. The way we arrange things in our minds, make sense of life experiences and the narratives we about create these experiences, define our social ties, such as family. Before one can understand the collective or group perception of itself, one must understand how each component or person …

"Does Your Faith In God And Country Need A Boost?" Reflections Of Idealism And Identity And The Art Of Bill John Roth, Steven Warrick

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The life and art of Bill John Roth offer a paradox to the study of folklore and folk art. The personal and public nature of Bill's art is exemplified through his mural Geographic Hieroglyphics In God's Own Handwriting. On the surface the art and artist are seemingly detached from the community, but upon closer investigation this is not the case. I have explored the notion of "outsider" art, the problems associated with artistic interpretation and the difficulties of labelling artists according to academic and elitist standards. Thus the contextual background of the artist and community are important aspects of this …

Roadside Memorials In Five South Central Kentucky Counties, Thomas Zimmerman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Roadside memorials in Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, and Warren Counties in south central Kentucky mark the sites of automobile fatalities. These informal memorials are construced by family or friends of the deceased. Thirty-one memorials are found throughout these five counties. The majority of these memorials take on one of three forms: crosses, crosses with flowers, and standing styrofoam-based flower arrangements. Crosses, particularly white wooden crosses, are the most common element in these memorials. Unlike most death-related material culture studies, this research is built heavily upon interviews and conversations with those who construct and maintain the memorials. Much of the analysis …

The Dark Ride, Brandon Kwaitek

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

An intersection of vernacular architecture studies and American studies, "The Dark Ride" defines the standard amusement park attraction both generally within the contexts of horrific iconography and the history of amusement devices and structures, and also specifically within the contexts of five amusement park environments. As a "ride-thru Halloween," the dark ride maintains a popular tradition of deriding and mocking the symbols of hell and death. As a variety of theater, the dark ride shares its technological and structural origins with primitive cinema (whose own century-long development intertwines with that of the dark ride) and the scenic attractions of late …

Dark Fired Tobacco: The Origin, Migration And Survival Of A Colonial Era Agrarian Tradition, John Morgan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

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Country Music In The Northeast: Two Careers, Joseph Ruff

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Although country music and its antecedents have received attention primarily as cultural phenomena of the South, the past twenty years have witnessed a growing scholarly interest in the interplay between commercial country music, vernacular components. and performers within a regional context. The commercial product which has now attained worldwide appeal undoubtedly sustains a significant relationship to the folkways and regional identity of the South; nonetheless, performers and vernacular styles from other areas of the country have contributed to the development of country music. Most important. many areas outside of the South maintain local traditions of country music entertainment. In this …

The Lost Tribalism Of Years Gone By: Function & Variation In Gay Folklore In Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City Novels, Jimmy Browning

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis intends to demonstrate that, because of the unusual circumstances of its writing - a semi-journalistic piece produced during a period of crisis in the real-life community fictionally depicted - Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series stands as an unusually accurate and reliable ethnographic source for information concerning the gay male subculture of San Francisco in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, not only the practice and behavior themselves, but also reflecting their personal and communal function. The methodology employed in demonstrating this thesis is necessarily subjective. Like gay folklore scholar Joseph P. Goodwin in More Man Than …

Jack Epperson: A Modern Folk Healer, Janet Tracy

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study in folk medicine focuses on a modern magico-religious folk healer named Jack Epperson, who utilizes the principles of bioenergetics or placing hands on an ill person's body and directing healing energy into blocked channels to heal, in the context of the small Alaskan community in which he lives and practices. The thesis is divided into seven chapters preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion.

To fit Jack Epperson into the full spectrum of folk medicine, it is necessary to comprehend fully the two categories of folk medicine: herbal or natural medicine, and magico-religious healing or shamanism. …

Zora Neale Hurston: The Voice Of The Goddess, Mella Davis

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Zara Neale Purston has re-emerged as an author of promise due to the re-appraisal of her works led by Alice Walker and Robert Hemenway. In both literary and folklore academic circles, Hurston's work has been reclaimed by African-American female scholars and writers, but still a significant study has yet to be done about her ethnographic contributions to folklore and her farsightedness in fieldwork methodology. This thesis seeks to validate her work as a folklorist, thereby dismissing the charges of popularization and amateurishness by re-examining her work. Mules and Men and Jonah's Gourd Vine are Hurston's two most influential folklore texts …

Horsetrading: An East Texas Study In Establishing Context, Jon Rushing

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Scholarship to date on the subject of horsetrading and horsetraders has been primarily narrative collections with a minimum of attention paid to the cultural context within which the horsetrader lives and works. This thesis focuses on the lives and dealings of several horsetraders in a five county region in middle to southern east Texas.

Beginning with a discussion of the merits and failings of existing scholarship, I outline the historical background leading to the unique regional context and strong sense of independence in my area of study. A combination of early isolation, radical economic and political swings, and a strong …

The Altered Mobile Home: A Stationary Image Of Work And Value, Gregory Kendall Jenkins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

As the medium cost of conventional housing rises, many people unable to incur such an expense look for alternative forms of adequate housing. In rural areas surrounding Bowling Green, Kentucky, several families have utilized the mobile home as a base to expand, embellish, and personalize, creating a larger more conventional-looking home. Many of these altered homes possess gabled roofs, rock exterior walls, and expansive interior space. Of primary concern is: why have these families undertaken a project of this nature?

As material culture scholars and folklorists examine our built environment, they find relationship between construction and the builders. What can …

Vadie Williams, Folk Artist: Drawnwork As A Reflection Of Personal Identity In Rural Kentucky, Elizabeth Hester

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study focuses on Vadie Conner Williams, an individual folk artist, and the drawnwork she has created throughout her lifetime. Included is a description of her rural farm background, her needlework skills and her creative process. The study also examines the significance of drawnwork to Williams and determines how she has adapted her work to satisfy her personal needs as well as the needs of her customers. Based on tape recorded interviews and a close examination of her work, the study concludes that drawnwork is an integral part of Williams's everyday life; it is an indicator of her beliefs and …

Quicksand Craft Center: Documentation & Analysis Of A Handweaving Program In Vest, Kentucky, Deborah Champion

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Data on the handweaving program at the Quicksand Craft Center in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky were compiled and analyzed. Four areas--history of the craft program, business organization and financial structure, weave patterns of goods woven and sold by the craft center, and weavers employed in the program --were examined to assess the success of the program in the local community. Factors in the four areas examined contributed to the success of the program. The benevolence, perseverance, and co-operation of the founders, directors and community members involved with the craft center have been largely responsible for the continued success …

Pre-Lent Celebrations: Shrovetide & Carnival, Eleonore Mitchell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The history of pre-Lent celebrations is traced through the presentation, comparison, and evaluation of the main theses of origin held by Shrovetide and Carnival scholars. It is determined that the question whether the festivals are of pagan or Christian origin is not important for the analysis of their present-day significance. Their vitality stems first of all from the general importance of celebration for humans to define themselves in a setting in which they can perform, act, and behave in non-traditional ways that cannot be transferred to everyday life. However, the festivals' uniqueness can be defined through two main characteristics: (I) …

Folk Custom As A Barometer Of Social Change In A Tennessee Community, Chad Berry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Using the techniques of oral history, residents of the Cypress Creeks area of southwestern middle Tennessee were questioned about their perceptions of the social change since 1940. In that year, the National Park Service hired men in the area to help snake out logs for the Natchez Trace Parkway's right-of-way. For most men in the area, the temporary positions on the Trace were the first "public" jobs they ever had. After these positions were no longer needed, outmigration brought residents north to factory-cities; thus, the building of the parkway remains a watershed in residents' memories as the benchmark when change …

Displays Of Culture: Personal Museums In Wisconsin, Mary Zwolinski

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Fieldwork was undertaken in the state of Wisconsin to document and interpret privately owned and displayed collections. Collections were comprised of various types of objects, most commonly artworks created and/or collected by the collection owners. These collections often take on an environmental scope, occupying private spheres such as collection owners' homes or outbuildings. An examination of environmental type collections that are housed in bars was also undertaken.

Collections of this specific type are culturally and locally significant. The objects in the collections and the collection owners address and provide important information on such local or regional subjects as history, local …

The Blankety-Blank Of Bear Creek Camp: A Rhetorical Analysis Of A Folk Drama, Gregory Hansen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A rhetorical theory of folklore was used to interpret how summer camp staffers use a folk drama as a means of identification and as a type of artistic expression. The performance was analyzed for ethnographic information using Kenneth Burke's theory of dramatism and for artistic techniques using Burke's theory of the psychology of audience. The dramatistic pentad contextualized the performance, and this information was analyzed for motives through the delineation of dramatistic ratios. The skit's syntagmatic structure was outlined using Burke's description of five aspects of form. The analysis demonstrates that meaning is emergent through both the content and form …

At The Spiritual Grassroots: An Analysis Of Visionary Art & Artists, Ann Taft

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis I focus on an art form alternately described as "naive," "visionary," "environmental," "singular," "individual," or "grassroots." Not easily placed within established academic or popular art categories, such art usually lands by default in the folk art pile and is quickly cast to the peripheries of that genre. In this thesis, I am not concerned with inventing another label for these artists and their work. Instead, I explore the possibility that visionary art may be a separate genre, but one to which folklore analysis may usefully be brought to bear.

Chapter One is a historical and bibliographical analysis …

Singing Schools In Southcentral Kentucky, Donald Beisswenger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Singing school teachers, who teach rural church congregations to sing from shape-note gospel songbooks, are still working in southcentral Kentucky, but the demand for them is smaller than it was in the first half of the twentieth century. The interdependence network in which singing school teachers, songbook publishers, and community singing events were key parts began to weaken in the 1940s as a result of the growth in popularity of professional gospel quartet concerts and gospel record albums. Many gospel music enthusiasts who once looked to songbooks as a major source for new material and for developing singing skills turned …

Two Hairdressers: Artistry & Communication, Julie Hauri-Foster

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This paper is a study of two artists. They are hairdressers who are part of mainstream American culture. Juanita Sublett has been a hairdresser for twenty years, and has had basically the same clientele for that time. Her true artistry is not in the technical aspect of hairdos, but in the creation of a setting in which her clients wish to be.

John Hopfensperger has been a hairdresser for eight years. He entered beauty school because he could be supported by his parents without having the academic pressures of college. After completing beauty school he had no intention of becoming …