Discovering an Appalachian Collective Unconscious: a look at traditional family beliefs as heirlooms of our ancestors
Creator
Blankenship, Michael
Blankenship, Vivian
In the year 1999, much of America was obsessed with the idea that at 12:01AM on Jan 1, 2000 the entire computer network in the world would shut down. While talking to his grandmother, who was not worried about Y2K (the year 2000) situation, the idea of this project came to Michael Blankenship. She maintained that if the Y2K situation came to be, people like her would survive it nicely because they had lived without computers for many years and knew how to survive. In interviews, Vivial Blankenship spoke of growing up on a farm, selling farm products, grinding grain to make flour, milking cows, using a spring house for refrigeration, and much more from many years before computers. This is among projects created by students enrolled in English 446 (initially English 452), “Appalachian Folklore,” 1981-2019, and in graduate level counterparts English 548 and 648 “Appalachian Folk Culture(s)” offered 17 fall semesters between 1987 and 2009. Minimally contain collector’s introduction and analysis, transcribed informant interviews, and excerpted and labeled examples of oral, customary, and/or material folklore/folklife collected primarily within the Appalachian region. Most include also tables of contents, informant information, indexes (outlines) of interviews, photographs, miscellaneous paper items, and indexes of informants, genres, and geographic locations. Accompanying audio recordings (several minutes to 2+ hours). Transferred to McConnell Library Archives & Special Collections from Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center, Fall 2013.