A Home Transformed: Narratives of Home, Loss, Longing and the Miniature from Portsmouth Island, North Carolina
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- March 19, 2019
- Creator
-
Taylor, Stephen Jesse
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of American Studies, Folklore Program
- Abstract
- A Home Transformed addresses experiential oral narratives of homecoming, loss and longing on Portsmouth, a formerly-inhabited island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina now part of Cape Lookout National Seashore. By comparing such narratives to objects from material culture embodying a desire for the past, the exotic, and the beloved - including the hand-drawn miniature and the photograph - this thesis links material metaphors and spatial understanding with speech. I explore the intersection of memory and present experience in stories embodied in objects and landscapes, drawing on a repertory of examples from gravestones to wooden boats to land itself. Portsmouth (only superficially abandoned) I define as a home ground, symbolically cultivated, ornamented and maintained via story. A Home Transformed incorporates interviews with several former residents of Portsmouth Island, National Park Service volunteers, and others who have participated in the literal and figurative event of homecoming.
- Date of publication
- December 2009
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Herman, Bernard
- Language
- Access right
- Open access
- Date uploaded
- October 11, 2010
Relations
- Parents:
This work has no parents.
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A home transformed : narratives of loss, longing, home and the miniature from Portsmouth Island, North Carolina | 2019-04-11 | Public | Download |