Date Thesis Awarded
7-2012
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
American Studies
Advisor
Grey Gundaker
Committee Members
Timothy L. Barnard
Kara Thompson
Abstract
Legends are all around us. Our conceptions of who we are and the places we inhabit are shaped and defined by the stories we hear and the ways in which we interact with our physical world. Legend-tripping is a misunderstood yet widely practiced activity in which people visit sites that have a (typically scary) legend attached to them in search of a transformative experience or just to scare themselves and their friends. While legend-triping has come to be associated with teenage delinquency, it is an important way for adolescents to gain a sense of independence, learn about and come to terms with the contested (and sometimes negative) history of their home, and claim some ownership of their environment and regional identity.
Recommended Citation
Monohan, Stephanie M., ""And They Never Did Find Him": Dialogues of History, Geography, and Fear in Adolescent Legend-Tripping" (2012). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 475.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/475
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.