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Margaret Pope

Competitor Profiles

  • photo of Margaret Pope

    Margaret Pope

    Art, MFA

    Congratulations to the 2021 Three Minute Thesis finalists! Leading up to the final event, competitors have taken part in workshops and coaching sessions to cultivate their academic, presentation, and research communication skills.

    Learn more about Margaret’s scholarship below!

    Advised by Caroline Earley

    Congratulations to the 2021 Three Minute Thesis finalists! Leading up to the final event, competitors have taken part in workshops and coaching sessions to cultivate their academic, presentation, and research communication skills.

    Learn more about Margaret’s scholarship below!

Abstract

Challenging the American Western Myth

The West has been bound by a myth that features the frontiersman on the edge of civilization. ​This myth has been deep-seeded in American popular culture through literary, performing and visual arts. My thesis is an in-depth examination of this myth, in an attempt to reveal its continued influence on western ideologies. ​Through the manipulation of materials found in the rural west I seek to subvert the visual language that continues to advance this idyll.

Biography

Margaret Pope, originally from McCall, Idaho, received her Bachelors in Political Science and Art and Visual Culture from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. In her third and final year as a graduate student at Boise State, Margaret has sought out materials significant to her experience growing up in rural Idaho. Through the use and manipulation of these materials her work is an attempt to interrupt, renegotiate, and subvert a visual language that has long been informed by the myth of the West.