Welcome to Outlaw Ballads, a student-centered Omeka archive at the University of Montevallo.

The voice of the outlaw fascinates scholars and undergraduates alike, but those voices are all too often overlaid by what modern readers want or need those outlaws to say. This overwriting mirrors the process of modern abelism practices in digital access to pre-modern texts and traditions. A goal of this archive is to help students understand, analyze, and combat abelism by offering experience in creating accessible archivals. 

Why outlaw ballads? Simple: the ballad is commonly considered an authentic indication of cultural tastes, interests, desires, and more. Outlaw ballads are particularly fruitful objects of study: low-culture vernacular outlaw stories provide a singularly direct view of the social ‘common good’ to their audiences, and can thus be studied as relatively conservative indicators of common cultural conversations (or negotiations) between elites and common people. 

Our archive provides lightly modernized or translated texts that will be accessible to computerized screen readers, with digital sound files of modernized translations. The project will highlight student-created scholarly apparatuses examining each poem’s textual history and application in modern retellings, adaptations, and appropriations.

Through this work we seek to make outlaw tales accessible to individuals whose access to traditional medieval material is not feasible under current archival models or delivery methods.

To view all Exhibits, click "Browse Exhibits" at left.

To view the work of Spring 2018, click this link.