Abstracts for Individual Presentations 1999 AFS Annual Meeting

GABBERT, Lisa (Indiana University) PHOTOGRAPHY, IDEOLOGY, HOAX: TALL TALE POSTCARDS IN THE AMERICAN WEST. A specifically gendered relationship between man and the landscape can be found in national character studies and is essential to the "frontier myth." An extension of traditional tall tales and hoaxes, tall tale postcards invert, subvert, and rearrange hierarchies of region, class, and gender by playing upon preconceived categories located in national narratives. They also add a new twist to oral tradition, since they produced an obviously false image through a purportedly "scientific" method of documentation. This paper thus explores the relationship between photography as a means of "realistic" documentation and its use in the production of tall take postcards. (6-7)

GALVIN, Seán (LaGuardia Community College) GUADALUPANOS IN BROOKLYN: THE FEAST OF THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE REVISITED. As part of my ongoing research on this festival in New York City, I will share the latest portion of my fieldwork. Since the signing of the NAFTA accord, there has been a visible increase in the number of Mexican immigrants to Brooklyn. This influx has changed the ethnic composition of several Brooklyn neighborhoods as well as the scope and nature of the celebrations in the Mexican calendar. I will address that aspect of the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe within the Holy Name parish in Windsor Terrace. (1-6)

GAUDET, Marcia (University of Southwestern Louisiana) "MARDI GRAS, CHICA-LA-PIE": CREOLE TRADITION AND AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY. Mardi Gras in the predominantly Creole and African American neighborhood of Lafayette, Louisiana, reflects both the cultural diversity of Creoles of color and the dynamics of asserting Black Creole identity. The festive play of this Mardi Gras incorporates Afro-Caribbean performance styles as well as French Louisiana Mardi Gras chants and rituals. The Mardi Gras performance also seems to parallel the current more inclusive usage of the term Creole, from a racially defined term to a term of culture and community. (5-6)

GEORGE, Kenneth, M. (University of Oregon) "THERE IS NO COMPULSION IN MATTERS OF FAITH": BECOMING AN INDONESIAN ARTIST IN NEW YORK. This paper tells how Abdul Djalil Pirous, a pioneer in contemporary Southeast Asian art, found a place of self-definition as a modern Indonesian painter upon visiting the Islamic art collection at the Metropolitan museum of Art in 1970. This cultural encounter with the East in the galleries of the West led Pirous to find a new home in the terrain of aesthetic modernism, Indonesian nationalism, Acehnese ethnic heritage, and Islamic faith. The story also throws light on the bilingual conversations and transcultural friendship that unite the artist and ethnographer, and which do so much to shape our collaborative work. (5-9)

GERDS, Peggy (Ohio State University) ETHICAL AND REFLEXIVE CONSIDERATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY DESIGN BASED ON TRADITIONAL AND FOLK ART DESIGNS. This paper considers ethical and reflexive issues in the creation of earrings, beads, buttons and the like utilizing traditional and folk art designs, where the author is also the artist. A good part of my motivation in presenting this paper is to raise questions for discussion and to seek the advice and opinions of other folklorists. What, if any, obligations do the use of these designs impose? And what are the implications for originality as well as approaches to folk art and material culture? (2-8)

GIBBS, Laura K. (University of Oklahoma) AELIAN AND ALIENS: GRECO-ROMAN FOLK BELIEFS ABOUT HUMAN AND ANIMAL SPECIES. A primary source for ancient Greek and Roman folk-beliefs about animals is Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals, an encyclopedic collection of animal lore in 17 books (early third century C. E.). I will offer an analysis of the ethnography of both humans and animals in Aelian’s writings, emphasizing the interplay between anthropomorphic descriptions of the animals as opposed to the "animalizing" of human foreigners. These stereotyped beliefs about animals and human aliens provide a vantage point from which to observe the construction of "otherness" in Greek and Roman society. (9-9)

GILLECE, Jessica K. S. (Independent Folklorist) "WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLACE A CALL?": PHONE SEX OPERATORS AS PERFORMERS OF FOLKLORE. This paper will incorporate interviews with phone-sex operators at a woman-owned service into a discussion of the operators’ manipulation of stock elements of stereotypical heterosexuality in order to best please the male clients. The phone sex performance is enhanced by inter-operator interaction. Overall, this paper will deal with the under-represented folklore of workers in the sex industry, the role of gender in this discourse, and the importance of a tradition that operates with little or no written record. (3-11)

GILLESPIE, Angus Kress (Rutgers University) PREPARATION OF TEACHING PORTFOLIOS FOR FOLKLORISTS. Many folklorists are employed in higher education, where teaching is being taken more seriously. An increasingly popular device to get at its quality is the teaching portfolio. Most folklorists, life other faculty members, have no previous experience with the concept. By making my portfolio available as a model, I hope to enable my folklore colleagues to gain confidence and save time. I will argue that it does take time and energy to prepare a portfolio, but the benefits are worth the effort. (2-2)

GILMAN, Lisa and FENN, John (Indiana University, Folklore Institute) "THAT’S THE BADNESS OF OUR CULTURE": THE INTERSECTION OF THEORIZED AND EVERYDAY CONCEPTS OF CULTURE. In this exploratory paper, we examine the intersection between scholarly perspectives on the concept of culture and individual expressions of the concept that we encountered while conducting fieldwork in Malawi in 1998-99. We have identified several categories of meaning, each based on particular strategies or uses of culture–both the word and the concept–and we will discuss the ways in which these "on the ground" manifestations merge with the more theoretical approaches to culture that we read about and debate. (2-5)

GLAZER, Mark (University of Texas-Pan American) FROM "LA LLORONA" TO "STOLEN BODY PARTS": RISK AND DANGER IN CHICANO LEGENDS. The theoretical constructs of purity and danger, and risk and culture have been proposed by Mary Douglas to contract traditional and contemporary cultures. I will argue, through legends in Chicano culture, that the concepts of purity and danger fit the social reality of the traditional legend (e.g., "La Llorona" and "The Devil at the Dance"), and that of risk and blame fit the cultural reality of the urban legend (e.g., "Stolen Body Parts" and "The Boyfriend’s Death"). (3-10)

GOERTZEN, Chris (Earlham College) CULTURAL TOURISM AND OAXACA, MEXICO’S "GUELAGUETZA." Indians in Oaxaca, Mexico annually collaborate with tourism organizations to present a gigantic dance festival, the Guelaguetza. Critical processes include 1) making presentations congruent in complexity, 2) how tourist money finances events--and poor locals’ attendance, 3) reshaping dances for traveling shows, restaurant extravaganzas, schools, etc., 4) how changes made for the central festival return to the município, 5) re-marketing the festival in hotels, in brand-names of, e.g., chocolate, in crafts depicting dancers, and 6) how various organizations link the festival and locale in their publicity. (1-1)

GOLDBERG, Christine (Los Angeles) THE PRINCE AS BIRD (AT 432): A LONG TALE OR A SHORE ONE? Modern examples of AT 432 consist of as many as six episodes. Old examples contain only two (in the cases of the versions of Marie de France and Mme D’Aulnoy) or four (in the case of Basile’s) of these episodes (variants with only two of these episodes are completed with other narrative material). This tale type is traditional in two forms, and the question of which (the longer or the shorter) is prior, cannot be resolved. (8-9)

GOLDENBERG, Amy R. (Indiana University) TRADITION, TOURISM, AND AMBER JEWELRY IN POLAND. The art and tradition of amber jewelry is pervasive in Poland, particularly in Gdansk. Artists in Poland use amber extensively in their folk art, including in jewelry. While amber jewelry is a traditional art form, its market has expanded greatly through the growth of tourism. This paper investigates the intricate relationship between tradition and tourism in the context of amber jewelry in Poland. (1-1)

GOLDSTEIN, Diane E. (Memorial University of Newfoundland) APPROPRIATING THE CDC: NARRATIVE RESISTANCE AND THE NEEDLE ON THE SEAT. This paper explores the recent explosion of narratives concerning an infector who plants needles or other sharp or hollow instruments infected with HIV in public spaces. Placed in a public health context, the paper will argue that such narratives can be read as part of a dialogue of resistance to what is seen as the inappropriate extension of biomedicine’s reach into the domain of intimate experience. Viewed as a disguised critique of dominant ideology, these narratives will be discussed in relation to attitudes toward medical authority.(2-4)

GOLDWASSER, Michele (The Union Institute) DISPLAYING MADONNA: FOLKLORE AND THE POLITICS OF SACRED REPRESENTATION. For more than two centuries, pilgrims have traveled to a small town in southern Trinidad to honor a dark Madonna. Catholics, Hindus, Orisha Worshipers, Buddhists, and Warao Amerindians each worship her within their own systems of belief. Extant records document the legends, beliefs, and rituals of this miraculous statue, illustrating a symbiotic relationship between visual context and folklore performance in the display of this dark Madonna prompted variations in the folklore about her. (8-5)

GREEN, Cynthia Whiddon (University of Houston) WHAT THE FOOLISH UNWISE PEOPLE SAY: ECCLESIASTICAL DOCTRINE AND ORAL TRADITION IN JOCELYN’S LIFE OF SAINT KENTIGERN. As papal authority over the cult of the saints in Western Europe increased during the twelfth century, as noted by André Vauchez, the representations of saints in written narratives also underwent a profound change. Although earlier vitae had traditionally emphasized the oral legends surrounding the saints, hagiographers in the later Middle Ages began to downplay or even dismiss these stories as "uncanonical". The twelfth century text of Saint Kentigern, Apostle to Strathclyde, by Jocelin of Furness, provides important insights into the tensions between ecclesiastical doctrine and the continued transmission of oral narratives by the local community of belief. (5-11)

GREGORY, Brian (University of Pennsylvania) RITUALIZED FALLINGWATER: TOURISM, PILGRIMAGE, AND BEYOND. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is a shrine, sought out by over 100,000 visitors each year. Said to represent the ideal that "technology and nature, when brought together in the service of man, can result in great art," a particular ideology of "nature" undergirds the presentation of Fallingwater, in contract with local conceptions of the natural environment. Throwing the elaborate framing of Fallingwater into sharp relief is a competing "vernacular" tourist landscape just down the road, Ohiopyle State Park, where visitors experience "nature" in their own ways, outside of the highly stylized and prescribed–even ritualized–tourist experience Fallingwater offers. (5-7)

GRIDER, Sylvia (Texas A&M University) ARCHITECTURAL AND DECORATIVE USES OF PETRIFIED WOOD IN CENTRAL TEXAS. One characteristic of folk architecture is the utilization of local raw materials, including logs, adobe, sod, and local stone. In Central Texas, large deposits of naturally deposited petrified wood dot the landscape. Since the early nineteenth century, folk builders fascinated with these large fossils have incorporated them into the facades of frame buildings and also have created decorative sculptures, borders, and monuments of petrified wood. Most of these natural deposits of petrified wood have been depleted by such use and as a result new buildings today rarely utilize this distinctive and increasingly rare material. (4-8)

GROBLER, Gerhardus M M (University of South Africa) THE POWER OF THE MIND: METAPHOR AND NATURE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NORTHERN SOTHO PROVERBS. The authors of items of folklore will mostly remain unknown forever, nonetheless it is interesting to contemplate the process resulting in the formulation of proverbs in an African society. Metaphor, which consists in the transfer of features from one word to another, underlies the working of the proverb. A considerable body of Northern Sotho proverbs not only reflect the intimate relation the early speakers had with nature, but also their phenomenal perceptive faculty informing the remarkable parallels they drew between situations from animal life and situations from their own social life, which have been encapsulated in striking expressions. (3-7)

GROTH, S. C. T. (University of Pennsylvania) UNFLAGGING TEARS: EMOTIONAL BILINGUALISM IN GIRL SCOUT CEREMONIES. Many have seen Girl Scouts perform public flag ceremonies: young girls marching, turning, and honoring, serious-faced and in militaresque order. However, outsiders and early drop-outs see few Scouts’ Own ceremonies, which are highly variable often "tear jerkers". Interpreted with respect to Catherine Lutz’ and Lila Abu-Lughod’s work on emotional discourses, the combination of these two ceremony types trains Girl Scouts in both "masculine" emotional control and "feminine" bonding through emotional expression. This emotional bilingualism reflects Girl Scouting’s embrace of several feminisms, including both those that revalue female difference and those that advocate female competence in male spheres. (1-9)

HAFSTEIN, Valdimar Tr. (University of California-Berkeley) BIOLOGICAL METAPHORS IN FOLKLORE THEORY. Biological metaphors are pervasive in the history of the field, from its roots in German Romanticism and up until recent years. As argumentative devices, they have served a remarkably uniform set of purposes, ranging from reification of tradition to naturalization of the units of study, and from mainstreaming of the discipline to authentication of its methods and results through alignment with natural sciences. This paper explores how biological metaphors have helped constitute some of the ways in which folklorists have approached the objects of their studies and constructed the discipline. (2-5)

HALL, Stephanie A. (American Folklife Center) FOLKLORE AND THE RISE OF MODERATION AMONG ORGANIZED SKEPTICS. Organized Skepticism, founded in the US in 1976, has grown into an international movement. Though many of the movement’s founders use strong negative rhetoric to voice their views, members of local groups have moved towards more moderate expression and philosophy. This paper will examine how moderate skeptics negotiate their identity, drawing on interaction within and between groups on oral, published, and Internet forums, and look at creative expressions including humor, formal rhetoric, and satire. (6-6)

HAMER, Lynne (University of Toledo) HEARTS IN INSTITUTIONS? USING FOLKLORISTIC RESEARCH TO TEACH MULTI-CULTURAL EDUCATION. In this paper I discuss using folklore as an organizing and educational tool to develop materials and pedagogies for non-folklore audiences. I focus on using folkloristic materials to teach an undergraduate College of Education course, required for students who plan to earn a teaching certificate called "Education in a Diverse Society". Through the paper, I explore the problematic intersection of folkloristic work and the maintenance and transformation of public institutions. (1-2)

HANSEN, Gregory (Indiana University) MISTAKEN DICHOTOMY/REAL DIFFERENCES. The boundary between academic and public folklore is blurry, and critiques of the distinction yield useful ways of thinking about the discipline and practice of folklore. There are, however, major differences between public and academic folklore work. Rather than ignoring or rationalizing away the differences, folklorists can use the differences to develop and examine theoretical assumptions. As a result, the dichotomy does not have to divide but can rather connect folklorists engaged in folklore work in any array of sectors. (8-1)

HANSON, Debbie A. (Augustana College) ELVIS HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING: COLLECTING CONTROL IN THE HUMANITIES DIVISION OFFICE. In 1995, Glenna Swier and Marilyn Berry, the humanities division secretaries at Augustana College, began an Elvis collection in their office which has become a communal effort supported by many of the faculty, staff, and students with connections to the Humanities Center. This paper explores the reasons behind the establishment and growth of Swier and Berry’s ensemble as well as its continued popularity as evidence of the existence of individuality and humor in an institutional work setting. (1-2)

HARBOLT, Tami (University of New Mexico) "STOLEN!" PET THEFT CONSPIRACY IN AMERICAN CULTURE. This paper will examine the narratives which circulate in animal shelters explaining the disappearance of pets. Despite the fact that only 2% of cats and 16% of dogs are claimed by owners each year in animal shelters, owners construct explanations explaining their pets’ mysterious disappearance that seem to follow similar themes. In return, shelters and national humane organizations often perpetuate these stories, creating a common enemy between the public and the shelter that relieves them both from responsibility for the animal’s disappearance and shifts the blame to other institutions, ethnic and religious groups, and classes of people. It will be shown that beliefs about those groups have an historical origin in the animal welfare movement, and that the narratives involve fears over the position of pets in our society. (9-9)

HARLOW, Ilana (Queens Council on the Arts) "COINCIDENCE" VS. "RELEVANCE." Stories about the kinds of uncanny events that some people dismiss as coincidences often reject the notion of "coincidence" in favor of the notion that the events are interconnected as parts of a greater totality. This paper examines how and why conceivable unrelated events are perceived as mutually relevant and recounted as parts of a single narrative. Often, the linking of events is suggested by what I call ‘accrual’ – the way in which certain people, places, and times seem to gather exceptional events in unto themselves. The topic will be explored using examples from fieldwork in Ireland. (6-3)

HARTWIG, Kurt (Indiana University) RECONSTRUCTING MIMESIS. Although folklorists have occasionally posited theories of folk drama, researchers often focus on descriptions of the event, rather than its underlying dynamics. This fits smoothly with the ethnographic charter of the discipline, but it de-emphasizes the action and interaction of the players. This paper builds upon Petr Bogatyrev’s theoretical work on transformation in conjunction with a systematic consideration of mimesis. Folk drama may often be abstracted, as in mumming, or blatantly fantastical, as with puppetry. An understanding not only of mimesis conceptually, but as a strategy of use is valuable for anyone carrying out interpretive and analytical work. (6-11)

HASHIMOTO, Hiroyuki (Chiba University) RHETORIC OF FANATICISM: THE PLACE OF DENGAKU IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN. In Japan, the medieval can be generally defined as the feudal era, from the middle or latter part of the twelfth century to the late sixteenth century. In this paper, I will discuss the place of dengaku, one of the representative forms of medieval performing art. Dengaku is often narrated using tengu (long-nosed goblins) and other strange images of the "other". Such figures reflect not only social views of the performers, but also serve as symbolic representations of fanaticism or abnormal experience, which is represented through the acrobatic physical movement of the performers. (5-11)

HELBIG, Kymberly (University of Pennsylvania) MORE IRISH THAN THE IRISH: MIGRATION, COMMODIFICATION AND ETHNIC IDENTITY. Currently, Irish affiliations, history, culture, and character are both alluring and lucrative, and the 1990s has seen the rampant rise of establishments which openly market themselves as "authentic Irish pubs". These establishments create and perpetuate popular notions of a pre-emigration (i.e., ethnically homogenous) community, while simultaneously offering participation in such a community to any and all through acts of purchasing and consuming certain ethnically-identifiable products: Guinness stout, soda bread and the accents of the staff. My paper centers on this simultaneous commodification and attempted codification of an "Irish" ethnic identity within the context of the burgeoning "Irish Pub" phenomenon. (2-6)

HELLMAN, Dara (St. Mary’s College/University of California-Los Angeles) REPOSITIONING WELSH ROMANCE OR GRISELDA’S REVENGE. This paper compares the French Erec and Enide to the Welsh version of the story, particularly in reference to Enide/Enyt’s mode of dress, commanded by her husband. She is sent out in her best dress in Chrétien’s French version, but undressed in the Welsh, creating more narrative and folkloric resonance. Her punishment resembles that of Griselda, and of the Rhiannon of Welsh storytelling. (1-11)

HEMMING, Jill (Independent Folklorist) TEMPLES AND TREES: MORMON QUILTING AND THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF BELIEF. In the inter-mountain West in a corridor that is still demographically a Mormon stronghold, a particularly intriguing and private quilt genre has quietly blossomed for several decades. These quilts draw their cultural meaning and persistence from a complex wellspring of theology, history and cultural experience that makes them a seminal symbolization of a Mormon world view. Among those who make them, the quilts are labeled "Temple Quilts, Family Tree Quilts, Anniversary Quilts and Genealogy Quilts." Unifying all these designations is a theme of the interconnectedness of generations under a holy covenant with God and a material manifestation of a sacred concept. (4-8)

HENRY, Lana (University of Southwestern Louisiana) HOMECOMINGS AT MT. PISGAH: THE CREATION AND RECREATION OF COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY THROUGH RITUAL REMEMBRANCE AND ORAL TRADITION. In this study of a rural cemetery homecoming ritual in East Texas, I attempt to illustrate how the oral transmission of family and community history and the ritualized remembrance of that history serve to: 1) create a ritual community with a perceived shared past; 2) identify that past as the moral and historical foundation of participants’ individual and collective identities; and 3) evoke within a diverse group whose one commonality is a sentimental attachment to the cemetery, feelings otherwise reserved for family and community; namely, a shared ethos, pride in and loyalty to the group identity, and a compulsion to provide mutual support towards shared goals. (1-10)

HICKMAN, Gretel (McKendree College) FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, MARY BRECKINRIDGE, AND CHERRY AMES: IMAGES OF WOMEN IN WHITE. This paper is one strand of an ethnographic study of the nursing division at McKendree College. The larger study, which draws on the work of Elaine Lawless, is, in part, an attempt to claim nursing history as feminist history. Nursing is often constructed as a profession defined by the male medical establishment, but is primarily women who have shaped nursing education and nursing as a profession. Portrayals of Nightingale, Breckinridge, and Ames reveal nursing as an important site of feminist research and illustrate the complex ways women have used traditional roles to claim power and implement change. (4-3)

HICKS, Gary G. (University of Massachusetts-Boston) THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE: JAILHOUSE TOASTS TO POETRY SLAMS. In the years since Bruce Jackson published Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me: Narrative Poetry in the Black Oral Tradition, other forms of resistance poetry have been perpetuated and generated. The forms respond to the changing circumstances of social class conditions and of Black Americans. The contemporary poetry slam is heir apparent to a long line of expressions of cultural resistance. The slam, along with it’s musico-poetic siblings, heavy metal, hip-hop and rap, are born of a society in civil war at the threshold of the millennium. (6-8)

HILL, Reinhold R. (University of Missouri) "THESE STORIES ARE NOT ‘REAL,’ BUT THEY ARE AS TRUE AS I CAN MAKE THEM": LEE SMITH’S LITERARY ETHNOGRAPHY. Lee Smith, author of Oral History, writes fiction that blurs the traditional boundaries between ethnography and literature. In this paper, I will explore Lee Smith’s use of literary and ethnographic conventions to create works of fiction that are at once literary and ethnographic. Folklorists have long struggled with principles or rules for the study of folklore in literature, and what folklore might bring to the study of literature. Nonetheless, a more interesting question for folklorists might be what folklorists can learn from literature. (4-2)

HIRSCH, Jerrold (Truman State University) THE INDIVIDUAL ARTIST AND THE FOLK GROUP: B. A. BOTKIN, THE PLAY-PARTY, AND PROLETARIAN LITERATURE. This paper will explore the connections between Botkin’s thinking about the relationship between the individual artist and the folk group, his work on the play-party in the 1920s, and his participation in the debates about proletarian literature in the 1930s. Historians of the regionalist movement and the Popular Front have already begun this work. Their work, however is flawed because they have not been able to understand Botkin as also a part of a discourse about the study of American Folklore. (7-11)

HOGLUND, Cara E. (Western Kentucky University) "KNOWEST HOW TO WRITE, KNOWEST HOW TO READ...?": WRITTEN TEXTS AND REINTERPRETATION IN THE AMERICAN ASATRU COMMUNITY. Asatru is one of several present-day religions based on ancient Nordic myths and culture. Tensions arise between these different Nordic groups and individuals regarding what are the legitimate texts and their interpretations. In discussing specifically which texts Asatru adherents utilize and how they are utilized, the question of what constitutes a "primary" test is raised as well as how, in this "vernacular religion", the authority–the power of representing what makes a "true" believer–is often mutable and dynamic. (4-11)

HOOD, Yolanda (University of Missouri) AFRICANA WOMANISM AND BLACK FEMINISM: RE-READING AFRICAN WOMEN’S QUILTING TRADITIONS. Believing that studies by and about women of color will never be central to feminist folklore scholarship, I examine Afrocentric models of women’s culture, such as Africana Womanism and Black Feminism, that might be appropriate paradigms for the evaluation and analysis of African American women’s folklore. Posting that the quilt is a communicative text(ile), I conclude the paper with an Africana Womanist reading of the quilts of a Kansas City quilter. (4-6)

HORTON, Laurel (Kalmia Research) and JORDAN-SMITH, Paul (Center for the Study of Everyday Life) ENVISIONING THE DANCER’S WORLD. The designs used by contra dancers in constructing quilts for other dancers constitute one aspect of a semiotic lexicon peculiar to their world. Designs are combined into emblems that express meanings and values central to the group and that function at several levels. They partake of a tradition and an ideology articulated in many forms of behavior–verbal, material, and cadential. This paper offers a model for collaboration employing both field work-based documentation and theoretical analysis. (7-9)

HOWARD, Robert Glenn (University of Oregon) ENDNEAR.COM: ELECTRO-FOLK RHETORICS OF APOCALYPSE. The Millennial Information Exchange World-Wide-Web site provides a publicly accessible forum to which anyone can post their ideas. Involved in Internet communities since 1994, I built this site as part of my participation in apocalyptic Internet discourse. Developing out of informal electronic expression, apocalyptic debaters utilize complex folk rhetorical techniques. In 1999, this community’s debates are a feverish rush. In this rush, I have discovered a rhetorical tension between the desire to negotiate about truth and the desire to express an experienced Truth. This paper explores this tension as it has been expressed through the Millennial Information Exchange. (6-4)

HOY, Jim (Emporia State University) THE FLINT HILLS FIRESTICK. Ranchers in the tallgrass prairie of the Kansas Flint Hills, who each spring burn off the dead grass from the previous year’s growth, have developed a distinctive device of folk technology for setting fires. Variously called a firestick or a firepipe, this homemade device is composed of a piece of pipe filled with gasoline, which drips from a hole in one end. This paper will survey the general custom of Flint Hills pasture burning and examine in detail the firestick itself. (4-8)

HUFFORD, David (Pennsylvania State University, College of Medicine) SPIRIT BELIEF AND THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. If spirits exist, consciousness cannot be physically explained. Gilbert Ryle granted this point in his influential attack on dualism, The Concept of Mind (1949), when he called Descartes’ view the "dogma of the ghost in the machine". Dualist views of consciousness are linked to ghosts to assert their foolishness. Social construction theories obliterate spirit belief’s challenge to physicalist views of mind; in experiential theory folk beliefs challenge reductionism. Whether cognitive science shows folk beliefs to be "empirical idiocy" and "metaphysical claptrap" depends on which folklore theory one finds compelling. (3-9)

HUFFORD, Mary (American Folklife Center) DISMANTLING THE SOCIAL BODY: LANDSCAPE IMAGINARIES AND THE CULTURAL ECONOMY OF MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL. This paper explores the interplay of landscape representation and social transformation in the central Appalachian coalfields. A discourse unfolding in the present controversy over mountaintop removal likens this method of extraction to dismemberment and other forms of violence against the body. Here the landscapes of extraction are made to materialize the ideology of corporate players whose "closed individuality...does not merge with other bodies and with the world" (Bakhtin). Meanwhile, an excluded public conjures and re-occupies a commons of "the mountains" via productions that illuminate the intersubjective ground on which corporate enclosures stand. (4-5)

IBARRA IBARRA, Jorge I. (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon) LOS DANZANTES Y DANZA DE MATACHINES: UNA PERSPECTIVA SOCIAL (THE DANCERS AND THE DANCE OF MATACHINES: A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE). The dance of the Matachines is a traditional cultural practice that attracts a significant number of young Catholics each year, from generation to generation. This paper explores two different aspects related to this traditional practice as it exists in the area of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico; the first is an attempt to define the "ideal" or "model" of a Matachines dance and the second is to establish what meaning the dance has for the dancers themselves. (4-7)

IRWIN, Bonnie D. (Eastern Illinois University) SHAHRAZAD AND HER MEDIEVAL SISTERS: FEMININE OR FEMINIST STORYTELLERS? Many medieval frame tales depict not only storytelling, but storytelling by women. Are medieval women’s stories distinctly different from men’s in content or context? Shahrazad has often been identified as a medieval heroine and feminist, but many of her tales are misogynistic. Is storytelling in itself a feminist act? This paper will analyze the role of female storytellers in the Thousand Nights and a Night, the Canterbury Tales, and the Decameron and explore what the depiction of women’s oral verbal art in these works can tell us of the role of women’s storytelling in medieval cultures. (1-11)

IVANOVA, Elena (Boston College) THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF A TALE ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN. This paper looks at sexual violence against men as presented in the Decameron’s Day 8, Tale 4 and in a personal letter written by N. Machiavelli to his friend Luigi Guicciardini. In both cases, the violence done is to the image the male suitor has constructed about the pursued woman--after the encounter, she turns out to be grotesquely ugly and repulsive. Why, to whom and how do men tell these stories about reversal of (sexual) power within a culture that lacks a loathly lady tradition? (1-11)

JASMINE, Randy (Utah State University) WHY ALL THE DRAMA?: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MUMMING IN HARDY’S THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE. This paper examines the significance of mumming in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, a book full of folk traditions. I explore Hardy’s use of the mumming scene at a very important juncture in the plot. I also analyze how the mumming bridges, at least temporarily, the class differences in the novel. Using Henry Glassie’s account of Irish mumming in All Silver and No Brass, I will connect elements of these two depictions (one fictional and the other actual) and focus on the importance of this form of traditional drama in a work of literature, and in the world. (6-11)

JOHLER, Reinhard (University of Vienna-Austria) IN THE MIND OR FROM THE FIELD? EAST AND WEST IN EUROPEAN ETHNOLOGY. The construct of East and West in Europe has long been used, and even the end of the Cold war does not seem to have brought an end to this contrast. On the contrary: "East" and "West" have not lost their significance in the humanities or in European daily life. It is precisely within European Ethnology, in theory as well as in the field, that these categories have taken on particular significance. That significance is to be analyzed here, with particular attention paid to the flows between past and present. (6-9)

JONES, Jamila R. (University of Missouri-Columbia) TELL THE TRUTH AND SHAME THE DEVIL: THE LIVING AND LITERARY POWER OF BLACK WOMEN’S STORYTELLING. This paper examines memorates and shared storytelling of an African American family of women. I intend to demonstrate how the stories told in the small circle of women in my own family and literature are closely intertwined in that both emerge from within cultural communities and breathe life into the experiences of the inhabitants of these communities even as it validates, affirms, and forges identity. The spiritual and supernatural beliefs conveyed in these memorates are part of the history and memory of black women’s lives that inform the literary works of women writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. It is through this folkloric lens of personal history and orality that we may come to understand the ways in which the characteristics unique to black women’s experience, talk, and storytelling may better inform the way we read, interpret, and understand contemporary African American women writers. (4-2)

JONES, Michael Owen (University of California-Los Angeles) "TRADITION" IN IDENTITY DISCOURSES AND THE SYMBOLIC CONSTRUCTION OF SELF. This paper focuses on an individual living on a farm in Manitoba. He is a folk builder, icon painter, cantor — all in the Ukrainian Orthodox religion. However, his father was a Scots immigrant, and he was raised Canadian-Anglo and steeped in Roman Catholicism. Since his late teens he has pursued a Ukrainian identity, tried to "live like they used to live," and attempted to be a "lay monk". Why so vigorously others’ traditions? Why would a person construct an identity by adopting traditional behaviors, how would it be expressed through various discourses, and what can a behavioral perspective focusing on individuals contribute to discussions of "tradition"? (1-3)

JONES-BAMMAN, Richard (Eastern Connecticut State University) "AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO JOIK....": SINGING THE SIIDA TOWARD NATIONHOOD. In this presentation, I will argue that the Saami vocal genre, joik, has become a positive symbol of ethnic identity, largely through public performances which galvanize audiences and extend Saami conceptions of communitas beyond traditional models. The act of joiking in these circumstances has changed the function of the genre significantly by encouraging the creation of what Benedict Anderson has termed an "imagined community". This in turn contributes to a growing sense of Saami pride and desires for more political autonomy. (5-2)

KAKAS, Karen (Bowling Green State University) FOLK ART ENVIRONMENTS AS LOCATIONS FOR INFORMAL ART EDUCATION AND FOR DIALOGUE ABOUT VISUAL CULTURE THAT BRIDGES DISCIPLINES. Dialogue about art can come from many perspectives, depending on ones discipline–folklore, art history, art education, popular culture, anthropology, sociology, and others. With sociological art worlds perspective, a postmodern thread that places value on context, and a pluralistic view of art that stresses the benefits of experiencing a wide range of art objects, this presentation will focus on folk art environments as locations of informal education about art and folklife, and outline differences and connections that are apparent among several disciplines’ perspectives about these unique sites. (3-2)

KEELER, Teresa F. (Pasadena City College) MY FRIEND BEATRICE REFLECTIONS ON RELATIONSHIPS AND FIELDWORK. Fieldwork is an "intensively personal" enterprise (Jackson 1989:16), especially when it involves friends as informants. When female ethnographers interview women, they oftentimes enter "the private sphere of women’s storytelling"(48) which generates a "very comfortable feeling....like home"(Yocom 1985:49). Beatrice Toomey was one such friend-informant: family friend for forty-five years and informant for twenty-five. This paper examines how close relationships affect project planning, data gathering, and data analysis by exploring ties prior to and during fieldwork experiences and by reflecting upon striking "coincidences" surrounding Beatrice’s death that stimulated questions about the role and impact of friendship in conducting fieldwork. (3-5)

KELLEY, Greg (Indiana State University) DISMEMBERED BEAUTY: AN EXERCISE IN INTERTEXTUAL INTERPRETATION. As a tool of literary interpretation, an intertextual perspective necessarily looks to textual echoes of the past and anticipates expressions in the future. In that light, examining folk analogues provides an interpretive strategy for explicating Jonathan Swift’s "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed" (1731). Among Swift’s controversial "dressing room" poems, "A Beautiful Young Nymph" tells the story of a prostitute name Corinna returning home after a night of work on the streets. A scene of disassembly unfolds as Corinna removes her artificial body parts. Analysis of folk analogues with the false body parts motif provides insight into Swift’s handling of the dismembered beauty theme.(3-3)

KELLEY, Kathryn (Ohio State University) "PLUCK CHICKENS, TWEEZE EYEBROWS": THE OCCUPATIONAL LIFE OF A FOLK ARTIST. Folklorists rarely pursue the influence that occupation has on the folk artist. I present an ethnographic study of Teresa Reynolds, a folk artist and children’s activist from Covington, KY. She is a professional makeup artist for a retail cosmetics line and volunteers part-time teaching doll-making to inner-city children. Her occupation, like her art, challenges social and interpersonal boundaries. In the case study, a dialogue is created that covers issues of commercial and folk art, gender politics and body aesthetics. (3-8)

KERST, Catherine Hiebert (American Folklife Center) LADY ON WHEELS: SIDNEY ROBERTSON COWELL’S FOLK MUSIC COLLECTING PRACTICE. >From the mid-1930s to the early 40ies, Sidney Robertson Cowell collected traditional music widely for various New Deal organizations, traveling on her own in the South, the Ozarks, the Midwest, and California. This paper will investigate Cowell’s pursuit of traditional music, dwelling on the distinctive methods she created and developed to serve her own intellectual curiosity, the respect of those who recorded for her, and her advocacy of and delight in the expression of living traditional culture. (9-4)

KEYES, Cheryl L. (University of California-Los Angeles) TOWARD AN INTERPRETATION OF RAP MUSIC VISUAL NARRATIVES. Rap music videos draw on physical and intellectual references–encoded culture–that augment the message rap artists deliver. As such, these film vignettes serve an artistic purpose through which rhymin’ emcees provide a visual interpretation of their songs. This paper explores various strategies by which rap music videos encode cultural meaning. In doing so, it presents an interpretive model for analyzing the rap music video narrative. (1-9)

KIRKLAND, James (East Carolina University) FOLKLORE AND LITERATURE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PEDAGOGY. This part of the Forum discussion will examine applications of recent folklore/literature theory to different types of courses. Emphasis will be given to methods and materials used in two recently taught classes: Introduction to Literature, in which students study and write about folk narratives in conjunction with literary texts, and American Folklore, which gives students frequent opportunities to compare folkloric and literary treatments of the same subject or theme. (9-2)

KIRSHENBLATT-GIMBLETT, Barbara (New York University) TEXT AND COMMUNITY. With forum co-moderators Polly Stewart and Margaret Yocom, I will facilitate a discussion of my 1998 Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage as well as a companion text (Karal Ann Marling, Graceland: Going Home With Elvis) and a contrastive text (to be chosen). This seminar-like session welcomes all who would like to talk about issues raised by the readings: exhibitions, display and representation, heritage discourse, and more. (Please try to read texts in advance.) Come and plan for next year’s text. (6-1)

KITCHENER, Amy (Fresno Arts Council) "WE DON’T JUST HAVE SKIRTS": NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES AND BRIDGING COMMUNITIES IN A FOLK ARTS EXHIBITION. This paper explores the wonderful tension created when a folklorist facilitates a community-based folk arts exhibition in a museum setting. These tensions include the dynamics within and between the domains of the featured communities, curators, and museum administrators. The exhibition "Threads of Tradition: Textiles Arts of Laos in California’s Central Valley", that examined Hmong, lowland Lao, Lahu, and Mien needlework and weaving provides the basis for the study. This example shows how public presentations of folklore can act as catalysts for communities to examine and analyze its traditions, while it addresses some of the ways that public folklorists work as facilitators of complex exchanges. (2-10)

KLEIN, Barbro (Stockholm University) MEANINGS AND USES OF TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE SWEDISH "HOME CRAFT" MOVEMENT. The object of this paper is to analyze some of the meanings and uses of the concept of tradition within the Swedish ‘home craft" movement which grew out of the intellectual and political climate that also fostered folklife studies, cultural historical museums and other efforts to create symbols for modernizing European nations. How has tradition been used to celebrate some groups and forms of craft as truly Swedish and to exclude others? What are the divergences from the official canons? The analysis attempts to link together issues of artistic taste and quality, local politics, nation building, and global migrations. (1-3)

KLOBERDANZ, Timothy J. (North Dakota State University) SOWING THE SEEDS OF DISCORD: RURAL BELIEF LEGENDS ABOUT COLONY "BREEDERS". A growing number of rural legends surrounds the communal Hutterites (or Hutterite Brethren), a distinct ethnic and religious group of the North American Great Plains. Many of these legends underscore a rather curious allegation on the part of their non-Hutterite neighbors: the belief that the pietistic, colony-dwelling Hutterites occasionally hire male outsiders as "breeders" to infuse new blood into Hutterite communities. Several "breeder" legends are analyzed in an effort to identify salient motifs and themes. An attempt also is made to relate these rural legends to recent anti-Hutterite hate crimes that have been reported in the national and international media. (4-11)

KOLOVOS, Andy (Indiana University) AN EASTERN ORTHODOX ICONOGRAPHER IN INDIANAPOLIS. Growing numbers of people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds have adopted and continue to adopt the Eastern Orthodox faith. One role taken up by Orthodox newcomers is that of the iconographer. For convert iconographers, the creation of an icon is both a tangible and spiritual link to the traditions of their chosen religion. This study focuses on one such iconographer–Mother Katherine, an Eastern Orthodox nun and convert to the Orthodox faith. Through her icons, Mother Katherine unifies elements of her life history, identity and adopted traditions, generating a beautiful and inspirational whole. 3-8)

KOROM, Frank J. (Boston University) BETWEEN KUNDUN AND BRAD PITT THERE IS NO EAST AND WEST: ON TIBET, HOLLYWOOD, AND CYBERSPACE DISCOURSE. With the release of a number of new Hollywood films addressing Tibetan sociopolitical themes, the country’s plight as an "occupied land" is once again in the international spotlight. My paper will address the implications of Hollywood’s role in creating a discourse about Tibet for the West. I want to argue that although mass media has certainly drawn worldwide attentions to the "free Tibet" cause, it has only a limited impact in the political arena. My conclusion suggests that the Tibetan discourse has less to do with Tibet as a physical place than it does with our own interior mentalscapes. (5-9)

KOWALCZYK, Nancy (University of Oregon) WHERE ARE YOU NOW, MRS. BROWN?: BALLAD STUDY AND THE MILLENNIUM. Ballad study has continued over the span of three centuries. Even now, with the dawn of the 21^st century upon us, this genre that was considered moribund is still providing us with opportunities for study and debate. This paper will review key issues in ballad study, particularly focusing on David Buchan’s more recent theory of oral formulaic composition. Oral formulaic theory will be analyzed with regard to the ballads written by Mrs. Anna Brown of the Falklands. Projections for future ballad study will be examined, and original ballads written in "Mrs. Brown style" will be performed, using tunes from Bertrand H. Bronson’s The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads. (4-4)

KRUESI, Margaret (University of Pennsylvania) FROM "PRIESTESS OF ART" TO "AVE MARIAN" AND "THE BLACK MADONNA": POLITICS OF RACE AND FOLKLORE IN THE CAREER OF SINGER MARIAN ANDERSON. Drawing from a database of over 3000 images of the singer Marian Anderson created by her fans, photographers, and publicists, and based in part on a widely-held perception of Anderson as a spiritual presence, I will argue the pros and cons of the thesis that folkloric and mythologized images of Anderson disempowered her in her pursuit of a career as a classical singer. Anderson’s life contributed to and was affected by the civil rights movement. This aspect of her life will be discussed in comparison with the effects of similar issues on her contemporary Paul Robeson. (4-10)

KUBACKI, Tamara (Western Kentucky University) THE GHOST OF VANMETER HALL: BELIEF IN THEATRE GHOSTS. The belief in theatre ghosts is unquestionably accepted by actors, directors, and technicians. Based on interviews with Western Kentucky University’s Performing Arts department, this paper will explore the ways theatre tradition maintains the belief in theatre ghosts. By looking at the shared knowledge of the department members and the relation of that knowledge to the larger theatre world, I will also discuss the universality of superstition in the theatre and how that adds to the acceptance of ghost stories as true. (6-11)

KURIN, Richard (Smithsonian Institution) THE CURSE OF THE HOPE DIAMOND. The Hope diamond, originally mined in India, is among the most famous and valuable objects known to Americans. This fame and value comes from its "folklore"–a reputed curse, according to which great tragedy strikes those who possess the diamond stolen by a European from the eye of a Hindu temple icon. This paper reviews media hype about the curse and traces it back to its origin–a tall tale told by Cartier in 1910 in Paris to entice Evalyn Walsh McLean, an American socialite, to purchase the gem. The story had antecedents in European cautionary tales constructed in the "West: to account for differences with the "East." A brief examination of the diamond’s 300 year Euro-American history reveals how perceptions of India structure the curse. Comparisons between European and Indian ideas of enlightenment, kingship, and biophysics provide insight as to how the curse "works". (4-9)

KUUTMA, Kristin (University of Washington-Seattle) A QUEST FOR THE FINNO-UGRIC PRIMEVAL CHANT IN ESTONIA: APPLICATION OF SONGS AS IDENTITY MARKER. Constitution of identity is an elaborate game of mirrors where people define themselves culturally, socially or politically in relation to others or to the outside world. In Estonia, the Finno-Ugric identity has played a significant role as a cultural and political strategy of self-definition and self-maintenance, it is perceived as a value-laden alternative to mainstream hegemonies. The current contribution analyzes the negotiation of Finno-Ugric identity though songs, and shows how song repertoire is applied to manifest a difference and to integrate a community. Different communities enacting the Finno-Ugric movement implement songs in internal self-definition as well as in creating a dialogue. (5-2)