AFS Logo Abstracts for Individual Presentations
1999 AFS Annual Meeting

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OLBRYS, Stephen Gencarella (Indiana University) CONSILIENCE UNBOUND: THE PROBLEM OF "FOLK" IN SCIENCE. In rhetoric of science, "folk" is a central metaphor for labeling symbolic action as irrational. The "folk" problem has recently emerged with renewed vigor both in cognitive science and in popularizations of science that aim to debunk "folk" practices on behalf of rationality; the latter group often views non-scientific "folk" as a threat to American democracy. This skeptical reaction against people who "believe weird things" amounts to a serious fear; as a counter critical rhetoric folklore may provide comic correctives for more robust democratic practices. (2-9)

OLSON, Ted (East Tennessee State University) THE INFLUENCE OF THE URBAN FOLK REVIVAL ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF "COUNTRY-ROCK" MUSIC. I will trace the influence of the urban folk revival of the 1950s and early 1960s on the development of "country-rock" music during the late 1960s. Indeed, the rise of country-rock–a musical blend which continues to influence popular music today–might be characterized as a second urban folk revival, though in this instance musicians returned popular music to its "roots" without directly imitating those roots. Country-rock music provided an alternative "folk music" for a generation that, believing the past invalid, decided to invent its own roots. (6-5)

ONEBANE, Donna McGee (University of Southwestern Louisiana) POINTE NOIRE: A STUDY OF PLACE AND IDENTITY. Any study of place must begin with the attempt to perceive the invisible landscape, what Kent Ryden defines as "an unseen layer of usage, memory, and significance....imaginative landmarks–superimposed upon the geographical surface and the two-dimensional map"(40). This paper explores a fascinating terra incognita in the southwest Louisiana prairies know as Pointe Noire. Though it has never been located on any map, it is legendary in oral folklore as a "perpetuated frontier", a bastion of traditional Cajun culture. This paper examines the role geography and landscape plays on the maintenance of a traditional culture. (7-2)

ORING, Elliott (California State University-Los Angeles) JOKE AS GLOSS. This paper explores jokes that gloss conversation and social interaction. The importance of joke glosses is two-fold: they can lead to an understanding of the role of jokes in social interaction–the way they affect the direction and tone of ordinary discourse. Joke glosses can also serve to illuminate the message-conveying potential of jokes. Through an analysis of such joke usages, the intended messages of jokes can be estimated. Assessing the relation of jokes to everyday communication is essential in addressing the question of how and what jokes mean. (9-6)

OTERO, Solimar (University of Pennsylvania) VANGUARD INTELLECTUALISM AND THE HISTORY OF REVOLT: DIALOGUES FROM EXILE COMMUNITIES. This paper focuses on the history between vanguard intellectualism and revolt in the context of two Cuban Revolutions in 1895 and 1959. Communities of artists and writers continually inscribe revolt and resistance onto the Cuban public transcript from outside of the island’s borders. We explore how figures like Jose Marti and Fidel Castro represent those who construct multiple and alternate Cubas in the "periphery". The imagining of the nation-state illustrates how nationalism, and cultural space are products of conceptual negotiations. However, by paying close attention to historical contexts, we can situate how vanguards call for action within social spheres. (2-6)

PALMENFELT, Ulf (University of Bergen) CONVERSATIONAL WORLDS AND INTERACTIVE ARENAS: A DIALOGUE ACROSS CULTURAL BOUNDARIES. In this paper I focus on the impact of different regional origin in a long life history interview. The participants bring into the conversation their own concepts, feelings, and ideas concerning regional identity, as well as elements from outside discourses. In their dialogue (at times more of a duel) across cultural boundaries some of these elements are transformed into shared and retained experiences. The conversants’ verbal interaction is regarded as a processual construction of a common conversational world. (9-10)

PAWLOWSKI, Lucia (University of Missouri-Columbia) BELOVED AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF FOLKLORIC LITERARY CRITICISM. Given the stronghold of cultural theory in the academy, many literary critics have attempted "folkloric" readings of fictional works; however, these readings are based on a misunderstanding of what folklore is. Using the criticism of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I attempt to prove that true "folkloric literary criticism," or literary criticism that does understand what folklore is, would radically challenge notions of "text" and "authorship" the way literary criticism has constructed them. (1-4)

PERSHING, Linda (University of Redlands) OFFICE FOLKLORE: NEGOTIATING ROLES IN AN ACADEMIC SETTING. In an adult education program in San Diego, California, students, secretaries, faculty, and administrators interact in close quarters. Members of this learning community use folk expression to convey their concerns and maintain a sense of personal dignity, despite bureaucratic processes. Office folklore sometimes involves circumventing standard procedures, improvising, or subverting the system. This presentation explores the ways in which play and creativity are expressed in the office, and the mechanisms that various members of this academic community have developed for dealing with institutional life. (1-2)

PETERSON-VEATCH, Erica (Indiana University) SHARING LIFESTORIES: AN ACT OF INTIMACY. This presentation focuses on the lifestories of four elderly Swedish immigrants who live in an old Swedish neighborhood (Andersonville) of Chicago. The lifestories serve as valuable records of experiences held in common by the Swedish-Americans in Chicago and reports on aging and coping with old age. As representations of individual lives, the lifestories are creative presentations of self told in a particular context that is understood to engender intimacy. (9-10)

PETERSON-VEATCH, Ross (Indiana University) THE CANNIBALS SPEAK: DIALOGUE IN OVIEDO’S EARLY ETHNOGRAPHY. In 1535, Fernández de Oviedo published the first twenty books of his Historia, the first official history of the Americas. This presentation will examine the dialogue as a generic convention in Oviedo’s work. Oviedo uses the words of the Native Americans themselves to defend his positions on cannibalism. Folklorists and other scholars commonly, if unwittingly, attempt to represent others, and simultaneously offer a critique of our society–for better or worse, we use the words of our informants to make our points. (9-4)

PETZEN, Jennifer L. (University of Washington) LIMINAL STATES: GENDER, CLASS AND CITIZENSHIP IN FIELDWORK. In my 15 years of visiting Turkey, I became used to people asking me questions about Turkey and Turks; there was always the expectation that I would utter some enlightening insight about human nature and the role of culture. After 3 different excursions into the field, I am perhaps at the most ambivalent period of my career. Writing is difficult; reading is uninspiring; planning an academic career seems naively optimistic at best. After four years of graduate school and three "official" fieldwork excursions, I realize that any answer I may give will always be more about myself than about Turkey or its folklife. Privileged status as a white, middle-class female academic was given, but this status was also disadvantageous in that I was often associated with an Orientalist tradition. But perhaps it was the possibility of having dual-citizenship or the power to chose which citizenship I wanted at any given moment–that best characterized my situation of ongoing negotiation and liminality. (8-3)

PHILLIPS, Jane Beu (University of New Mexico) CONTINUING TRADITION: MARJ AND JIM MULLANY, MUSICAL BRICOLEURS. Is there a major difference between an itinerant worker who learns to play his fiddle while away from his rural home, from members of his new community or the radio, and current musicians who have also learned from a variety of sources within and outside their home environment? Can such musicians be considered to be part of the same tradition? This paper looks at the distinctions that have been made in the search for authenticity, and the contradictions inherent in those distinctions. Profiling two New Mexico musicians, I explore the notions of revivalism, post-revivalism, and continuity of tradition. (6-5)

PHILLIPS, Jenna (University of California-Berkeley) THE MEXICAN BORDER BALLAD AND THE CASE OF BENJAMIN ARGUMENDO. The Mexican border-ballad, or corrido, provided its community along the Rio Grande with a much needed sense of continuity during a period of upheaval. The corrido took definitive shape during the late nineteenth century, in the years proceeding the Mexican revolution. Musically and verbally it expressed the individual’s struggle against overpowering yet ideologically inferior forces of institution and bureaucracy. Addressing the work of Americo Paredes and his notion of the ballad’s "emotional core", I will present a variant text which contradicts Paredes’ thesis of an unchanging ballad core, and testifies to the non-static nature of the corrido, and its resistance to the mechanical constructs of an unnatural world. (4-4)

PIATKOWSKI, Nancy (Independent Scholar) TEMPORARY DEVOTIONAL ALTARS AS MARKERS OF MINORITY IDENTITY. Grounded in community-based, participant-observation and research, this paper will examine the place of the temporary devotional altar in defining the identity of ethnic minority peoples within the majority culture. Often standing outside the doctrinal or liturgical framework of the "official church", the temporary devotional altar provides the focus for affirming their cultural identity and telling their story to succeeding generations. This paper will make specific reference to the Sicilian St. Joseph’s Day, the Mexican Los Días de los Muertos and the Serbian Slava (family patron saint) celebration. (5-6)

PIMPLE, Kenneth D. (Indiana University) FAST TALK: STUDYING DECEPTION AND DECEIVERS. I explore some of the linguistic strategies and social trappings of successful liars. Lying–not the telling of tall tales or the kind of expressive exaggeration often expected in narratives of personal experience, but lying of the morally and ethically disreputable type–has been little studied by folklorists. The study of fast talk, a form of communication parasitic upon and destructive of honest communication, can potentially shed a great deal of light on straight talk in the same way a pathological condition can lead to insights on healthy states. (5-10)

POCIUS, Gerald (Memorial University) IS IT AUTHENTIC, IS IT REAL, OR DOES IT MATTER?: THE LESSONS FROM WRESTLING AND BUILDINGS. From being arbiters of cultural authenticity themselves, folklorists have shifted that responsibility to the people they study. However, authenticity as a concept still limits scholarship, since it assumes that people are concerned with dichotomies in cultural values. Looking at professional wrestling and recreated buildings, what is real and what is not are questions that only academics ask. Audiences are more concerned with appearances rather than reality, with success measured not in terms of accuracy but impact. (3-5)

POIZAT-NEWCOMB, Steve (University of Pennsylvania) SURFING CULTURE IN PUERTO RICO AND ITS IMPACT ON TOURISM. Surfing is an ancient and sacred island tradition that has spread across the globe despite the condemnation it suffered from early European missions in Oceania. In addition to surfing’s original association with Polynesian spiritualism, modern myths and stereotypes paraded in the media pervade the activity, and imbue surfing culture with North American West coast and counter-cultural ideology. The dynamics of surfing culture in Puerto Rico have created a unique local industry with positive ties to the island’s development, the opportunity to galvanize and identify a community, and the ability to promote stewardship of the island’s resources. (1-1)

PRAHLAD, Sw. Anand (University of Missouri) YOU NEVER SEE SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE: TOWARD A RADICAL THEORY OF FOLKLORE AND LITERATURE, WITH A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON AFRICAN AMERICAN. This paper challenges customary ideas held by scholars about the nature of folklore and literature and argues for an innovative model as the basis for new analytical frameworks. The implications of this framework suggest that all cultural productions and behaviors are determined by folklore, and that distinctions made between folk, popular and elite have everything to do with European-American ruling class folklore and little to do with the actual creative processes by which these expressions come into being or with the interactional dynamics of which they are a part. This paper explores aspects of institutionalized folklore that underlie the concepts we hold of literature and folklore as well as specific cognitive, social and aesthetic dimensions of these two forms of creative production. (4-2)

PRESTON, Cathy (University of Colorado-Boulder) "THE CONTRADICTIONS AND PROFUNDITIES OF OUR LIVES": ONE WOMAN’S 50TH BIRTHDAY PARTY. The 50th birthday party has become for many women a traditional rite of passage used to negotiate the biological and social realities of aging (its losses and gains). This paper will discuss this phenomenon in relation to one woman who just preceding her 50th birthday had located and been happily reunited with her only child (a daughter who, as an infant, had been put up for adoption).(7-6)

PRESTON, Michael J. (University of Colorado-Boulder) INSCRIPTIONS AND ANNOTATIONS ON CHAPBOOKS CONTAINING TEXTS OF TRADITIONAL DRAMA: EVIDENCE, BUT OF WHAT? Markings on chapbooks are common, particularly on chapbooks which contain "folk play" texts. Front-page markings often denote ownership or date. Interlinear markings may indicate that an owner was attempting to compare different chapbooks, compare the particular chapbook to a local tradition, or even adapt a chapbook for use as a prompt-book. Not all markings are trustworthy, nor are their meanings readily knowable. (8-10)

PRIMIANO, Leonard Norman (Cabrini College) ANGELIC AMERICA AT THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM. This paper is a presentation about the American interest in angelic spirits in the decades leading to the end of this millennium. The paper is also an examination of Americans’ historical relationship with angels as expressed in a variety of material culture examples from Puritan grave stones and George Washington engravings to Howard Finster sculpture and a poodle-headed dog spirit with wings. (6-4)

PRYOR, Anne (Wisconsin Arts Board) BRICK BY BRICK: REBUILDING AS CULTURAL CRITIQUE. A site’s space consists of its physical terrain and cultural landscape, created through symbols, practice and narrative. One of seven key sites of Martian apparitions in the greater Cincinnati area is a former seminary. Believers infuse this space with meanings based on their interpretations of the hilltop setting, the building’s history, the restoration work they do on the building, and tales they tell about the site. The result is that the cultural terrain of the site now evokes the critiques of Catholic secularization embedded in Mary’s apparition messages. (1-8)

RANSOM, James (Haverford College) FOLKLORE, HISTORY, AND MEMORY: AN ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE TIME IN THE WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN. N. Scott Momaday’s recovery of the Kiowa people’s "idea of themselves" is explored through an analysis of the workings of time in the discourses (folk tale, history, personal memory) juxtaposed in the triptych-like formal design of his mixed-genre text. Making use of Heideggerian terms ("Within-time-ness," "historicality," "temporality"), as deployed by Paul Ricoeur in his essay on "Narrative Time," this analysis traces the way in which the tribal identity discovered in Momaday’s researches into the "fragmentary" narratives of a deteriorated oral tradition is recovered in the weave of his artful textual narrative. (9-7)

RASPA, Richard (Wayne State University) GAZING AT THE DEAD: CULTURAL COLLISIONS IN PORTUGAL’S CAPELAS DE OSSOS [CHAPEL OF BONES]. The Capelas de Ossos–Chapel of Bones–in Portugal’s Church of Sao Francisco, is the site of a symbolic collision. Set into the walls and columns of this seventeenth-century ossuary chapel are human skulls. Above the entrance are the words: "WE BONES THAT ARE HERE, FOR YOURS WE ARE WAITING." The skulls are a symbol of Bakhtin’s grotesque body, boundary-less, protruding, and polluted, offering a critique of the seamless, ethereal, uncontaminated body, defined by rationality. Challenging modernity’s view of death, which separates into seamless categories the living from the dead, is Medieval Catholic eschatology, revealing the carnivalized and paradoxical nature of living and dying. (9-3)

RICH, Paul (University of the Americas, Mexico) and LARA, Antonio (University of the Americas, Mexico) BRAVING THE HOT SANDS: ORIGINS AND FOLKLORE OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE. In a number of American cities there is a building which would be quite at home in Cairo or Damascus, with minarets and arches reminiscent of the Middle East. There are nearly 200 such Shrine mosques in the United States and Canada. The Mystic Shrine, or more properly, the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, is an autonomous organization which recruits from those who have climbed the Masonic ladder and become either Knights Templar or thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Masons. An extremely wealthy organization, its endowments are will over ten billion dollars and thus comparable with those of Harvard. It is probably best known to the public for its charities such as hospitals for crippled children and its centers for severe burn victims, and for sponsorship of events such as the East-West Shrine football bowl and Shrine circuses. The Nobles, who wear red fezes reminiscent of the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, have elaborate rituals which they claim dates back to the Middle Ages and were brought from Europe in the late nineteenth century. In actual fact, as this paper makes clear, the Shrine is entirely of American devising and is a notable example of creative mythologizing. (7-6)

RIVES, Timothy D. (National Archives and Records Administration-Central Plains Region) "CANON FODDER": SOME MIDWESTERN SOLDIER POETS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR. An analysis of World War I soldier poetry, this paper examines the role of verse in military folk culture and argues for its inclusion next to soldier song, slang, and cadence in the canon of military folklore study. Soldier verse served to integrate millions of civilian volunteers and draftees into military society, transmitted occupational lore, enhanced unit cohesion and bonding, preserved individual and group experience, commemorated the dead and provided a sanctioned outlet for grumbling, fear, and protest. This study draws on military folk poetry found in post newspapers, self-published unit histories, unpublished personal narratives, and letters home. The authors considered include officers, enlisted men, European and African Americans, and one civilian, a female spouse. Kansas origins of residence and/or service at Camp Funston, Kansas, augments their commonality. (7-4)

ROSENBERG, Jan (Heritage Education Resources) IT’S SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO: THE MURRAH BUILDING MEMORIAL FENCE. On 19 April, 1995, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing 168 men, women, and children. The last act before the demolition of the remains of the Murrah Building was the erection of a chain link fence around the site. Since then, over 42,000 items–from crucifixes to wreaths–have been attached to the fence, creating a shrine honoring those who were lost in the bombing. This paper will explore the interrelationship between the bombing event, the Fence, and those who experienced them in terms of Robert Plant Armstrong’s concept of the "affecting presence". (2-8)

ROSENBERG, Neil V. (Memorial University of Newfoundland) "SHE’S LIKE THE SWALLOW": CREATING A CULTURAL ICON. "She’s Like the Swallow," collected in Newfoundland by Maud Karpeles in 1930, has been documented from oral tradition only four times since then, in each instance from a Newfoundlander. One of the best-known Newfoundland songs in Canada, it has become a much published and performed icon of beauty in folksong melody and words both in cultivated and in folk revival music. Summarizing and contextualizing the ethnographic data, this paper explores the ways in which collectors edited the song for publication, producing texts differing from those originally sung. The song’s media history is analyzed, focusing issues of region and class. (6-5)

ROTH, Erin (Traditional Arts Indiana) MAKING THE FINAL CUT: AN AGENTS DILEMMA. The Midwest Folklife Sampler, a regional tour of traditional musicians is a project designed to further the musical careers of traditional musicians from the Midwest. As a member of the project’s committee, my task has been to identify commercially viable musicians that fit a fairly conservative definition of tradition, a standard prescribed by the project. While some folklore scholars argue that tradition and authenticity are no longer useful, public folklorists continue to use these concepts to make difficult distinctions. The distinctions may be biased and arbitrary at times, and legitimize only a limited idea of culture. But establishing standards for authenticity is perhaps a necessary part of public programming. (5-7)

ROWLEY, Maxine L. (Brigham Young University) CLOTHING CONNECTIONS TO THE RHYME AND REASON OF COURTSHIP. Folklore of the Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) reveals clothing and apparel to be both teaching devices and symbols of the convictions an individual has of the religion and its practices. Nowhere is this more evident than in the folklore that has grown up around the linkages of clothing traditions to a very structures value system surrounding dating and courtship. The presentation is both enlightening and entertaining. (2-7)

RUSHING, J. Rhett (Indiana University) EMIC COLLISIONS: INNOVATION V. EXPECTATION AT THE THANKSGIVING FEAST. Derived from a litany of historical fictions, commercial myth-making, and media-influenced decorum, the annual menu for many American Thanksgiving feasts is a carefully scripted performance-fixed in time and space and expectations with enormous resistance to innovation. I draw from Charles Camp’s ideas about the cook’s repertoire; Elliott Oring’s notions of foods as identity markers; Brett Williams’ and Susan Kalcik’s ideas that social motivation and construction are intimately tied to food events; and Linda Brown’s and Kay Mussell’s argument for "modes of preparation" as essential to group and individual identity. (3-4)

RUSHING, Rebecca (Utah State University) DOIN’ 3 TO 5: UNCOVERING SPRAYSCRIPTS. Graffiti writers as a group emerge from performance. Their shared sense of aesthetics and place unite them and give them a set of conceptions about themselves and others that is expressed through their art. Writers belong to "krews"/"crews" that operate similarly to gangs; there is and initiation stage, there are secret names, and there are customary practices. My current research consists of documenting tag graffiti in a largely rural area. In this presentation, I will note some of the distinctive markings that are emerging in the Cache Valley, Utah area and comment on issues of functions and meaning. (1-9)

SACKS, Maurie (Montclair State College) VERNACULAR SYNAGOGUES OF THE CATSKILLS: "SCHLOCK SHULS" OR HISTORIC GEMS? Using a linguistic metaphor I examine how synagogues, built by Eastern European immigrants in the Catskills during the first half of the twentieth century, have metamorphosed from "shlock shuls" into historic gems. Through my intervention as a folklorist, the synagogues’ grammatical improprieties became embedded in a new discourse of historical preservation. Transforming local perceptions of the synagogues imbued them with added value in the standard idiom of cultural tourism. (2-10)

SALTZMAN, Rachelle H. (Iowa Arts Council) FROM FIELD TO PRAXIS. Although there are obvious differences in philosophy, job descriptions, and responsibilities for folklorists operating in the public sector and the academy, there are also many instances in which the interests of the two "extremes" collide. Some examples of such collisions in Iowa include the fieldwork for and presentations at the 1996 Festival of Iowa Folklife, the Iowa folklife education guide, and subsequent folklife educators institutes. In each case, interested academics have collaborated with folklorists at the state level to produce quality products for public consumption. So far, however, these collaborations have not affected praxis in the academy as much as they have the public sector. (7-1)

SAMPER, David A. (University of Pennsylvania) THE MANAMBA: KENYA’S CULTURE BROKERS. Manambas are young men who work on Kenya’s privately owned buses, mini-buses and vans collectively called Matatus. In the globalization of culture literature, there is a figure that stands out as one who negotiates and mediates between the local and the global. Popular musicians and tourist guides are two common types of individuals that are often bilingual as well as bi-cultural. This paper will first explore the idea of a culture broker, then describe the Manamba’s role in mediating local and global, rural and urban, and order and disorder in Nairobi. (8-4)

SANCHEZ, Victoria E. (Pennsylvania State University) GOING HOME: OHIO TRADITIONAL POWWOWS AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN DIASPORA. With no reservations or tribal headquarters in the Ohio area, powwows there especially are a focal point for expressing and negotiating Indianness in an off-reservation urban and suburban community encompassing a tremendous range of ethnic identification. Area powwows are intricately tied to the sense of American Indian community for the more ethnically aware, and are frequently a starting point for those beginning to recover their ethnicity. Additionally, Indians from Central Ohio regularly travel to powwows throughout North America, maintaining ties with their families, nations, and other American Indian groups. (1-6)

SANCHEZ-CARRETERO, Cristina (University of Pennsylvania) CONTROLLING SPACE: METAPHORS OF LEISURE AND POWER. In Aracava, a district in the suburbs of Madrid, a community of Dominican women migrants started to arrive in the early 1990s. Most of these women came from the same town in the Dominican Republic, Vicente Noble. They form a cheap labor force working as maids in middle-class Spanish homes. Each Thursday and Sunday, these women meet at the Plaza de la Corona Boreal to share their free time. In this paper, I explore the space changes in the square and the different mechanisms used by the institutions, Dominican women, and other Aravacan population to redistribute this space. (2-6)

SAWIN, Patricia (University of North Carolina) "THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH...." DYNAMICS OF TRANSITION IN THE GRAND MARAIS MARDI GRAS. Contemporary conceptions of "tradition" as processual and ideological privilege meaning and de-emphasize the practical, contextual, processual dimensions of participation. I analyze the 1999 run of a Cajun country Mardi Gras, reinstated after a year’s lapse. For Mardi Gras to continue, core members had to shift up the ladder of responsibility, uneasily adapt to new roles, and endure the retired captain’s criticism. The ritual play went on according to script, but personal negotiations alongside the play provided the most poignant dramas. (7-3)

SCHACKER-MILL, Jennifer (Indiana University) FIELDWORK FICTIONS AND FAIRY GODMOTHERS: VOICING EXPERIMENTS IN 19TH-CENTURY FOLKTALE COLLECTIONS. Folktale collections mediate between communicative events in the past (storytelling, collecting, transcribing, publishing) and those anticipated in the future (reading, analyzing, retelling). At a formative moment development of folkloristic discourse, 19th-century writers experimented with voicing in ways that underscore the mediational status of such folklore books–by (re)positioning translator/editors as direct mediators between oral and written forms of storytelling and by drawing creative inspiration from the characters and motifs of fairy tales to discuss their transmission in print. (3-3)

SCHEER, Virginia (Western Kentucky University) DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH: THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS AND THE NEW YORK CITY WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM. The regulation of the New York City watershed in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York presents rural residents with questions about cultural representation and conservation, local environmental ethics and aesthetics. What do grass roots organizers say, and how do they negotiate cultural as well as economic survival versus the huge metropolis to their south? (2-1)

SCHRAGER, Sam (The Evergreen State College) ON MORAL ENTANGLEMENTS OF CRAFT: THE CASE OF TRIAL LAWYERS. American trial lawyers treat jury trials as artful performances: as storytelling combat in which victory most likely goes to the man or woman with superior control of craft. To make the performance convincing, they must shade, even deceive about, the truth. Although lawyers thus occupy a morally ambiguous role in the judicial system, their craft outlook has a corollary with powerful moral implications: the more evenly matched the lawyers, the better the chances for justice. What responsibilities do lawyers have to persons seeking justice from disadvantaged positions? Do other craft traditions carry traditions carry moral instruction about the common good? (5-10)

SCHREMPP, Gregory (Indiana University) THE CONSCIOUS SELF AS COGNITIVE MESOCOSM. The study of myth and religion reveals a long-standing anxiety over our tendency to construct the cosmos in our own image. In recent cognitive sciences debates one finds a theme of anxiety over the modeling of cognitive sub-functions on the image of the everyday conscious self–the so-called "homunculist fallacy". These two anxieties can profitably be considered as structural reciprocals–as deriving from a common impetus which ramifies systematically and differentially when deployed in the two sphere, the mythico-religious macrocosm and cognitive microcosm. (3-9)

SELBERG, Torunn (University of Bergen-Norway) THROUGH MIRACLES FROM DOUBT TO TRUST. Miracles are my concern in this paper, and I will discuss three narratives about miraculous experiences. The three narratives discussed here are part of different religious contexts, which on one hand give the miraculous events diverse meanings, on the other hand important points in the stories are also connected. Narratives about religious experiences are significant within popular religion. Popular ideas, beliefs and world views do not have authoritative status in written documents. Narratives about personal religious experiences therefore play an important role in creating, recreating and change these ideas. (8-5)

SHERMAN, Josepha (Independent Folklorist) OGRES AND KLINGONS AND ORCS, OH MY: THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE OGRE IN POPULAR CULTURE. This paper looks at the development of a folk culture complete with clan structure, customs and "folksongs", based on Star Trek’s Klingons, showing the evolution of an image from bloodthirsty, brutal ogre to honorable, if outsider, role model. The paper also examines the shifting role of ogre-as-monster alien, from male BEM (bug-eyed monster) to female demon in Alien and Species, reflecting societal changes and sexual mores, and the emergence in popular culture of the ogre-as-ally and protector of children. (6-2)

SHOUPE, Catherine A. (Saint Mary’s College) TURN, TWIRL, OR BELGIAN BIRL: STYLE AND GENDER IN SCOTTISH TRADITIONAL DANCE. Although part of the worldwide enthusiasm for Celtic music and dance, Scottish dance also displays regional variants that reflect local concerns: rural or urban localities, social class distinctions, gender, and age cohorts. Dancers’ own discussions of perceived differences between groups are most often couched in stylistic terms. Common to each group’s self-definition is the notion that there is a proper style which they themselves display and others corrupt. This paper explores aesthetic judgments among dancers in Scotland. (7-9)

SHUKLA, Pravina (American Museum of Natural History) THE MAHATMA’S SAMBA: GANDHI IN THE AFRO-CARNIVAL OF SALVADOR, BRAZIL. In the syncretized carnival of Bahia, the pre-Lenten celebration combines not only Catholic and Yoruba aspects, but also Hindu, as it is perceived to symbolize Mahatma Gandhi to Afro-Brazilians. An all-male group, Filhos de Gandhy, parades in a highly stereotyped vision of "India," in an elaborate costume complete with terry cloth turbans with plastic gems, strands of beads, and sweet perfume. While aspiring to honor the Yoruba god Oxalá (and his avatar Gandhi), the members portray themselves rather as an embodiment of the Yoruba female goddess Oxum, whose powers of seduction these men seem to emulate. (8-4)

SHULDINER, David (Connecticut State Department of Social Services) DOROTHY DAY AND SPANISH CAMP: CLASS AND CULTURE AS ISSUES IN HISTORIC PRESERVATION. As a folklorist studying labor and social movements, I participated, at a historical preservation conference in NYC, in an "interpretive planning" session about local sites associated with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. I will report on my visit to Spanish Camp in Staten Island, where Day lived in the 1970s, and other sites in Manhattan, and discuss the ways in which these sites, representing a working class social movement and subculture, might be defended as historical landmarks. (6-8)

SHUTIKA, Debra Lattanzi (University of Pennsylvania) CREATING A Place of their Own: Strategies of Incorporation Among Undocumented Farmworkers. Recent scholarship addressing the experiences of labor migrants from Mexico often takes for granted the idea that post-migration communities and their associated support networks are a natural outcome of migration. But for the undocumented, the process of creating locality, and the types of expressive practices that support it, are often at odds with the citizen community. This essay examines how Mexican labor migrants utilize body techniques to construct locality when the expectation of the citizen population is that they remain underground and invisible. (2-6)

SIMMONS, Victoria (University of California-Los Angeles) SEPARATE BUT ALIKE: BLACK AND WHITE SOUTHERNERS OUTSIDE THE SOUTH. That Southern culture is creole culture is demonstrated clearly in the historical experiences of Southerners outside the South. The same behavior was separately defined on the basis of skin color, and the same pressures to assimilate to non-Southern culture were expressed in different ways. White Southerners tended to assimilate completely, while black Southerners maintained their culture and redefined it as uniquely African-American. A creole view of Southern culture would be unitary rather than dichotomous, and help de-politicize a sense of regional heritage for Southerners and ex-southerners alike. (7-2)

SIMS, Martha (Ohio State University) BETWEEN AUTHENTICITY AND TRADITION: WHERE DOES THE "FOLK ARTIST" REALLY STAND? R.A. Miller and Howard Finster are two "folk artists" who have been accepted, in some ways, into mainstream culture, acknowledged not only by art critics and art historians but also by major publishing companies and popular musicians. My presentation uses these two artists to examine the issue of marketability. In addition to this, I will also discuss both "tradition" and "authenticity" as they relate to these artists and public and folklorists’ perceptions of their work. (3-8)

SINGER, Molly (International City/County Management Association) THE DEFINITION AND FUNCTION OF COMMUNITY IN URBAN REDEVELOPMENT. This paper will discuss how stakeholders in urban redevelopment process. The hitch is how various stakeholders define community. Some define community as other professionals involved in the redevelopment process (planners, lawyers, contractors, bank loan officers). Others see community as the population who lives and interacts with the physical environment. I will discuss how urban redevelopment specialists use and consult with groups who live or work near downtown sites which suffer from any number of economic or social problems including economic depression, land contamination and public health hazards. (2-1)

ŠMIIDCHENS, Guntis (University of Washington) "I AM A LIVONIAN": PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES AND NATIONAL ACTIVISM. For the Livonian and Latvian activist Dainis Stalts, songs and stories reveal personal experiences of national identity, and represent his nation to both insiders and outsiders. Narratives about Livonian folk healers or about resistance to Soviet forces during World War II all reflect the importance of fighting to maintain culture. Insiders are urged to join Stalts in experiences leading to national activism and outsiders are challenged to become insiders. The paper is based on fieldwork since 1990, including performances at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. (5-2)

SMITH, Paul (Memorial University of Newfoundland) THE CHAPBOOK MUMMERS’ PLAY: EXPLORING THE INTERFACE BETWEEN ORAL AND PRINT TRADITIONS. The relationships between seasonal performances of traditional plays in Britain and commercially printed chapbooks containing such texts pose complex questions which have been addressed through a series of case studies. The resulting taxonomic classifications provide information to aid in evaluating some of the partially formed hypotheses concerning the nature of the relationships between these chapbooks and the traditional plays. Here the problems associated with research of this type are explored, with reference to The Peace Egg–the largest group of chapbooks to be analyzed. (8-10)

SMITH, Stephanie (Smithsonian Institution) THE AESTHETICS OF ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE IN THE U.S. A relatively small but thriving community of enthusiasts of English country dance exists in the U.S., primarily in major cities. The paper will present an ethnographic overview of this community, analyzing the aesthetics of the participants–dancers, musicians, and leaders–with focus on local repertory, style, attitudes of dancers and leaders, and structure of local dance events. The study draws on interviews, attendance of English country dance events, comments made by subscribers of the English country dance listserv, and published sources. (7-9)

SOLOMON, Nancy (Long Island Traditions) WHAT IS THE TRUTH? PERSPECTIVES ON THE ENVIRONMENT ON LONG ISLAND’S EAST END. In 1997, I began a study on the historical and sociological development of commercial shellfishing for Long Island’s Peconic Estuary Program, culminating in a report submitted in spring 1998. I documented the experiences of clammers, oysterers, scallopers and other shellfish harvesters during 1945-1985. Many of the scientific and environmental community complained that the baymen’s observations lacked validity. In the panel, I will discuss different groups’ reactions to the report and suggest how working with government entities and environmentalists can benefit and hinder traditional activities. (2-1)

SOMMERS, Laurie Kay (South Georgia Folklife Project, Valdosta State University) OUT OF THE OKEFENOKEE: THE EMERGENCE OF A SACRED HARP TRADITION. Over the past century, a distinctive style of southeast Georgia sacred harp developed within the confines of conservative Primitive Baptist belief, Celtic ethnicity, and the geographic isolation of the great swamp. Incredibly, most singers of Hoboken (Georgia)-style sacred harp were unaware of other sacred harp traditions until 1994, when song leaders David and Clarke Lee deliberately opened up their dying singing tradition in an effort to save it. This paper analyzes the still unfolding processes of musical change and exchange between this local music community and the national sacred harp community. (1-7)

SPINKS, Michael (Indiana State University) MEMORIES OF OUR CHILDHOOD: CHILDREN’S FOLKLORE, AUDIENCE-RESPONSE THEORY, AND HORROR FILMS. The mass media affects and effects "traditional" folklore in various fashions, and similarly, the mass media intentionally uses folklore to achieve the desired results from audiences. Interesting, one often studied aspect of folklore–children’s folklore–is highly prevalent within horror films. This work explores how children’s folklore affects and effects an audience of a horror film based on various cinematic audience-response theories in order to explore more successfully how the mass media "applies" folklore. (8-11)

STANLEY, David (Westminster College) JOHN LOMAX REVISITED: POEM/SONG/TEXT. John A. Lomax is generally considered a romantic nationalist who did extensive fieldwork among cowboys and southern African Americans, then issued popular collections of folksong, occasionally combining or altering verses to "improve" the text. Less often recognized is Lomax’s reliance on printed texts, his shaping of poems into songs without music, and his frequent editing of published poetry to suit his own purposes. An examination of his editorial processes suggests a temperament closer to the Victorian that the populist. (7-11)

STEWART, Polly (Salisbury State University) TEXT AND COMMUNITY. With discussion leader Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and co-moderator Margaret Yocom, I will help facilitate a conversation about Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s 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)

STITT, J. Michael (University of Nevada-Las Vegas) DRAGONS AND GENDER. In both Asiatic and European traditions, the dragon is a masculine principle that controls the feminine principle of fecundity. But the nature of that control varies with different culture groups and with the gender of the narrator. In the process of negotiating gender roles and relationships, the dragon is portrayed variously as the benevolent dispenser of the feminine principle or its hoarder and subjugator; the redresser of wrong to the feminine, or her tender (asexual) lover. (7-7)

STONE, Janferie (University of California-Berkeley) THE BLACK MAN TALE: DEALING WITH THE SUPER-SEXED MALE WHO THREATENS MAYA SOCIETY. Black Man is a figure appearing in tales from the ethnographic corpus of southern Mexico and cross-genre archival material (games, riddles, and tales) from Guatemala in numbers with little relation to the percentage of black humans in the population. The image seems to function symbolically to mediate the status of "human as socialized" versus "human as animal" in native categories. Infantile conditioning and gendered labor suggest reasons for the creation of a super-sexed creature who lives in a cave, hoards goods, and by kidnaping a woman and breeding, threatens society as the Maya would have it. (7-5)

STRAUSS, Sarah (University of Wyoming) MIRCEA ELIADE, SWAMI SIVANANDA, AND THE TRANSNATIONAL PRODUCTION OF YOGA. The history of academic research on a given topic and that of the topic itself are often linked. Here, I explore the relationship between the Romanian/American Mircea Eliade, author of the seminal scholarly treatment of yoga, and the Indian Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, from whom he learned to practice yoga. Eliade’s personal experiences gave him a particular understanding of yoga which was partly linked to Sivananda’s specific "brand" of neo-Hinduism. His book has in turn heavily influenced both scholarship and popular opinion of what constitutes yoga in the public imagination. (6-9)

STUEMPFLE, Stephen (Historical Museum of Southern Florida) CONSTRUCTING STEEL PAN CAREERS IN MIAMI. With the rapid growth of Miami’s Trinidadian population over the past twenty years, an increasing number of steel pan musicians have settled in the area. The definition of these musicians as members of a geographically based ethnic music community, however, is problematic. Many play in a wide variety of local musical settings (e.g., carnival, tourist venues, civic events); some maintain networks of contacts that generate performance opportunities elsewhere in the United States and overseas. Flexibility and mobility are as essential to successful steel pan careers as notions of traditionality and roots. (1-7)

SUBRAMANIAN, Shobana (Ohio State University) TRANSCENDENTAL COMMODITIES: PERFORMANCE OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN A MULTI-CULTURAL FESTIVAL. Taking the case of Tibetan Monks’ performance in a multi-cultural festival, I argue that performances reflect a tension between the ethos of pluralism and distinctiveness of traditions, and in explicitly political ways, reflecting the processes of marketplaces. The performance-display, music and dance and verbal framing, play with the idea of the festival as a liminal space where all kinds of politics may be represented but also reconstitute it as a space where global politics emerge through performance, where the festival holds possibilities for political transformation. (5-10)

SULLIVAN, C. W. III (Southern Carolina University) GENDER ROLES IN THE MABINOGI. Recent critics of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi have focused their discussion of gender roles as gender roles primarily on the fourth Branch and have made little attempt to discuss what seem to be the more conventional first three branches. However, if the Mabinogi’s structure is, like Beowulf’s, interlaced, then it is reasonable to expect that the gender shift of the fourth Branch is prepared for in various ways in the previous branches. This paper examines that possibility. (1-11)

SWETERLITSCH, Dick (University of Vermont) THE SACRED GROUND OF DYSERT. Dysert, Co. Donegal, Ireland has become the site in which sacred traditions associated with the land are being challenged by a compelling need for tourist money. I seek to explore the growing tensions and explain ways in which local boosters are trying to preserve a sacred tradition with its rituals and yet encourage tourist visitations to the site. (1-1)

SZEGO, C. K. (Memorial University of Newfoundland) INTERCULTURAL MUSICAL RECEPTION: CROSSING THE LINGUISTIC DIVIDE. Traditionally, Hawaiian music-making was centered on the voice and text-driven. Political and cultural shifts in the 19th century, however, reshaped styles of vocalization and eroded skills for maintaining text-driven genres; American educational policy, for example, imposed after the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, provided instruction in English only. Singing in Hawaiian persisted nonetheless. This paper examines the meaning-making strategies of contemporary unilingual English-speaking Native Hawaiians who perform and apprehend Hawaiian language song, often with little understanding of the worlds they sing and hear. (9-5)