Folklore, Oral Tradition and Culture Studies |

Congratulations!

The Folklore program has been busy this spring! Congratulations to Dr. Lisa Higgins, Director of the Missouri Folk Arts Program, on her successful dissertation defense. Rock on, Dr. Higgins! Congratulations to LuAnne Roth on passing her comprehensive exams! Congratulations to Claire Schmidt on successfully defending her MA thesis!

Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate

For the first time in the history of the University of Missouri, on March 14, 2008, folklorists sat at the table with geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, rural sociologists, Religious Studies and Communication faculty and graduate students, to talk about the possibility of working together to develop a new interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate at MU in Ethnographic Studies. This Graduate Certificate would provide a true "certificate" of training in ethnographic methods across the disciplines. The group talked about other Graduate Certificate Programs and how they worked to prove graduate training in specific fields and how that can help on the job market. Other certificate programs often offer several "tracks" that students can choose in order to receive the training in field studies, qualitative research methodologies, ethnographic research and writing, and case study research. Once this Certificate in Ethnographic Studies is in place, MU will be the only Folklore program in the US to offer such a focused, interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Ethnographic Studies. Stay tuned to this website for more information.

Call for Proposals: Ozark Studies Symposium

The Ozarks Studies Committee of Missouri State University-West Plains seeks proposals for contributions to its second annual symposium. The symposium will take place September 18-20, 2008, in West Plains, Missouri. The theme will be "Nature and Culture: Land and People in the Ozarks." Scholars, professionals, and students representing any discipline or field are invited to propose presentations addressing relationships between the natural environment and human activity within the Ozarks.

 

Proposals should be approximately 250 to 300 words in length and include a summary of the content of the proposed presentation and any audio-visual or other technological requirements. They should also include the submitter’s name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), and complete contact information. Proposals should be sent to Leigh Adams, Assistant Professor of English, 128 Garfield Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775, or leighadams@missouristate.edu. Deadline: July 1.

AFS PROPOSAL DEADLINE MARCH 31

October 22-26, 2008, Louisville, Kentucky. “The Commons and the Commonwealth” will be the theme for the American Folklore Society’s 120th annual meeting. The deadline for proposals for the conference program is March 31, 2008. The Annual Meeting Committee especially encourages panels, forums, poster sessions and other activities that focus on the idea of the commons, and highlight the connection between cultural and natural environments, or between local and global culture. Submissions can encompass a wide variety of topics, from community aesthetics and local understandings of environment, to electronic forms of community, international copyright laws or global climate change. More...

 

NEW: FYI, from Katie Peebles: "On behalf of the Medieval Folklore section of the American Folklore Society, I’m happy to invite all interested scholars to propose papers for two panels for the Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky (October 22–26, 2008) 1) Robin Hood for President Outlaws appear in many cultures, periods, and genres. What forms do Robin Hood and his cousins take, and what purposes do they serve? What is the appeal of change—even violent disruption—or the promise of an alternative social order? Since this year’s meeting theme is “The Commons and the Commonwealth,” we are particularly interested in papers considering any negotiation of cultural, economic, or political power. Papers that deal with media representations are welcome. 2) Open Topics: What interests you about the Middle Ages or subsequent uses of medieval topics?Please send a BOTH the short abstract (75–100 words) AND the long abstract (300–500 words) for your 15-20-minute paper to me at kpeebles@indiana.edu by March 27, 2008. I will also need to submit your institutional affiliation (or status as an independent scholar), presentation title, and audio-visual equipment needs to AFS. Include an e-mail address or a phone number where I can reach you before March 31. If your proposal is accepted, you will need to complete and submit the AFS online registration form for a presenter in an organized panel at www.afsnet.org by March 31, 2008. Katie Peebles, Convener, AFS Medieval Folklore Section: kpeebles@indiana.edu. Departments of Folklore and English, Indiana University"

Translation/Transformation: Student Folklore Conference:

An exciting collaboration between The Ohio State University Folklore Student Association and the Indiana University Folklore & Ethnomusicology Student Associations. The conference aims to create a space for graduate and undergraduate students to share their research within their respective fields as it relates to the study of academic and vernacular interpretation of everyday life. Please see the IU FSA website for details:
www.indiana.edu/~folksa. This conference will be hosted at The Ohio State University May 17-18. The Plenary speaker is Dr. Alan Govenor, a scholar, filmmaker, and
playwright whose work particularly focuses on African-American music.

New Graduate Course: The Politics of Folk Humor

This course will explore the dynamics of humor and issues in the study of humor. We will consider humor in a diverse range of cultural and ethnic contexts, time periods, and performance genres, as well as from multiple theoretical perspectives. Of central concern will be relationships between social and political forces, the forms and functions of humor, and the ways in which performances of humor are coded with layers of meaning. Texts for the seminar will include analytical works as well as collections of jokes and other humorous narratives; for example, Keith Basso’s Portraits of the Whiteman: Linguistic Play and Cultural Symbols Among the Western Apache; Gershon Legman’s Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor; Victoria Bricker’s Ritual Humor in Highland Chiapas; and Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men. Taught by Sw. Anand Prahlad. See the Courses page for more information!

The English Department is delighted to announce that Sheri-Marie Harrison has accepted our offer to join our faculty as an assistant professor! Harrison will be teaching in the African Diaspora Studies field. Her upcoming courses at Mizzou include: English 3429 & Black Studies 3429: Consuming the Carribean, and English 4409/7409 & Black Studies 4409/7409: Carribean Literature.

Thanks again to the search committee: April Langley, Anand Prahlad, Noah Heringman, Andy Hoberek, and Bri Kneisley!

 

Congratulations to Todd Richardson (PhD student in Folklore and American Lit) on the acceptance of his article "The Triumph of Mind over Nebraska" for publication in the journal Weber: The Contemporary West.

Congratulations also to Willow Mullins (PhD candidate in Folklore), whose first book, "Felt" is due out in November from Berg Publishers. Mullins' book is part of Berg's "Textiles that Changed the World" series. Congratulations also on Mullins' nomination by the English Department for the Graduate Student Association's Superior Graduate Achievement Award!

Mizzou Folklore at AFS 2007: Quebec City

University of Missouri Activity at the 2007 American Folklore Society Annual Meeting.
October 17th-21st 2007, Quebec City, Quebec. We had a great time! Check out the pictures on our Facebook site.

Folklore Forum: Folklore of East Asia Now Available

Folklore Forum is pleased to announce that we have both a new website, www.folkloreforum.net, and a new issue with which to christen it—Folklore of East Asia. More...

The editors of Transformations seek articles (5,000 – 10,000 words) and media reviews (books, film, video, performance, art, music, etc. – 3,000 to 5,000 words) that explore the body in a variety of pedagogical contexts and disciplinary perspectives—literature, science, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, folklore, history, psychology, sociology, art, photography, geography, religion, cultural studies, working-class studies, ethnic studies, disability studies, age studies, narrative medicine and others. Send a hard copy in MLA format (6th ed.): Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige Giunta, Editors, Transformations, New Jersey City University, Hepburn Hall Room 309, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07305 OR email submissions and inquiries to: transformations@njcu.edu. Email submissions should be sent as attachments in MS Word or Rich Text format. Extended deadline: 1 June, 2008. Submission guidelines.

LuAnne Roth’s article, "Beyond Communitas: Cinematic Food Events and the Negotiation of Power, Belonging, and Exclusion," has been reprinted in the new book Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture (Sharon Sherman and Mikel Koven, eds), published by the Utah State University Press in 2007. Roth is currently a PhD student in Folklore at the University of Missouri.

Congratulations to Dr. Elaine Lawless; her new book, "Troubling Violence: An Auto/Ethnographic Performance Project," co-written with Dr. Heather Carver of the MU Theater Department, will be availabe Fall 2008 from the University of Mississippi Press!