JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE最新文献

{"title":"Vivian Williams (1938–2023) and Phil Williams (1936–2017)","authors":"Jens Lund","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.542.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.542.09","url":null,"abstract":"For almost 60 years, Vivian and Phil Williams of Seattle, Washington, distinguished themselves as musicians, authors, scholars, music promoters, festival organizers, publishers, music editors, teachers, historians, field-recordists, and recorded music producers. Each of these skills is significant itself, but all are part of a continuum that bears appreciation in entirety.Because Vivian and Phil did so much important work as a team, as well as the fact that no obituary for Phil appeared in the Journal of American Folklore after his 2017 passing, it seems appropriate to memorialize the two of them together.Beginning as early as 1960, Vivian and Phil Williams have had a profound effect on maintaining Anglo-American and other regional fiddle and string band traditions in the Pacific Northwest. That year, the Williamses began their lifelong project of recording thousands of hours of performances by traditional musicians, many of them older, in both the Pacific and the Intermountain Northwest. These efforts have preserved performance styles generally unknown outside these regions.Vivian Tomlinson Williams was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1938, to a Jewish mother who had fled Germany ahead of the Nazi takeover and a Methodist-raised father from Minnesota. Phil Williams was born in Olympia, Washington, to a Jewish mother from Helena, Montana, and a Kentucky-born father raised near Missoula, Montana.Vivian traced her interest in traditional music to her mother's love of Roma violin and her father's harmonica playing. As a child, she took violin lessons, and one of her teachers gave her a book of fiddle tunes. She also remembered hearing Bill Monroe's “Footprints in the Snow” on a jukebox at Mount Rainier National Park, where her father had a summer job.Phil ascribed his interest in music to his father who taught him finger-style guitar. His father had played music professionally in a swing band aboard an ocean liner on the Seattle–Japan route before becoming an attorney and practicing law in Olympia, Washington. Growing up, Phil was known as a “science-fair wiz” with his various electronics projects, learning skills that likely led to his eventual mastery of audio-engineering skills.Phil and Vivian met each other as part of a nascent folk revival scene during their undergraduate years at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in the mid1950s. Inspired by Pete Seeger's appearance on campus, a number of Reed students, including Phil and Vivian, took up the five-string banjo. After moving to Seattle, Vivian began to learn tunes from the old-time string-band repertoire. In Murphy Hicks Henry's 2013 book Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass, Vivian is quoted as having said she “took up fiddle in self-defense against the banjo.”In 1962, Vivian completed an MA in Anthropology with a specialty in ethnomusicology at University of Washington. Her thesis, an analysis of Skagit music, was based on her collaboration with Skagit/Swinomish elder Martin Sampson. Phil","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136203785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Roman Legends Brought to Life","authors":"Martin M. Winkler","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.542.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.542.13","url":null,"abstract":"The early history of ancient Rome is a fascinating mixture of fact and fiction. The Romans traced their legendary ancestry back to Troy, ultimately even to Mt. Olympus. The Trojan hero Aeneas, son of Venus and grandson of Jupiter, became the ancestor of the Romans; Romulus, another grandson of Jupiter, founded the city of Rome. In the 22 short chapters of his new book, Robert Garland retells a number of famous episodes in the Romans’ mythic-legendary story, ranging from the fall of Troy to the assassination of Julius Caesar. The book is a companion volume to Garland's Greek Mythology: Gods and Heroes Brought to Life (2020). Garland does not strictly distinguish between myth and legend. The ancient traditions about the past contain numerous and often irreconcilable variants, even contradictions, so Garland allows himself the freedom to include his own inventions. These will be immediately noticeable to readers who know the ancient sources.Garland's first chapter, “Aeneas’ Escape from Troy,” is representative of all that follows in both content and style and will serve as the basis of this review. The chapter's principal source is Virgil's account of the fall of Troy in Book 2 of the Aeneid. Here, it is stripped of Virgil's literary elegance, to say nothing of its tragic dignity. Garland's opening sets the entire book's faux-breezy tone: “Let's not make any bones about it. Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, were losers” (p. 1). The Greek winners, by contrast, were apparently even smarter than their ancient reputation made them out to be: they vote on Odysseus’ trick with the gigantic Wooden Horse with “all those in favour say[ing] aye” (p. 2), and they build it overnight because “next morning” (p. 3) there it is. Garland's additions are meant to infuse the story with You are there! vividness, but frequently add only vulgarity. For instance, redundant language describes Sinon, the Greek who hoodwinks the Trojans to move the Horse into Troy: “He produced a large gob of spit and spat on the ground” (p. 4).By contrast, Garland's condensations of source materials also cause distortions, as when two monstrous sea serpents kill the Trojan priest Laocoön, along with his two sons, almost immediately after Laocoön has warned his people against the Horse. Apparently it is of no significance to Garland that, in Virgil, Laocoön is at that time conducting a sacrifice. And the way Garland has Aeneas, antiquity's most famous model of a dutiful son, address his father is a travesty of everything in Virgil's portrayal of pius Aeneas.A level of carelessness about minor details is already in evidence in this chapter as well. Sinon calls Minerva “silver-footed” (p. 4), a Homeric epithet that characterizes only Achilles’ mother, the sea goddess Thetis. And so it goes, for another 195 pages. Hence caveat lector: much in the book is inauthentic.Although intended to bring Roman legends to life, Garland's colloquialisms—early ones like ‘‘Duh” or “Big problemo” (pp. 4, 6) are ra","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136203787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America","authors":"Wanda G. Addison","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.542.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.542.11","url":null,"abstract":"The title calls forth something promising, and the author does not disappoint. Anyone familiar with the image of the welfare queen might understand the hold it has on the US attitude regarding public assistance for individuals and families in need. For those unfamiliar with the legend, the author presents not only an insightful examination of its widespread deployment to create political and social advantages, but also an engaging and thoughtful case about the detriment the welfare queen legend has on those receiving public aid as well as those needing it but refusing to accept it because of the stigma attached. The book reminds readers of the humanity of all while acknowledging the ongoing political benefit of the welfare queen legend when wielded by politicians. This continued use for political gain perpetuates the negative image of those on public assistance and simultaneously creates a barrier for those who need the assistance but fear being stereotyped if they seek help. Although Americans might like to imagine they will never be on public assistance, in fact, many are only a few paychecks away from needing these vital yet maligned programs, which are designed to provide a bridge over hard times. Any course on storytelling, oral history, or in disciplines such as Black studies or sociology should assign sections from this book.The welfare queen is represented as an African American woman who has become a monster in the American consciousness, and the welfare queen legend has its roots in deep-seated anti-poor sentiment. She is trotted out regularly at private social events and in more public settings to disparage those who are economically poor and on public assistance. When the legend of the welfare queen is activated, all historical baggage of a lazy moocher who is gaming the government system is brought to bear in order to tap into societal angst and resentment and target two specific groups: Black women and the poor. The image is so powerful that mere reference to anyone in the “inner city” or “urban areas” who may not want to work immediately conjures up the stereotype without ever uttering the phrase.In Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America, Tom Mould examines the stronghold of the welfare queen as a social and political stereotype whose beginnings precede Ronald Reagan's unsuccessful 1976 presidential bid. However, during this run for the presidency, Ronald Reagan's exaggeration of the story of a woman who was found to have defrauded the public aid system takes root as the well-known, unnamed figure. Reagan and mainstream media successfully craft her existence as the welfare queen, and she becomes further codified as an object in welfare reform legislation enacted under former President Bill Clinton's presidency several years after Reagan leaves office. The legend of the welfare queen lives on 40 years later, as Mould deftly explores, and is wielded by many for various reasons.Mould presents numerous points of ","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136203797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa's “Great(er) Spain”: The Snares of <i>Querencia</i> and the Pitfalls of Cultural Nationalism and Fundamentalist <i>Hispanismo</i>","authors":"Enrique R. Lamadrid","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.542.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.542.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa (1880–1958) studied Hispanic folklore in the American Southwest, Spain, and Spanish America. His research foregrounds Spanish language, verbal arts, and culture of the people of greater New Mexico (New Mexico and southern Colorado). Three decades into an energetic career of fieldwork, research, and teaching, Espinosa allied himself with Spanish Nationalism, largely motivated by his religious beliefs. His foundational work in linguistics and dialectology endures, but his contributions to US folklore studies have been largely erased. Critics condemn his insistent identification with Peninsular Spanish rather than Mexican cultural roots and his conservative politics. A more likely motivation for his quest for Spanishness is the Historic Geographic theory and methodology he clung to in the search for origins and dissemination of folktales. Peeling back layers of outdated theory and politics reveals decades of solid fieldwork and documentation, still relevant today. The American Folklore Society (AFS) Notable Folklorists of Color 2019 exhibition and 2022 website have rekindled interest in the career of Espinosa, a past president of AFS.","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"136 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136206373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project by Sam Risak (review)","authors":"Sam Risak","doi":"10.36837/chapman.000138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000138","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"136 1","pages":"355 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42227154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Repairing Tradition: Vernacular Knowledge, Cognitive Spaces, and Economies of Work in an Agricultural Repair Shop","authors":"John Laudun","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.541.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.541.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Making and remaking have long been intertwined. While there is a rich history of artisanal, craft, and industrial fabrication in folklore studies and history, histories and studies of repair have only recently begun to emerge as part of a larger effort to re-think the nature of creativity (and thus also of tradition). Dotting urban and rural landscapes around the world, repair shops occupy physical and mental spaces situated between maintaining things as they are and creating something entirely new. That is, repair is not just a matter of re-creating an object; rather, it is the product of an engagement with not only the object itself but also the environment in which it is found. Repair draws to it both simple fixes that re-integrate an artifact as well as more complex forms of disintegration and integration of seemingly disparate parts that lead to novel combinations and utility. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation of a repair shop in the Louisiana prairies, the current study seeks to understand repair as a complex socio-technical system, a negotiation of the world as it is with the world as it should be.","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"15 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135855894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Folklorists Do: Professional Possibilities in Folklore Studies","authors":"Vyta Pivo","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.541.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.541.18","url":null,"abstract":"We are well aware that the humanities are in crisis. From disappearing tenure lines to low employment rates, students pursuing graduate education must now entertain alternative career possibilities (e.g., alt-ac), in the shape of public humanities, digital humanities, cultural resource management, consulting, and other adjacent professional tracks. Timothy Lloyd's edited collection What Folklorists Do: Professional Possibilities in Folklore Studies responds to this reality, showing how the field of folklore specifically participates in and contributes to broader conversations about social injustice, environment, science, place, culture, management, and other pressing topics.The book is a collection of short essays, written in a conversational and accessible language. It is organized into four thematic sections: research and teaching; leading and managing; communicating and curating; and advocating and partnering. Even though largely limited to the United States and acknowledging the limitations of this perspective, the book and its 76 contributors provide insight into a broad array of professional contexts that benefit from folkloric skill sets, from education (university, community college, and secondary school) to museums and archives, administration, and the public sphere. The mere collection of such a large number of contributions is a significant accomplishment in itself and a testament to the goals and ethics of folklore studies.Broadly, the authors argue that folklore, as a discipline rooted in active listening, has much to offer our tumultuous world. From social and environmental crises to science and policy, the skills that folklore promotes remain crucial to our survival in a post-pandemic world. The core reason is folklore's reliance upon fieldwork: professional folklorists do not merely extract information; they also develop relationships with communities, including friendship, trust and rapport, honesty about bias, and empathy. As Danille Christensen poignantly articulates, folklorists aim to “host and amplify rather than to bridge and translate” (p. 26). And this is the crucial distinction that separates folklore from other humanities fields that employ interviewing techniques. Folklorists, in other words, are honest and intentionally reflective about who they are, where they come from, and how they change as a result of their research encounters.As a newcomer to the field—I am an architectural historian who became exposed to folklore through the Archie Green Fellowship at the Library of Congress—What Folklorists Do brings some fresh questions and perspectives. The first section on research and teaching considers the ethics of fieldwork, pushing against the popular assumption that scholarship must always be objective and absent of any bias. Instead, the contributors to this volume argue that honest interpersonal relationships are the bread and butter of good folklore. Tom Mould, for example, offers a friendship model that does not g","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135855912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project","authors":"Sam Risak","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.541.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.541.22","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135855915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Folklore Research on Chinese Opera and Festival","authors":"Shaoming Duan","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.541.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.541.11","url":null,"abstract":"context. The big categories of folklore include scholarship on verbal folklore, customary folklore, and material culture. Folklore genres— covering topics such as proverbs, myth, and ostension—is the book’s longest section. Women’s folklore, unilinear evolution, and the devolutionary premise are among the special topics covered in the final section. Folklore 101 is certainly useful in the right contexts. When taken on their own, the chapters are helpful, basic introductions. For example, students who wish to learn the history of folklore scholarship on superstition would do well to read Jorgensen’s chapter “Superstition & Folk Belief.” As its name suggests, Folklore 101 is perhaps best suited for introductory folklore classes. The short chapters serve as useful and accessible overviews of folklore concepts. For example, Jorgensen’s four-page chapter on legends would introduce new students to the core ideas. If this is the book’s true purpose, it achieves its goal. Because the book as a whole isn’t bound by a single thesis, it works well on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Although Folklore 101’s target audience is primarily students and academics interested in folklore studies, Jorgensen dislikes university gatekeeping and encourages non-academics not only to be aware of folklore theory, but also to stay up-to-date with the field. By providing a comprehensive overview of the field, Jorgensen has compiled in a single volume the main concepts of folklore that will benefit both academic and non-academic readers.","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135855897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inviting Interruptions: Wonder Tales in the 21st Century","authors":"Victoria Harkavy","doi":"10.5406/15351882.136.541.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.541.14","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46681,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135855913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}