Esther Clinton (1971–2022)

Esther Clinton passed away unexpectedly on July 16, 2022, in Bowling Green, Ohio—a devastating loss for those of us who knew her a little or a lot. She profoundly inspired countless young folklorists and ethnomusicologists to choose folklore and/or ethnomusicology as their chosen discipline in academia as well as in the public sector. She was first and foremost a proud folklorist who was devoted to folkloristics even before she started her MA/PhD program at Indiana University, having invented an undergraduate folklore program for herself at Hampshire College. An admirer of her work as a scholar, educator, and caring mentor, I am most proud to have called her my friend.I met Esther in 1994 when we both started the graduate program in folklore at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana (IU)—the very place where she was born, and where her father Nye Clinton began his graduate studies in chemistry. Her mother Millie Clinton told me that Esther fell in love with storytelling when very young and could sit for hours listening to her mother tell story after story. Once she learned to read, Esther became an insatiable reader of fiction, especially fantasy. The family left Bloomington soon after her birth, yet it made sense that Esther would make her way back to Bloomington as an adult to start her journey as a folklorist.Much of her early career was devoted to Old English and Old Norse language and literature, myth studies, Arthurian legends, and everything and anything J. R. R. Tolkien. Esther consumed stories and storytelling. Her enthusiasm and intellectually generous spirit drew established scholars, young students, and fans-on-the-streets to engage in entertaining and enlightening conversations that problematized heroes’ and antiheroes’ deeds, the undermining of women's roles in traditional narratives, or the underappreciated tricksters like Loki (a particular favorite). Esther always invited and encouraged everyone—scholar to novice—to join in having a good chat regardless of their status. That was her gift: to make people feel important and knowledgeable, and to recognize that their ideas and their presence mattered.After graduating with a doctorate in folklore and a minor in Old English and German Philology from IU, Esther juggled adjunct teaching positions at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, Bergen County Community College, Hudson County Community College, West Virginia State University, and Marshall University, until landing a long-term instructorship in the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Bowling Green, Ohio, where she further mastered her pedagogical skills. She taught students about the world of heroes and tricksters; folktales, legends, and myths; popular literature; belief and world religions; and graduate courses in advanced theory.Teachers who have fallen in love with the craft—as Esther did—know that research and writing are part and parcel of pedagogical practice. Her publications ranged from teaching-oriented pieces such as her encyclopedic entry on the trickster in Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook (2005) to a brilliant article “Proverbial Play: Proverbs in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings” (Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, 2014), which was not just a work for folklorists but also colleagues in literature and culture studies. It is a user-friendly piece that entices undergraduates and graduate students to understand folkloristics in literature and can serve as a gateway essay to bring newcomers into the field.In addition, her love for heavy metal music moved her to become one of the leaders in the development of metal studies. For Esther, it was an easy transition to merge her narrative interests with her love for hard rock and the metal scene. In fact, there is a metal folk group who listen to a subgenre referred to as “Tolkien metal”—a substyle of heavy metal music inspired by Tolkien's stories, with a style ranging from ambient electronica to the raucousness of black metal. She published important articles about metal genres in collaboration with her husband, life/work partner, and the love-of-her-life, Jeremy Wallach. Together with Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez-Araújo, they edited the much-anticipated book about metal scenes in the Global South Defiant Sounds: Heavy Metal Music in the Global South, to be released in 2023—a work that promises to be transformative for both ethnomusicology and popular music studies.As much as I admired Esther for her contributions to folklore and ethnomusicological scholarship, she will be remembered most ardently by her colleagues and students for her understanding, compassion, and love. She was extremely generous with her time for her students even though she was never a full-time instructor at BGSU. She gave her students “full-time” whether they were one-time students or advisees. Her students describe her as caring about them as human beings and not just students working toward a degree. Before engaging in a conversation about academic work, she always wanted to know, first, how her students were doing, and what they had been up to outside of academics.Esther never gave up on any student. Those who were struggling were never met by a frustrated advisor. For example, her former students Katelen Brown and Wonseok Lee told me that she helped them reroute their missteps, supported them, and continued to guide them until they felt sure of themselves once again. She gave her time and knowledge easily and helped students develop their “humble” opinions into well-conceived intellectual assertions. Esther went out of her way to make sure that her students did not feel alone, and she often shared details about her own issues in academia, which many of her students found comforting. She was by no means an easy teacher. Esther had an aptitude to critique the hell out of your work without destroying your soul. She knew how to motivate by being kind and using her own struggles as an academic to demonstrate that no one is perfect. And importantly, Esther demonstrated what it meant to be a strong woman in academia.On December 17, Esther would have celebrated her fifty-first birthday. She left us too soon. I miss Esther's smile, her warm, infectious giggles, and her ability to make people feel safe and cared for. She will be remembered for being a dedicated teacher, a perspicacious scholar, and a loving friend.