Volume 34
Fall-Winter
2008 |
 |
Urban Legends: A Collection of
International Tall Tales and Terrors, edited by Gillian Bennett and Paul
Smith. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 2007. 343 pages, appendix, indexes,
$85.00 cloth.
Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith, editors of
the Perspectives on Contemporary Legend
series and subsequent works that have significantly
influenced legend scholarship, present
a splendid range of legend texts in this entertaining,
well-organized volume. Unlike Jan H.
Brunvand’s alphabetically arranged Encyclopedia
of Urban Legends (2002), this book has nine
sections: “City Life,” “Horror,” “Accidents,
Fate, and Chance,” “The Body and Disease,”
“Animals,” “Sex and Nudity,” “Merchandise,”
“Murder, Death, and Burial,” and “The Supernatural.”
Each section includes source material
that demonstrates the legend’s dissemination
and adaptability to social conditions.
The editors’ introduction explains that legends
“have been recently told and are clothed
in modern dress,” but in many cases have a
long lineage. The “Blood Libel” legend, for
example, originated in the Middle Ages. In
contrast to folktales, which are sometimes
known as fairy tales, legends do not feature
“fabulous beasts, enchanted forests, witches
and magicians, ghosts and fairies, set in a fantasy
world” (xvi). Featuring unusual content
in an everyday setting, legends may inspire
belief or partial belief, but it is usually difficult
to determine whether they are true or false.
Such determinations seem unimportant, as
“stories are valuable and exciting regardless
of their truth value” (xx).
Bennett and Smith provide a short history
of legend studies; while this history could have
been somewhat more thorough, it covers the
field’s milestones effectively. Noting that folklorists
have done the most assiduous legend
research, the editors list other fields in which
scholars have pursued legend studies, including
anthropology, business, communications,
English language and literature, history, and
parapsychology. Wisely, the editors do not
emphasize legend theory; the nine sections
contain just the right amount of contextual
information and interpretation, as well as
suggestions for further reading.
Section one, “City Life,” presents a number
of legends that have circulated widely, both in
Europe and in the United States. “Alligators
in the Sewers,” for example, has amused and
frightened Americans and Europeans since
the early 1980s. Articles from Paris newspapers
show how seriously French citizens took
this legend in the 1980s and 1990s; films and
literary works have been shaped by its variants
(3). Other legends discussed in this section
include “The March of the Sewer Rats,” “The
Mutilated Shopper,” “The Grateful Terrorist,”
“Roaming Gnomes,” and “The Severed
Fingers.”
Section two, “Horror,” covers some of the
most hair-raising stories told by preadolescents
and adolescents, including “The Boyfriend’s
Death,” “The Hook,” and “The Roommate’s
Death.” “Little Alf ’s Stamp Collection,” a
wartime horror legend told by adults, first
appeared in England in 1917 (68). Some of
the titles in this section differ from the ones
most familiar to American storytellers; “The
Doggie-Lick,” for example, more commonly
bears the title “Humans Can Lick, Too” in the
United States.
One of the most interesting parts of the
book is section four, “The Body and Disease,”
which reflects Bennett’s expertise in that area.
The editors go into considerable depth on
the subject of AIDS aggressors, with stories
about kisses, bites, sputum, mirrors, caskets,
and needles. They also closely examine legends
about stolen body parts, including baby
parts, eyes, and kidneys. One of my favorite
body legends, “The Tapeworm Diet,” is well
represented, with variants from France, England,
and the United States.
Another section that presents intriguing
variants of popular legends is “The Supernatural,”
which includes “The Devil at the
Disco,” “The Ghost in Search of Help for a
Dying Man,” “Mary Whales, I Believe in You,”
and “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” Since “The
Vanishing Hitchhiker” is one of the oldest
and best documented urban legends, it is good
to see that the editors chose to include six
examples of its variant forms, including “The
Coat on the Grave,” “Jesus on the Thru’way,”
and “The Double Prophecy.” Ghostlore
aficionados like me might hope to see even
more ghost legends, but the book has eight
other sections, so the selection of texts must
have some limits.
A helpful appendix provides a list of urban
legends in film and literature; there is also a list
of online resources and suggested readings.
Since the book includes separate indexes for
urban legend titles, urban legends on film, and
urban legends in literature, it is easy to find
whatever information one needs.
Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith have produced
an outstanding sourcebook for legend
scholars and general readers. Their carefully
arranged selection of legend texts reminds us
how consistent legend patterns can be, even
though each story has its own content and
context. As they aptly observe, “The world
around us is altering all the time, but fear and
laughter will always be with us, and will lead us
to continue to swap our stories of the weird,
the wonderful, the absurd, and the terrifying”
(xx).
—Libby Tucker, Binghamton University
Not Just Child’s Play: Emerging
Tradition and the Lost Boys of
Sudan
by Felicia R. McMahon. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 2007. 228
pages, introduction, photographs, appendices,
notes, glossary, bibliography, index,
$50.00 cloth.
During the 1990s, civil war in southern Sudan
forced a group of boys to walk hundreds
of miles in search of better living conditions. Refugee workers named them “Lost Boys”
after the parentless boys of Neverland in J.
M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. In this remarkable book,
Felicia McMahon (Voices’ acquisitions editor)
documents the communally danced songs of
DiDinga young men who eventually settled
in Syracuse, New York. She persuasively argues
that these songs “constitute a strategy
by which the young men proudly position
themselves not as victims of war but as preservers
of DiDinga culture and as harbingers
of social change” (3). Her book contributes
substantially to scholarship on diaspora and
performance; it also offers an intriguing narrative
of ethnographic discovery.
One of this book’s many strengths is the
vividness of McMahon’s own story. Explaining
that her first meeting with DiDinga youths
was “one of those proverbial life coincidences
rich with profound consequences” (3), she
traces the development of her work with the
Lost Boys through description and excerpts
of recorded conversations. These excerpts
eloquently demonstrate how the ethnographer
interacted with and learned from her informants.
For example, when she pointed to
a photo and asked, “Is this DiDinga dance?”
one of the young men replied, “No [laughing],
. . . they are from tribe of Dinka” (84).
The explanation that follows involves two
young men’s clarification of DiDinga traditions
through words, gestures, and laughter:
an engaging interaction that helps the reader
understand subtle cultural differences.
The author’s interdisciplinary approach includes
linguistics, drama, and play scholarship,
as well as African studies and folkloristics. As
one of the authors and editors of Children’s
Folklore: A Source Book (1995), she applied
her expertise in children’s folklore to a broad
range of cultural traditions. Here she examines
DiDinga children’s games, which “do not
reflect a separate children’s culture” because
they imitate adults’ songs, dances, and other
activities (119). She finds that the Lost Boys’
recontextualized performances accurately
represent DiDinga children’s games; they also
express important aspects of the displaced
young men’s identity and pride as tradition
bearers.
McMahon suggests that both recontextualization
and kinesthetic imagination help
to define the Lost Boys’ diasporic identity.
Performances of dances learned during childhood
in Sudan convey “authentic embodiments
of the young men’s childhood as a hybrid
identity of what it [means] to be a young
DiDinga male in America” (141). Application
of Richard Schechner’s performance model
shows that the DiDinga nyakorot (formal
community dance of celebration) goes from
warm-up (lilia), to performance, to cooldown
(also called lilia), and finally to an aftermath,
which ranges from community comments
after the performance to “critical responses,
archives, and memories” (134). The first
nyakorot performed in the United States took
place on July 21, 2002, in a church parking lot
in Auburn, New York. It was videotaped with
two cameras. McMahon “did not realize the
extent to which these videotapes would affect
the collective memory and critical response
of this diasporic community” (128). Both
the audience and viewers of the videotapes
were profoundly affected by the young men’s
performance.
Audience members who are enjoying a performance
usually do not know much about
the process that precedes the public presentation.
McMahon explains that recontextualizing
traditions through public performance
“places the folklorist in the problematic role
of cultural mediator” (142). After inviting
DiDinga and Dinka youths to perform together,
she found that it was difficult for the
two groups to cooperate. Her explication of
the conflict resulting from individual, ethnic,
and national identity issues, as well as the
conflict’s resolution, offers valuable insight
to others who work with diverse groups of
refugees.
Another important contribution is the
book’s inclusion of many DiDinga song texts,
translated by the singers themselves. Some
songs emphasize guidelines for behavior,
while others focus more on wit, politics, or
other areas of interest. Cattle-herding “bullsongs”
sung by young men during a nyakorot
can function as love songs. While most of the
song texts in the book come from young men,
a few come from young DiDinga women,
the “Lost Girls” about whom little has been
written. The author’s analysis of the songs is
highly insightful and interesting.
Not Just Child’s Play provides a model for
the study of recontextualized performance
by refugee groups. It also helps the reader
understand the resilience and strength of the
youths whom successfully adapted to life in
the United States after their epic journey from
war-torn Sudan. Proceeds from this book go
to the Lost Boys chapter in Syracuse and the
DiDinga of Saint Vincent de Paul Church.
Having seen performances by the Lost Boys
in 2005 and 2007, I have been inspired by
their spirit. McMahon’s book celebrates their
achievements and paves the way for future
studies of refugees’ preservation of cultural
traditions.
—Libby Tucker, Binghamton University
The Story is True: The Art and
Meaning of Telling Stories, by Bruce
Jackson. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 2007. 256 pages, index, $29.95 cloth.
The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of
Telling Stories is at once both a thoughtful
examination of story and storytelling and
a presentation of folklorist Bruce Jackson’s
own personal narrative. It is a brilliant mobilization
of storycraft to illuminate aspects
of the storyteller’s art and the nature of
story itself. Bruce Jackson is Samuel P. Capen
Professor of American Culture at the State
University of New York at Buffalo. He is a
prolific writer, photographer, filmmaker, and
public intellectual who has studied folklore
and narrative for half a century. The questions
addressed in this book are not new to
Jackson, but in The Story is True, he addresses
them masterfully.
The stories in this book are populated
mainly by the author, his family, and their
friends. Various concepts are illustrated by
Jackson’s own stories about other people
telling stories. Some of these people are
household names who have been the author’s
associates: Bill Kunstler, Warren Bennis,
Chuck Schumer, Peter Fonda. Some are
household names about whom stories have
been told, such as O. J. Simpson. Others are
masters of story in print: Homer, Faulkner,
Shelley, Hammett. The central character in
this book is always Bruce Jackson, and the
reader quickly gets to know him pretty well.
The book is presented in three parts. The
first deals with personal stories—the stories
people tell to one another—and nearly all of
the examples presented are stories told by
people close to the author. Here the often
complex characteristics of story and storytelling
are illustrated by well-chosen examples
richly described.
The second part deals with public stories,
examining several key stories that “took life
in the public sphere” and how they continued
in the interpersonal. Here the O. J. Simpson murder trial is followed as a public story that
moved into the author’s home. The legend
of Bob Dylan going electric at the 1965
Newport Folk Festival is reexamined from
the author’s “in the wings” perspective as
director of that festival. Jackson weaves a
tale of his detective work that involved listening
to the original tapes of the incident
to ascertain whether or not, as legend holds,
the booing audience members were booing
Dylan. As it turns out, the story Jackson has
told since 1965 is proven true.
A powerful chapter, by itself worth the
price of admission, is titled “Words to Kill
By.” Here Jackson reviews some of the ways
words and stories have been used to sanitize
and sanction killings in war, capital punishment,
and Nazi genocide. The concluding
part of the book begins as a long story about
a con man who created a story so believable
and attractive that he conned the author. It
finishes with a thread that runs through The
Story is True from beginning to end: no story
exists out there by itself. Every story takes
its life from the teller and the listener.
The Story is True is a delight to read. Bruce
Jackson has written an enjoyable and entertaining
book that is grounded in solid
theory and mature observation. Students of
narrative will find much insight in the stories
told here by this master storyteller. For those
who choose to read deeper, an expanded
understanding of humanity’s most intimate
workings is in store.
—Daniel Franklin Ward, Cultural Resources Council
Handmade Tales: Stories to Make
and Take, by Dianne de Las Casas. Westport,
Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.
112 pages, resources, index, $30.00 paper.
Educators and librarians are constantly
looking for new and creative ways to inspire
and entice students. Handmade Tales: Stories to
Make and Take will certainly serve as a great
resource. While educators will not find specific
curriculum references, as the book is not
based on any individual state’s curriculum,
the examples in the book can be used as
teaching tools in a number of subjects.
The author, Dianne de Las Casas, a
professed lover of storytelling and making
things by hand, divides the book into six
parts: “String Stories,” “Draw and Tell,”
“Cut and Tell,” “Paper Tales (Fold and Tell,
Scroll Book, and Other Paper Tales),” “Hand
Stories,” and “Other Handy Tales (Handkerchiefs,
Napkins, Towels, and Other Props).”
In her introduction, she states that the stories
“range from very simple to very complex.
There are stories to share with preschoolers
and elementary children” (xi).
Simpler stories such as “The Pesky Skeeter”
or “Fox Chases Bunny” can assist in
demonstrating literary elements, such as
character identification and story organization.
More detailed stories, such as a liberal
adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s
“The Emperor’s New Clothes,” can be utilized
to discuss elements of character identification,
story organization, and story line or
plot. These stories may also be manipulated
to examine performance elements of storytelling
and role playing. Allowing students to
act out portions of the story would create
discussion of performance elements.
While the book is most beneficial to educators
working with preschoolers through
early elementary students, stories such as
“The Boy Who Drew Cats” with origins in
Japan, “The Girl Who Used Her Wits” with
origins in China, and “The Frog and the Ox:
A Balloon Tale based on an Aesop Fable”
may serve as stepping-stones into a larger
discussion of identifying folktales, legends,
and myths. Of course, these stories would
need to be supplemented with additional
information that would allow students to
understand them within their cultural contexts.
Using the stories in this manner would
gear them more toward elementary or middle
school students.
These stories can also be tied to fields
outside of literary arts and the humanities.
Storytelling is often used in the classroom
setting to assist students with understanding
math and science. In fact, math and
science materials that integrate storytelling
can be found on the CARTS (Cultural Arts
Resources for Teachers and Students) web
site (www.carts.org). One example is “Figures,
Facts, and Fables: Tales in Math and
Science,” by Barbara Lipke. While Handmade
Stories is not specifically written for math and
science educators, connections could easily
be made between the hands-on examples in
this book and the local curriculum.
The book does not provide specific
curriculum materials for any fields, in fact,
and teachers will need to determine how
to incorporate the book. In an educational
culture where teachers have little spare time
and the arts and humanities are struggling to
keep their footing, teachers may be reluctant
to use resources that do not have curriculum
guidelines already predetermined for
individual states. Teachers who are willing
to set aside time to review and utilize this
book, however, will not be disappointed
with the results they see in their classrooms.
The stories in this book really do offer
something for everyone. As Dianne de Las
Casas remarks, “Even older students enjoy
handmade tales. I love the magical moment
when a simple piece of paper, string, or cloth
is transformed, and kids respond with, ‘Awesome!’”
(xi).
—Amanda Fickey, Lexington, Kentucky
Greenwood Encyclopedia of
Folktales and Fairy Tales, edited
by Donald Haase. Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, 2008. Three volumes:
1,240 pages, list of contributors, introduction,
illustrations, bibliography and resources,
general index, $299.95 cloth.
Encyclopedias are designed to do two
things: to suggest the breadth of relevant
topics on a subject and to educate readers
on the particulars of those topics. Too often,
however, readers expect an encyclopedia to
contain all knowledge on its subject matter.
The first two goals are achievable, but the
third is a chimera. “Encyclopedic” is not
synonymous with “omniscient.” Those of
us who edit encyclopedias have an additional
challenge: to bring together multiple (and
occasionally contradictory) perspectives in
such a way that they make a coherent whole.
I face these challenges as the editor of an
encyclopedia of gay folklife, a two-volume
set with approximately 260 articles.
As a fellow encyclopedia editor, I am nothing
short of astonished at the fine job Donald
Haase and his companions have done
with the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales
and Fairy Tales. With more than six hundred
entries and a global perspective on folktales
and fairy tales, this three-volume set reflects
the current state of folklore studies as it
grows progressively more multicultural and
inclusive. I find it interesting, however, that
the introduction reads as if the three-volume
set were dedicated exclusively to fairy tales.
Why, then, does its title include folktales?
The explanation is given in the “Fairy Tale”
article, written by Donald Haase himself. The
article is an exhaustive exploration of fairy
tale scholarship, different interpretations of
what is or is not a fairy tale, and the lines that
people construct in order to classify a story
as a folktale, fairy tale, or legend. Needless to
say, this is contested territory. Explorations of
this ilk are normally tedious, but Haase manages
to inject humor into the dry academese
that burdens such discussions. His article is
so convincing, in fact, that I would have no
problem with labeling the entire collection
simply an encyclopedia of fairy tales.
Then again, I was raised in a household
where my father would regularly read to us
from folklorist Joseph Jacobs’s English Fairy
Tales (1890), which contains a mix of folk
tales, legends, fables, and fairy tales. We as
folklorists must constantly monitor our Aristotelian
mania for taxonomy to ensure we do
not impose rigid and immutable distinctions
on our folk and their lore. I congratulate
Haase et al for outlining the borders between
genres, while simultaneously recognizing the
permeability of those borders.
A perusal of the entries reflects inclusion
of as much of the human family as possible,
with special attention given to ethnicity, geography,
language, and gender, and a decent
nod to sexuality. Since, as Haase states in
the introduction, not every fairy tale can be
included, the encyclopedia has to be both
selective and representative. This tension can
never be resolved, but it can be reduced, and
Haase succeeds admirably in doing so.
One outstanding article that strikes a nice
balance is “Fairy, Fairies.” It is concise and
informative—I did not know before reading
the article that fairies were typically feminine
and intrinsically linked to glamour, a term for
shape-shifting powers. As a queer scholar,
I find this tidbit amusing, considering the
premium that many effeminate gay men
(also known as fairies) place on glamour. The
author also gives references to fairies outside
of the western European model, such as the
Japanese willow-tree fairy and the tokoloshes
of South Africa.
Some differences in scholarship within
the encyclopedia are left unresolved. For
example, Aesop is said to be from Thrace in
the “Aesop” article, but called an African in
the “African Tales” article. Suffice it to say
that the differing points of origin reveal an
unresolved item in folklore studies. Other
areas could afford to be more fully explored,
especially those concerning Africa and the
LGBTQ community. Despite Haase’s efforts,
the encyclopedia tilts towards the Eurocentric
and heteronormative. The “Witch” article
might have mentioned, for example, the
role witches play in Mali’s Sundiata epic, and
the transformation by the witch Mombi of
feminine/female Ozma into masculine/male
Tip and then back again in Frank Baum’s The
Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). But the limited
information on African and queer themes in
folk and fairy tales reflects the need for greater
awareness of these areas within folklore studies,
more than lack of inclusiveness by the
editor.
I recommend The Greenwood Encyclopedia of
Folktales and Fairy Tales, both as a trustworthy
academic resource and a good browse.
—Mickey Weems, Columbus State Community College
Arab Folklore: A Handbook, by
Dwight F. Reynolds. Greenwood Folklore
Handbooks. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 2007. 258 pages, illustrations,
glossary, bibliography, web resources, index,
$55.00 cloth.
Contemporary politics have made abundantly
clear the importance of understanding
the cultures of the Arab countries. Although
the field of folklore contains numerous excellent
ethnographies that explore individual
aspects of Arab folk culture, it lacks a single
cross-country, cross-genre overview. This
lack can be explained by the difficulty of the
task: the Arab League contains over twenty
countries, and each country further contains
multiple ethnic groups and regional folk
cultures. Fortunately, Dwight F. Reynolds has
undertaken the difficult task of synthesizing
the various cultures into a single volume, Arab
Folklore: A Handbook. He makes no pretense
at comprehensiveness, instead selecting works
“to serve not only as illustrations of a particular
genre of Arab folklore, but also as demonstrations
of some of the main themes that lie
at the heart of modern folklore studies” (xi).
The result is a solid introductory guide to the
folk culture of the Arab world that also serves
as an introductory text about the history and
methods of folklore research.
Arab Folklore is divided into five chapters.
The first two chapters provide the introductory
material required to understand the discussion
of specific genres. Chapter One provides
an overview of the Arab world that includes
an explanation of how Arabs are self-defined,
a short regional history, and a guide to Arabic.
Chapter Two discusses general folklore
definitions and classifications. Both chapters
are short for the breadth of information
provided, and Reynolds does an excellent job
of avoiding either oversimplifying concepts
or overwhelming the reader. Chapters Four
and Five provide supplementary information
to enhance the reader’s understanding of the
genres discussed. Chapter Four discusses the
evolution of folklore theories in relation to
the study of Arab folklore, and Chapter Five
illustrates some of the difficulties inherent to
folklore research through an exploration of
various contexts for Arab oral genres. Again,
these chapters manage to be clear and insightful,
despite their brevity.
The heart of the book, however, is the
lengthy third chapter, which contains detailed
examples of Arab folk culture. Reynolds subdivides
folk culture into verbal arts, musical
arts, material arts, and customs and traditions.
Each category contains several examples
drawn from well-known ethnographies or
Reynolds’s own research. His selections illustrate
the rich diversity of traditions within the
region and dramatize the difficulty established
in the first chapter of defining exactly who
is an Arab. Readers will encounter slices of
folk culture from each of the major regional
groupings, read about urban and rural artistic
expressions, and learn about Muslim, Christian,
and Jewish traditions. Indeed, it is a bit
mysterious why Reynolds chose to combine
the categories into a single chapter, when each
could have stood alone as its own chapter.
Despite the book’s general excellence,
it does have two minor drawbacks. First,
it fails to represent all regions of the Arab
world equally. Egypt is overrepresented; the
Gulf region is underrepresented; and several
countries, like Mauritania, Somalia, and
Libya, do not appear at all. Second, dance is
almost completely omitted. The diversity of
dance genres within the Arab world could
have merited dance being its own category.
Instead, dance is only discussed as part of the
exploration of two music and dance traditions
in Oman and briefly mentioned in the context
of Sufi whirling. Neither of these issues
is unique to Reynolds; instead they reflect
general trends in folklore scholarship on the
Arab world.
The small shortcomings should not overshadow
Reynolds’s larger success. “It is my
hope,” Reynolds writes, “that this volume will
provide readers with a glimpse of the diversity
and richness of Arab folk culture, a world
that seems remarkably distant from western
media portrayals of Arabs” (xii). He has
certainly accomplished his goal. Arab Folklore
will serve as an excellent foundational text
for any undergraduate class on folk culture
in the Arab world, as well as an interesting,
informative read for anyone unfamiliar with
folk culture of the region.
—Miriam Robinson Gould,
University of Texas at Austin
The Meaning of Folklore: The
Analytical Essays of Alan Dundes, edited by Simon J. Bronner. Logan: Utah State
University Press, 2007. 580 pages, preface,
introduction, $49.95 cloth.
The Meaning of Folklore: The Analytical Essays
of Alan Dundes reprints twenty essays
representing a lifetime of work on analytical
methods by the late folklorist Alan Dundes.
Billed as a posthumous “sequel” to Dundes’
seminal 1980 collection, Interpreting Folklore,
this volume is both important and valuable,
as many of the articles are reprinted from
far-flung and obscure original sources.
Editor Simon Bronner’s preface and introduction
are informative, although somewhat
lengthy and repetitive. Bronner uses the book
as a platform to examine what he calls the
“Dundesian approach” as a unified method of
folkloristic inquiry, providing a useful synopsis
for any folklore scholar. Bronner also profiles
Alan Dundes’s life and career, paying special
attention to Dundes’s “mythological” and
“religious” status in the folklore community.
He perhaps takes this idea a little far, painting
Dundes as something of a cult leader and his
followers as fanatic zealots. He give Dundes’s
biography in the form of a hero narrative,
describing his oration as “prophesies” and
“preaching from the pulpit” and referring
to his students as “followers” or “believers”
(he is careful to point out he is not one). Yet,
it is undeniable that Dundes’s mystique and
“extra-human” influence has only continued
to grow after his death. Perhaps he might now
indeed be considered the “patron saint” of
rigorous analytical folkloristics.
The selected essays are grouped into three
sections: “Structure and Analysis,” “World
View and Identity,” and “Symbol and Mind.”
Such grouping is a difficult proposition, as
nearly everything written by Dundes has
some aspects of all three theoretical approaches.
Regardless, the collection provides
a solid sampling of Dundes’s extensive body
of work. Articles range from his earliest
works on structural analysis of genres, to
his psychoanalytical studies of latrinalia and
jokes, to his analysis of folklorists themselves,
as well as representative samples of his numerous
other areas of study. These essays
are gems of folkloristic analysis and theory
spanning a lifetime, on a wide range of genres
and cultures. Postscripts written by Dundes,
sometimes decades after the original article,
have been thoughtfully attached to some of
the older essays, describing in the scholar’s
own words the reaction to the original piece,
as well as later theories and developments.
In his brief introduction to each article,
Bronner discusses Dundes’s theoretical methods
or interpretations, but with considerable
qualification (“or so the theory goes,” “according
to this theory,” and so on). This—as
well as the editor’s curious tendency to put
words such as “meaning,” “modern,” and
“interpret” in quotation marks—betrays
an underlying skepticism of the so-called
Dundesian approach. In fact, most of the
introductions to the essays seem overly critical,
attempting to disprove or replace the analysis
or methodology with the editor’s own, rather
than elucidating or explaining Dundes’s own
concepts and theories. Bronner notably managed
to reference his own work—often more
than once—in seventeen of the twenty-two
sections he contributed to this volume.
These concerns aside, a single volume that
brings together these important selections
from Dundes’s long career is invaluable. The
Meaning of Folklore is a remarkable look into
the life and work of one of folkloristics’ most
important and prolific scholars.
—Kelly Revak,
Lambda Archives of San Diego
Public Folklore, edited by Robert Baron
and Nick Spitzer. Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi, 2008. 370 pages, preface,
introduction, $25.00 paper.
Robert Baron and Nick Spitzer’s Public
Folklore has become a standard text for many
graduate programs that offer folklore concentrations,
and it has long been a useful resource
for those who work in public folklore. Editions
were published in 1992 and 1996 by the
Smithsonian Institute Press; the University
Press of Mississippi has now reprinted the
volume. The collection brings together sixteen
important essays that explain the history and
evolution of public folklore, explore methods
of practice in presenting folklore, and define
the work of public folklorists.
The 2008 edition features a new preface,
“Cultural Continuity and Community Creativity
in a New Century: Preface to the Third
Printing.” The preface places the essays in
the context of the current state of folklore,
concluding with a discussion of the decline of
folklore programs in the United States. Baron
and Spitzer also address intellectual property
and the ownership of folklore in a thorough
and scholarly manner.
The collection of essays includes several
notable pieces. The first section of the book,
“Reflections and Directions,” contains Roger
Abrahams’s “The Public, the Folklorist, and
the Public Folklorist,” which presents a valuable
overview of the beginnings of public
folklore and its importance to the field.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s “Mistaken
Dichotomies” urges folklorists to mend the
divide between applied and academic folklore;
this essay is essential for those new to the field
of folklore as it explores many long-standing
issues within folklore studies. Archie Green’s
“Public Folklore’s Name” traces the evolution
of the term “public folklore,” intertwining stories
of his work as an advocate for traditional
arts funding during the 1970s. Bess Lomax
Hawes’s contribution, “Happy Birthday, Dear
American Folklore Society: Reflections on the
Work and Mission of Folklorists,” reminds
folklorists that research, public presentation
and documentation, teaching and preservation,
and administration are all components
of successful fieldwork; this 1988 address to
the American Folklore Society concludes with
a to-do list for folklorists that remains relevant
today. Each of these essays is interesting and
entertaining, although new folklore students
may have to do a bit of research about the
cultural and historical contexts of these essays
so that they may fully grasp the issues
presented.
In the second section of the book, “Metaphors
and Methods of Practice,” eight essays
discuss the application of theory and explore
the presentation of cultures. Of particular
note in this section is Nick Spitzer’s article, “Cultural Conversation: Metaphors and
Methods of Practice,” which explores the idea
of cultural conservation, using the genre of
music to trace the impact of folklorists upon
traditional communities. Gerald L. Davis’s
“‘So Correct for the Photograph’: ‘Fixing’
the Ineffable, Ineluctable African American”
examines depictions of African Americans
and calls for folklorists to look beyond the
surface to find the deeper meaning of activities
documented and seen in communities.
Susan Roach’s and Dan Sheehy’s articles
provide specific examples of ways in which
public folklore activities change the lives of
artists. All of the section’s essays will be of
great use to those entering the field.
The final section, “Recovering a History
of Public Folklore,” includes four essays
examining the history of public folklore
and the ways in which public folklorists are
trained. A second essay by Abrahams, “The
Foundations of American Public Folklore,”
provides a historical overview of folklore
study in America, beginning with the work
Francis James Child, William Wells Newell,
and Franz Boas. Robert Cantwell’s “Feasts of
Unnaming: Folk Festivals and the Representation
of Folklife” explores the concept of the
folk festival, the difficulties of distinguishing
between traditional folk culture activities
and ones that are not, and the many cultural
negotiations that transpire in planning and
producing a festival or similar public event.
Robert Baron’s essay, “Postwar Public Folklore
and the Professionalization of Folklore
Studies,” focusing on the rise of professional
folklorists, shares what the author describes as
the “hidden chapter in the history of folklore
studies” (309). The section concludes with
Steve Siporin’s “Public Folklore: A Bibliographic
Introduction.” This essay provides
a useful set of bibliographic resources, but
they have not been updated since 1992, so
readers will need to refer to the preface’s
references and other works for more current
resources.
This collection remains an important and
useful text for public folklorists and those
who teach in folklore programs. Few other
sources can match the background provided
here on an array of issues with which public
folklorists continue to struggle and concern
themselves.
—Lisa Abney, Louisiana Folklife Center
|
|
This feature appeared in Voices Vol. 34, Fall-Winter 2008. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society today.
TO PURCHASE A BACK ISSUE of Voices, visit our online book store.
TO PURCHASE A SINGLE ARTICLE from Voices, use the form below:
Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore
PURCHASE A SINGLE ARTICLE
To order a single article, please enter volume number, issue (“fall-winter” or “spring-summer”), and title of the article you wish and click on an order button below to purchase through Paypal or with your credit card. We will send you a PDF of the article via e-mail upon receipt of your order.
ITEM #603
Single Article $3.00 | |
|
| Member Price $2.00 | |
|
|
|
