Fundraising
is about individuals and groups with
different resources collaborating around a
vision shared: a good and workable marriage,
like the simple tin cup I imagined picking
up in the forest. Funders are collaborators.
As Bob Dylan put it, “I’ll let you be in my
dreams, if I can be in yours.”
Folklorists
From the Editor
This issue of Voices offers readers a cornucopia of food for deep thoughts on New York. We experience the transcendent freedom of Vodou dancing in the city, survey the shape-shifting history of Rip van Winkle stories, and wend our way through the psychological landscape of a post-9/11 urban legend. We also encounter Afro-Colombian music in Queens and Native New York handcrafts.
From the Director
Folklorists are uniquely positioned to lend
an important voice to the debates around
immigration and immigration reform. As
globalization brings the world together, folklore
works to draw attention to that which is
local, individual, and expressive. Throughout
the next decade, it will be important for
folklorists to continue to draw attention
to the field of folklore through alliances
with disciplines and organizations outside
of folklore, thus providing a folkloristic
perspective on contemporary life.
Annual Conference Roundup
The New York Folklore Society decided
to blend these traditions at the 2010
conference with a new element: student
presenters. In collaboration with New
York University’s Latino studies and Latin
American studies programs, we invited
graduate students to present their work
on the theme of Latino Folk Culture
and Expressive Traditions on Saturday,
November 20, at NYU.
From the Editor
The Spring–Summer
2011 issue of Voices
brings readers another
tasty mix of story, ethnography,
and analysis
of New York traditions,
upstate and downstate.
We open with SUNY–Oneonta English
professor Jonathan Sadow’s “Bagels and
Genres,” an insightful and witty musing on
what—in critical theory, as in life—makes a bagel a bagel, from Vegas to Montreal to
New York.
From the Director
Folklorists can offer important insights on
a community as tourism site. Drawing upon
knowledge gained through ethnographic
fieldwork, folklorists are able to provide
interpretive frameworks for a better understanding
of a community’s traditions and
cultural arts and may have a broader vantage
point on a community’s cultural assets.
From the Director
In July 2012, the
New York Folklore
Society was asked to
help document the
second reunion of Camp Woodland
campers—a gathering
of people from
all over the US who
shared the childhood experience of once attending
a children’s camp which had existed
in Phoenicia, New York, from 1939–1962.
From the Editor
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has been the inspiration for my work in public sector folklife for some 30 years….Some 10 years later, in the mid nineties, AFC helped create my home base, the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library
NYFS News and Notes
News included New Staffing for VOICES, New York Folk Arts Roundtable, NYFS Coming to Your Community, and Community Cultural Documentation
Downstate
As folklorists and educators, we believe the qualitative experiences of individual students are at least as significant as the quantitative data. Working in classrooms with new immigrants, we often work with students who refuse to speak at school—they’re often called “selective mutes.” Arts education is a way to change those behaviors. In the arts, teaching artists like George [Zavala] use words and attach them to something the students are doing—when you say the word “red,” you paint with red. We often see kids start to speak very quickly.
In Memory of Carol Gregson (1925-2021)
The long, eventful,
and celebrated life of Carol Gregson has
come to a close. She died Friday morning,
November 12, 2021. Born December 2,
1925, she was 95 years old….She was known in the Adirondacks as
the “Mother of all Gregsons.” Actually,
Carol only had seven children: Kris, Eric,
Barry, Kent, Blair, Jill, and Lance (in that
order).
From the Director
As we all move more fully into the digital age, New York Folklore’s concern has been to provide our full catalog to as many people as possible. Our catalog is substantial, as it represents more than 75 years of consistent publishing, with content that spans every corner of New York State.
A Tribute to John Vlach
In 1981, I began my Master’s degree in Museum Studies at George Washington University (GWU). I took an introductory course in American Studies with Pete Mondale, who assigned a book that would change my life: Black Culture and Black Consciousness by Larry Levine. When I asked Mondale where I could read more books like this, he introduced me to John Vlach, the new folklorist that the department had just hired. John had just written Charleston Blacksmith about Phillip Simmons, an African American blacksmith in Charleston. I was immediately sold on this professor, since my brother was a blacksmith and I had worked at a museum on Black women’s history in Washington, DC (The Bethune Museum) prior to starting my Master’s degree. And, then I learned what folklorists do.
In Memory of John Michael Vlach
Early in his career, John was elected as a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, a group that recognizes the field’s leading scholars. His folklore scholarship alerted academics across the social sciences and humanities to the power of cultural expression in our lives. He was especially effective in the areas of art and architecture, helping scholars and the public appreciate the significance of America’s folklife. Many of his published studies continue to be required reading for university courses.
From the Director
With an expanded and competent staff, New York Folklore
has experienced increased activity within the
greater Capital Region, including the inauguration
of the Mohawk Hudson Folklife Festival in
Albany’s Washington Park. In addition, NYF is
experiencing a resurgence of activity in folk arts
education, much of which involves partnerships…