Center for Folklore Studies

Past Activities

• Calendar of Events 2005-2006 School Year
• 2006 Colonization and Narrative Migrations
• 2001 Ethnicity, Migration, and Heritage Seminar
• 2000 Convivencia
• 1999 Going Native Conference

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Past Events

FSA Conference, May 18, 2007 - Denney 311

For a number of years, the Center for Folklore Studies has hosted a spring undergraduate and graduate symposium which gives students of folklore an opportunity to read papers produced during the school year. Last year, the Folklore Students Association took over the responsibility for this event, holding not only the student symposiums but expanding the event into a two-day conference with alumni presenters and guests. This year's FSA Conference will be held on May 18, 2007, and promises to be an exciting event.

FSA Presents:
A Symposium of Folklore Graduate and Undergraduate Research

The 2^nd Annual Conference of The Ohio State University Folklore Student Association

Conference Program

Friday, May 18, 2007

9:00   Registration

9:30   Welcome

KIRSI HAENNINEN AND ANDY PALUCH, FSA Co-presidents

9:45 -11:15   Conformity and Group Experience

GREGORY WEBB, "Witnessing the 'Oppressed Church': My Night with InterVarsity"

YI-FAN PAI, "The Rebellious Good Wives in Manchu Folktale"

ANDY PALUCH, "Performance and the Personal Realization of Group Standards"

MICKEY WEEMS, "From Marching Soldiers to Dancing Queens"

Discussant: MARTHA SIMS, Alumna

11:15-11:30 Break

11:30-12:30 Keynote Address

Introduction: Tim Lloyd, Alumnus

EMERITUS PROFESSOR PATRICK MULLEN, "Alan Lomax's Journey to the Land Where the Blues Began"

12:30-1:30   Lunch

1:30
Patrick B. Mullen Graduate Student Paper Prize, OSU Center for Folklore Studies

1:45-3:15
Institutionalization of Vernacular Knowledge

JASON BUSH, "Scissors Dancing and the Intellectual Gaze"

SHEILA BOCK, "Categories of Cake: Framing the Diabetic Body in Social Spaces"

TAYLOR NELMS, "Imagining Misconduct, Imagining Morality: The Language of Plagiarism"

KIRSI HAENNINEN, "Constructing the Category of Magic in Early Finnish Folklore Studies"

Discussant: TBA

3:15-3:30   Break

3:30-5:00   Adaptations of Tradition

ELIZABETH DE SIMONE, "Folk Custom, Magic, and the Church in Russia"

ANN FERRELL, "Tobacco Farming in Kentucky: A Tradition of Change"

CLAY CAROON, "A Sense of Place: Vietnamese Foodways in Urban Central Ohio"

Discussant: DANIEL COLLINS, Associate Professor

5:00-5:30   Closing Comments and Paper Prizes

RAY CASHMAN, Assistant Professor

This conference is made possible by the generous support of The Student Organization Resource Center (SOURCE), the Center for Folklore Studies, and the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures.

Conference Organizers:
SHEILA BOCK
ELIZABETH DE SIMONE
ANN FERRELL
KIRSI HAENNINEN
YI-FAN PAI
ANDY PALUCH
special thanks to TAYLOR NELMS, design

The Center for Folklore Studies
invites you to join us for

A Conversation on Folklore and Sexuality Studies

with Joe Goodwin, Pauline Greenhill, and Polly Stewart

Friday, April 13
12-1:30
(Pizza will be provided.)
250 Dulles
230 W. 17th Ave.

The conversation provides a prelude to this year's Qualia Conference:
Chico/Chica: Expressions of Gender.

Joseph P. Goodwin, assistant director of the Career Center at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in folklore at Indiana University after completing his B.A. at the University of Alabama. He is author of More Man Than You'll Ever Be: Gay Folklore and Acculturation in Middle America (Indiana University Press, 1989), as well as numerous articles and encyclopedia entries on gay and lesbian culture in such publications as American Folklore: An Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia of Homosexuality; Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Music, Tales, and Art; The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage; the International Folklore Review; the Journal of Folklore Research; and Southern Folklore, as well as the online journal New Directions in Folklore. He is a former editor of Contemporary Legend, the journal of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research.

A founding member of the American Folklore Society's LGBT Section, which he served as convenor or co-convenor for several years, he has also served on the executive board and various committees of AFS; as president of the Indiana Oral History Roundtable; as president of the Indiana chapter of the National Association for Job Search Training; on the executive board of NAJST; and on the Assembly of the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers. For the last sixteen years, he has been a member of the advisory board of the Center for Middletown Studies, of which he is currently the secretary. He leads a quiet life with his nine-year-old greyhound mix Missy (full name: Miss Thing) and his six-year-old boxer mix Malone (Malone Ranger).

Pauline Greenhill is professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her work is published in the Journal of American Folklore, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and the Journal of Ritual Studies (among others) and she has articles forthcoming in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies (among others). Though eclectic in terms of topics, her studies address from feminist and queer perspectives aspects of traditional and popular culture in everyday life that implicate political resistance.

Polly Stewart graduated in history from the University of Utah and enrolled in the English graduate program at Oregon, where she specialized in Germanic philology and became a folklorist with the help of Barre Toelken, completing a literary folklore dissertation on oral legend style in 1975. She meanwhile found employment on the English faculty at Salisbury University in Maryland and was to remain there for her whole career-1973 to 2004. As a faculty member at a teaching university, she earned a modest publication record, devoting her energies to teaching and service. She had grown up thinking she was heterosexual and did not learn otherwise until well into her career at Salisbury. That was in 1979. A decade passed before she got the courage to come out at work, and it took the far greater courage of the students in the fledgling Gay and Lesbian Alliance, which she served as faculty advisor, to spur her to it. Almost until the end of her tenure, she was the only out faculty or staff member at Salisbury University. In the late 90s, on sabbatical, she conducted lesbian ethnographic research and presented AFS papers on two matters that baffled her-how one learns to be a gay or lesbian person without the tutelage of a folk group, and the complexities of butch-femme construction among middle-class lesbians of the late 90s. She lives in Salt Lake City, continuing her work as book-review editor for Western Folklore.

English/Folklore Alumni Lecture: Trudier Harris Wednesday, February 28, 2007

4:30 p.m. - Denney 311

Trudier Harris (PhD, Ohio State, 1973) is J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She is internationally known for distinguished and energetic scholarship in the field of African American literature and folklore studies. Among her eight single-authored books are Exorcising Blackness: Historical and Literary Lynching and Burning Rituals (1984), Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison (1991), and South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature (2002). She also co-edited The Oxford Companion to African American Literature (1997), Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (1998), and The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1998). Among her numerous awards for scholarship and teaching is the Ohio State College of Humanities' first annual Award of Distinction, presented in 1994.

Professor Harris joins us for the first Department of English Alumni Lecture, co-sponsored by the Center for Folklore Studies to highlight the long tradition of folklore studies within the department and the notable contribution of Patrick Mullen and his students (including John Roberts and Valerie Lee as well as Professor Harris) to the study of African American folklore and literature.

On February 23rd at 10:30 AM in Dulles 250 there will be a discussion of Harris' work, led by Assistant Professor of English Koritha Mitchell. For an advance copy of the readings, write to Kirsi Haenninen (haenninen.1@osu.edu).

Lecture: Diane Goldstein, Professor of Folklore and Professor of Community Health, Memorial University; Thursday, April 19, 2007

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. - Denney 311

"Appropriating Personal Voices and the Vernacular Politics of Genre: Racist and Counter-Racist Constructions of Katrina"

Personal narratives are seen increasingly both in the academy and in vernacular culture as indexes to multiple subjectivities and subjugated knowledges, as, in some sense, "realer" voices expressing political realities. The persuasiveness of the form makes it the ideal rhetorical tool for legendary messages. As a result, in the wake of the destruction caused to the Gulf Coast of the United States by hurricane Katrina and the resulting governmental failures, personal narrative and legend blended, creating widely distributed Internet personal accounts providing testimony to extraordinary events. Using a corpus of accounts circulated by e-mail as well as those posted on Internet archives, this paper will explore the content and contexts of Katrina "personal experience legends", focusing on stability and variation in the accounts and the political discursive role of the personal voice in calling attention to competing constructions of the disaster.

Diane Goldstein is Professor of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland and is cross-appointed to Memorial University's School of Medicine. She is co-author of Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore (with Sylvia Grider and Jeannie Banks Thomas, Utah State University Press 2007)) and author of Once Upon A Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception (Utah State University Press 2004), co-editor (with Cindy Patton and Heather Worth) of a special issue of Sexuality Research and Social Policy entitled "Reckless Vectors: The Infecting Other in HIV/AIDS Law" (2005) and editor of one of the earliest interdisciplinary anthologies on AIDS, entitled Talking AIDS: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ( ISER Books 1991). Diane has been extensively involved in health priority-setting and policy-making initiatives over the last twenty years including a three year appointment to the Canadian National Planning and Priorities Forum for HIV/AIDS. Diane is currently President of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, member of the executive board of the American Folklore Society, and serves or has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of American Folklore, Folklore, Ethnologies, Contemporary Legend and The Journal of Applied Folklore.

On Friday, March 30th at 10:30 a.m. in Dulles 250, there will be a discussion of Professor Goldstein's work, led by Assistant Professor Merrill Kaplan. For an advance copy of the readings, write to Kirsi Haenninen (haenninen.1@osu.edu).

Dinner Lecture Series

The OSU Center for Folklore Studies holds two dinner lectures during the academic year featuring research by local students and faculty. All members of the OSU community are welcome, but space for each dinner is limited to 50 people. Please rsvp for the Winter and Spring Quarter dinners to (smbock99@yahoo.com).

Thursday, February 8, 5:30-8:00 PM

The Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue
Speaker: Ignacio Corona
Material Negotiations of Identity in Guadalajara

Architects despise the style; engineers and bricklayers actively produce it; owners claim their building's style conveys a sense of uniqueness and beauty; some cultural critics see the influence of narco-culture in its architectonic manifestation. This talk explores the cultural implications, conflicts, and aesthetic practices at play in the recent development of a hybrid style of architecture that has traversed the traditional socioeconomic divide of Mexico's second largest city.

Ignacio Corona is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese. He teaches on contemporary Latino/American Literatures and Cultures, and has published Después de Tlatelolco: las narrativas políticas en México 1976-1990 (2001), Toward the Liminal Genre: The Contemporary Chronicle in Mexico (2002), and a number of articles on literary and cultural criticism.

Wednesday, April 11, 6:30-8:30 PM

The Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue
Speaker: Howard Sacks
"Food for Thought: Preserving Family Farming in Changing Times"
Family farming has dominated the central Ohio landscape for over 200 years, but a changing global economy and urban sprawl now threaten rural society and culture. Howard Sacks, director of Kenyon College's Rural Life Center, will discuss an ongoing project to sustain family farming by building a regional market for locally produced foods. His talk will focus on the pivotal role of public-sector folklore in this award-winning initiative.

Howard L. Sacks is Senior Advisor to the President and Director of the Rural Life Center at Kenyon College. His publications have appeared in many professional journals, including the Journal of American Folklore and Contemporary Sociology, as well as numerous magazines and newspapers. He is the recipient of over thirty grants and fellowships for scholarly research and public programs, including six award-winning projects on regional life. Dr. Sacks is currently directing a project, Food for Thought, to build a sustainable local food system in Knox County, Ohio.

Culture Archives and the State: Between Socialism, Nationalism and the Global Market, May 3-5, 2007, The Mershon Center

Read more about this conference.

For further information contact Dorothy Noyes (noyes.10@osu.edu).

Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention

Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention brings together two Israeli and two Palestinian scholars for a working meeting to complete a publication begun in the 1990s. Participants will review, critique and revise essays on cultural identities and practices in Jerusalem written under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution's Jerusalem Project in light of events over the past decade. Two colleagues from the Smithsonian will join the working group. The publication will make a significant and timely contribution to questions that arise at the intersection of international security and cultural identity in disputed territories.

Organizer: Amy Horowitz, Melton Center for Jewish Studies and Mershon Center for International Security Studies

In addition to working sessions on the manuscript Jerusalem Project participants will present two Public Forums:

Monday, November 27, 12-1:30 p.m.
Dualing Jerusalems
Introduction: James Early, Director of Cultural Policy, Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Monday, November 27, 6-8 p.m.
Jerusalem's Shifting Identities
Introduction: Jacqueline Jones Royster, Executive Dean, OSU Colleges of the Arts and Sciences

Presenters at these two events will be: Salim Tamari, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Issam Nassar, Menachem Klein, and Amy Horowitz. Please see the conference webpage for bios on these and other conference participants.

These sessions are open to the public. Lunch or dinner will be served to invited students and faculty who RSVP to Beth Russell no later than Friday, Nov. 20, 2006. Space is limited.

Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention is sponsored by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Melton Center for Jewish Studies, CIRIT, Middle East Studies Center, Office of International Affairs, Office of the Executive Dean of the Arts and Sciences, International Studies Program, Center for Folklore Studies, Battelle Endowment for Technology & Human Affairs, Office of Outreach and Engagement, Public Humanities Institute, Roadwork: Center for Cultures in Disputed Territory, and the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

"Synchrotext: Using Digital Media to Preserve, Present, and Project Intangible Cultural Heritage into the Future"

Peter Seitel, Senior Folklorist Emeritus at the Center for Folklore and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, will present on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, at 2:30 pm, in 145 Hagerty Hall. He has researched and published about Tanzanian oral literature, theoretical aspects of speech genres, and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Seital will demonstrate Synchrotext in relation to his ethnographic work.

Folklore Graduate Workshop: Carl Lindahl on Tales and Trauma, November 20 & 21 2006; Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The biennial Folklore Graduate Workshop, sponsored by the Department of English, is fortunate this year to welcome Carl Lindahl (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1980), Martha Gano Houstoun Research Professor of English at the University of Houston. Lindahl is an internationally recognized authority on folktales, medieval folklore, festivals, fieldwork, and Francophone and Southern U.S. folk cultures. Among his numerous books and articles are Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana and American Folktales from the Collections of the Library of Congress. Since 2005 Lindahl has co-directed a large-scale University of Houston oral history project with hurricane survivors, currently being featured in a five-part radio series on NPR to commemorate the anniversary. In this two-day workshop, Lindahl will discuss his recent work on storytelling after disaster. Students in English wishing to register for credit should enroll for two hours of 693 (MA) or 993 (PhD) with Dorry Noyes (noyes.10@osu.edu)

Monday, November 20, 3:30 p.m. - Denney 311
"Katrina Stories, the David Effect, and the Right to Be Wrong"
Based on material from the "Surviving Katrina and Rita" Oral History Project.
Discussant: Professor Amy Shuman, Department of English.

Tuesday, November 21, 10:00 a.m. - Denney 311
"Faces in the Fire: Images of Terror in Appalachian Märchen and in the Wake of September 11"
Lindahl presents his research on oral fairy tales in mountain communities with a history of strong involvement in the U.S. military. The discussion will be followed by lunch: to RSVP, email Sheila Bock (bock.42@osu.edu)

On November 17 at 10:00 AM in Dulles 250 there will be a discussion of Lindahl's recent work, led by Assistant Professor of English Ray Cashman. For an advance copy of the readings, write to Kirsi Haenninen (haenninen.1@osu.edu).

How is this folklore?: Negotiating the Boundaries of Folklore Theory and Practice
An Ohio State University Folklore Student Association Conference

This conference, featuring OSU alumni and students, will address the following questions, among others: What is the relationship between grand theory and age-old debates about public, applied, and academic folklore? Is folklore an object or a lens; can it be both? How does increasingly interdisciplinary work impact the field?

May 19-20, 2006
The Ohio State University
Mershon Center
1501 Neil Ave. Columbus, OH 43201

Program

Friday, May 19

9:00 Registration

Coffee and Bagels.

9:30 Welcome

9:45-11:00 Shifting Genres, Shifting Spheres: Folklore and Popular Culture

“Breaking Bonaduce” and the Failure of the Fairy Tale, Rachel Landers
The Evolution of Fairy Tales, James Vicens
You Could Be the Next ‘Biggest Loser’, Meghan Griesemer
Jason Bush, Discussant

11:00-11:15 Break

11:15-12:30 Narrative Retellings, Interactive Performances

Practical Joking Among Friends, Aubrey Chester
Through the Narrative Looking Glass: Discovering the Social Functions within the Performance of Oral History Narrative, Lindsey Watt
Narratives in Conversation/Folklore as Interaction, Taylor C. Nelms
Susan Hanson, Discussant

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:45 Are You In or Are You Out: Creating Community and Conformity through Folklore

Mother Dearest, Jennifer Seiling
Disney Princesses and Verbal Math: Humor of the College Male, Meaghan Agnew
Knowing the Unknown: A Study in Rural Storytelling, Andrew Michael Paluch
Nancy Yan, Discussant

2:45-3:00 Break

3:00-4:45 Folklore Theory and Practice, Grand and Grounded

Yellow Ribbon Bumperlore: America’s Quiet Debate, Justin Ling
It is More Than a Show: Reflections on the Complexity of American Indian Powwow, Sandra Garner
QUALIA: Folklore as Aloha, Mickey Weems
The Call to Theory as Disciplinary Suicide, Al Berres
Amy Shuman, Discussant

5:00 Keynote Address

Tracy Carpenter, Folklore Student Association, Introduction
Dr. John W. Roberts, Dean, OSU College of Humanities

Saturday, May 20

8:00 Registration

Coffee and Bagels.

8:30-10:15 Metaphorical Performance: Blurring Public and Private Categories

"You can deprive the body, but the soul needs chocolate": The Intermingling of Food and Dance, Sheila Bock
Sensible Slavery: Pleasure, Pain and the Body in Matthew Lewis' Journal of a West India Proprietor, Lisa Ann Robertson
Inside the Brazen God: Spirit Possessed Statues and Popular Belief in Late Antiquity, Norita Dobyns
Narrative Construction of Emotions in Stories about Supernatural Experiences, Kirsi Haenninen
Sabra Webber, Discussant

10:15-10:30 Break

10:30-Noon FORUM: Exchanging Notes behind the Students' Backs: Folklorists in the Classroom

This panel is envisioned as an opportunity for OSU folklore alumni who teach or have taught folklore at the college level to share their teaching experiences. Topics to be addressed include: models and strategies for teaching folklore; teaching with folklore materials and methods in the non-folklore classroom; and folklore teaching materials and resources.

Chris Antonsen, Western Kentucky University
Mark Bender, The Ohio State University
Charley Camp, Maryland Institute College of Art
Martha Sims, The Ohio State University
Al Berres, Moderator

Noon-12:45 Lunch

12:45 Awarding of the Patrick B. Mullen Graduate Student Paper Prize

OSU Center for Folklore Studies

1:00-2:45 Negotiating Boundaries: Folklore in the Public View

“We want no prefaces, and no footnotes; we don’t care where the story comes from”: Joel Chandler Harris, the Folklore Debates, and the Marketplace, Ann Ferrell
Folklore and Social Activism: The Performance, Practice, and Pedagogy of Peru's Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, Jason Bush
Two Words for Plain, Charley Camp
How is This Folklore Marketable?: Why Folklore Does Not Need a Grand Theory, Larry Doyle
Katey Borland, Discussant

2:45-3:00 Break

3:00-4:30 FORUM: Professional Prospects: Careers in Public, Academic, and Applied Folklore

The purpose of this panel is to explore the diverse range of careers available to graduates with folklore training. Topics that we hope to see addressed include: prospecting for public, applied, and academic careers; unexpected opportunities or unlikely professions; the benefits of folklore training; and working with non-folklorists.

Rev. Dr. Susan Ritchie, North Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Jack Shortlidge, Ohio Humanities Council
Martine Stephens, Ohio Wesleyan University
Ann Ferrell, Moderator

4:30 Closing Comments

Dorothy Noyes, OSU Center for Folklore Studies

6:30 Center for Folklore Studies Spring Barbecue at Barbara and Tim Lloyd's house

2006 Calendar of Events

The Center always has plenty to offer, so bookmark these pages and check back frequently. If you would like your event listed here, or if you have suggestions for possible Center events, please email us at cfls@osu.edu.

Please note that the Calendar is updated on a regular basis and that some events do not yet have a specific date, place, or time.

Spring Quarter

March 31 (Friday)

DEADLINE for submitting proposals for American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2006.

Professionalization workshop #6. Introduction to Publishing. Judith McCulloh from the University of Illinois Press will present this special workshop.

Final Fridays Lunch

April 11 (Tuesday)

Folklore Dinner/Lecture.
Anne Bower, Associate Professor, Department of English, Marion Campus.

April 28 (Friday)

Professionalization workshop #7. Topic, Ethnographic Archiving and the Work of the American Folklife Center
Michael Taft, Head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and David Taylor, Head of the Folklife Projects and Programsat the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress speak on archives, the Folklife Center, and working for the federal government.

Final Fridays Lunch

May 1 (Monday)

Mullen Prize Submissions Deadline, 2:00 pm, Dulles 308

May 11 (Thursday)

Come enjoy informal chat and coffee with folklorist Roger Abrahams.

May 12 (Friday)

Colonization and Narrative Migrations: Legends of Occupation from the Mediterranean to the Americas Spring Colloquium of the Center for Folklore Studies

May 19-20 (Friday-Saturday)

Folklore Student Association, Mershon Center
This event combines the undergraduate symposium, the graduate symposium, and the Folklore Center's Spring Barbecue.

May 26 (Friday)

Professionalization workshop #8. Topic: The Job Search.
Dorothy Noyes, Director of the Center for Folklore Studies and Brent Bjorkman, Associate Director of the American Folklore Society, discuss job search strategies for academic and public folklorists.

Final Fridays Lunch

Summer Quarter

June 19-23

(Tentative)
Arab American Family Immigration Sagas: Teachers Institutes in the Humanities
Contact: Sabra Webber, webber.1@osu.edu.