Folklore Student Association
2007 Amy Shuman Joke Award Entries: Why did the folklorist cross the road?
- To study the culture of the chickens.
- To do ethnographic field research with all those chickens.
- To traverse disciplinary boundaries.
- To get a public sector job.
- Habitus
- F383.1 ("Fairy unable to pass cross-roads")
- This is MY interview. I’ll ask the questions!
- To walk into the bar…with the priest, the pastor, and the rabbi…and the Englishman, Irishman, and Scotsman…oh yeah, and the Polack, Paddy, Aggie, Newfie, dumb blonde, dead baby, Jewish mother…not to mention St. Peter, Helen Keller, Paris Hilton, Christa McAuliffe, and Prince Albert in a can…also the doctor, the lawyer, the traveling salesman, the farmer’s daughter…Thibodeaux and Boudreaux…Ole and Lena…Little Johnny…the Aristrocrats!…ah screw it, she was stapled to the chicken.
- V531.1 ("Pilgrim follows road Christ walked")
- Paradigmatic observation
- ATU 750E (Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type "Flight to Egypt")
- Oh god, enough about the performance turn already.
- I have no idea, but it was definitely a historic geographic shift.
- Those memorial crosses aren’t going to document themselves.
- Because Chuck Norris told him to, and then he roundhouse kicked him.
- She was doing a participant observation with the chicken.
- To get to the UR side.
- He saw the state of the job market, and he was trying to throw himself in front of a bus. (WINNER)
- To get to the corner -- prostitution pays better than folklore.
- Well, now, are you sure that this is the best way to frame the question? We really have to think about the sort of response this phrasing prompts. Will answers in response to this linguistic construction really tell us about folklorists or roads, or merely reinforce our preconceptions of one, the other, or both? Moreover, are the meanings/responses implied, prompted, or made possible by the verb "cross" presently the best way to explore or deepen our understanding of the categories presented, (especially when such categories may not exist)? Does such a question, whatever its possible answers, truly do justice to folklorists?
- Because she wanted to see if that weird tradition really HAD been going on for 150 years over there or if old man Smith was just slappin' his knee and laughin' behind her back.
- I don't know, but he was muttering something about being too immersed in his subject. Then he crossed back a while later in a much better mood and got back to his fieldwork.
