Abstract
I AM grateful to Heda Jason for publicizing the newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, FOAFtale News, and for directing interested readers to my address. As editor of this publication, I am happy to invite anyone who has an interest in actively circulating legends, whether 'contemporary' 'urban' or whatever, to share insights and data. Yet two of the remarks in her note (Folklore 101:ii [1990], pp. 221-222) need to be challenged. First, is it true, as she implies, that the language used by FOAFtale News and other ISCLR publications (English) and the country of their origin (the United States) make them part of a scheme to export Anglo-American folkloristic ideas as part of 'an overwhelming influence on the cultures of the rest of the world'? Second, do the theoretical discussions conducted at the Sheffield meetings really show 'cracks and flaws'-indeed 'muddles'-that are not apparent in the grand methodology represented by 'traditional folkloristics' of the past hundred years? Concerning the first point, my editorial bias has been to import significant information from non-English sources. True, the early 1989 issues, as ISCLR was organizing and finding its way, tended to rely on American examples, but starting with the September 1989 issue the majority of research reports have dealt with non-American, non-British complexes of data. Articles have dealt with material from France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, the USSR, South Africa, Namibia, and Japan. One issue focused on a detailed annotated bibliography of rumour research in French (Campion-Vincent and Renard 1990); another reprinted press coverage of LSD tattoo rumours causing panics in Hamburg-in German with facing translation (Schmidt 1990). Briefer reports of legends and rumours have included an even wider range, and even the American material-focusing on satanism, corporate overreaction to contamination stories, racist street crime, and military involvement in psychics and UFOlore-is hardly that which a good imperialist would want to export. In fact, the phenomenon being called 'contemporary legend' is hardly an Anglo-American invention but a lively genre that trades motifs and whole narratives back and forth across language barriers. This is demonstrated by the book-length collections of Bengt af Klintberg (1986), and Leea Virtanan (1987) as well as articles by Rodolfo A. Florio (1989), Dorota Simonides (1990), and others. And the concept of contemporary legend must have been considered valid enough by scholars working in the German tradition to justify one special issue of Fabula (26:3/4 [1985]), with three essays in English, to be sure-but five in German. And when Rolf Wilhelm Brednich solicited papers from the 1989 ISFNR meeting, he specifically requested those on contemporary legend.' Dr. Brednich's special interest in the topic resulted in a detailed field collection by his students, reported in his ISFNR paper (1989) and resulting in one collection of 'Sagenhafte Geschichten von heute' (1990), with a second already announced. The 'French connection' represented by VWronique CampionVincent, Jean-Bruno Renard, and Jean-Noel Kapferer, has recently compiled its own response to the Sheffield collections as a special issue of Communications.2 An Italian publication was launched this year.3
Published Version
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