Folk Groups Research Articles

Using repertory grids to explore musical skills and attitudes in a mature-age adult at the early stages of learning for self-fulfilment: A case study of James

Repertory grids were used as a research tool to explore 73-year-old James’ musical development over two years. Choosing two music learning cultures for his instrumental learning, James learned the piano in a college workshop and the Appalachian dulcimer in his local folk group. There were clear changes in his musical skills and attitudes, particularly in relation to performing and practising, and an increase in his musical maturity as he transformed himself from a music listener into a musical performer, reconstructing himself as an amateur musician. The empowerment gained from his reconstruction was a critical factor in James’ self-fulfilment as a mature-age adult.

Vershina – a Polish village in Siberia. Factors influencing language maintenance under changing social, cultural, economic and political conditions

The article discusses factors influencing language maintenance under changing social, cultural, economic and political conditions of Polish minority in Siberia. The village of Vershina was founded in 1910 by Polish voluntary settlers from Little Poland. During its first three decades Vershina preserved Polish language, traditions, farming methods and machines and also the Roman Catholic religion. The changes came to a village in taiga in the1930s. Vershina lost its ethnocultural homogeneity because of Russian and Buryat workers in the local kolkhoz. Nowadays the inhabitants of Vershina regained their minority rights: religious, educational and cultural. However, during the years of sovietization and ateization, their culture and customs became much more similar to other Siberian villages. Polish language in Vershina is under strong influence of Russian, which is the language of education, administration, and surrounding villages. Children from Polish-Russian families become monolingual and use Polish very rare, only as a school subject and in contacts with grandparents. The process of abandoning mother tongue in Vershina is growing rapidly. However, there are some factors which may hinder the actual changes:the activity of local Polish organisations and Roman Catholic parish as well as folk group “Jazhumbek”

Archaeology, common rights and the origins of Anglo-Saxon identity

It is generally accepted that rights over land, especially rights of pasture, played a formative role in establishing the identity of early Anglo-Saxon ‘folk groups’, the predecessors of the middle Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This speculative paper sets early medieval and medieval common rights in the context of the archaeological longue duree of the period before 400 ad. It argues that ancient traditions of common governance, integral to Anglo-Saxon identity, might have offered an attractive legitimacy to middle Anglo-Saxon kingdom-builders. While not seeking to establish any answers, the paper hopes to contribute to a wider research agenda.

Populating the Ambient Space of Texts: The Intimate Graffiti of Doodles. Proposals Toward a Theory

Populating the Ambient Space of Texts: The Intimate Graffiti of Doodles. Proposals Toward a Theory

EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP ROLES ON TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

In this study we aim to explain the patterns of leadership roles for team effectiveness in non profit organizations compared to economic organizations. For this purpose, we studied three successful organization types, i.e the amateur sports clubs (football, basketball), theater companies and, regional folk groups. Our basic hypothesis is that the relationship between the type of organization (specially teams) and the role of leadership is not random. Therefore, we believe that an empirical approach is necessary to test the assumptions about leadership and team effectiveness. Also these empirical results are supposed to lead to professional managers in economic organizations. First, we constructed thirteen key dimension variables for leadership behavior as follows: coaching, effective communication, encouraging teamwork, establishing high standards and getting results, effective delegation, rewarding performance, developing and releasing employees, building consensus, supporting reasonable risk- taking, forecast thinking, improving the organization, managing diversity, and overall effectiveness . Second, we defined team standards and effectiveness in twenty items. And finally, we tried to emphasize factors affecting leadership roles and team effectiveness. In this study, Natemeyer and Babko (1992) Management Practices Survey data are used. Data reliability are tested before the analysis and results are discussed at the end of the study.

La estética en la constitución de las identidades folklóricas en el discurso de los folkloristas

The aesthetics in the constitution of the folk identities through the folklorists'speeches. order to characterize the cultural distinctive expressions of the folk groups. In this paper it is discussed how have folklorists applied the aesthetics to characterize the identities of the folk groups. For it it is taking into account how the folklorists in their speeches have used the aesthetics in the past in building a premodern urban society. Appealing for it to the rustic and to the telluric character of the folk productions.Later, it is developed the theoretical turn to the performance group and its identity, taking into account the artistic communication that the folk group develops. Producing, thus, a reconceptualization of the folk group and identity already not in terms of rustic peasants but of people who share a particular the peasant group folk's productions but an artistic convention displayed into the communicative process of any group.

Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts (review)

Reviewed by: Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts Jill Terry Rudy Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts. Produced by the Utah Arts Council Folk Arts Program. Curated by Carol Edison. Exhibit Web site by George Schoemaker. Salt Lake City, UT. This is a permanent exhibit. A perfect fit. This describes the location, presentation, and content of the Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts. The exhibit features dozens of intricate and interesting items, artfully arranged in four well-lighted, brightly painted galleries. Although the rooms are small, the careful placement of items creates a spacious sense of access. The galleries, two each on the main and upper floors of the Chase Home, highlight the creative abilities of folk artists in Utah. The Chase Home itself encapsulates the themes of everyday art, gathering, diversity, and usefulness that echo in the exhibit. The folk art takes center stage at the museum, accompanied by detailed labels with pictures of the artists. In brief but informative paragraphs, the labels describe where the artist learned to make the item, what materials and methods were used, and how the art fits into the community or with the artist’s other skills. For example, the label describing paper cuts (a traditional art form that involves creating a design on paper by drawing on or folding paper and then cutting the design) made in Blanding, Utah, mentions that the art form is popular in the community, and the artist also “sews, makes quilts, and does other needlework.” The label for the Hawaiian quilt made by Moani Revoir explains the process by which the artist works: “Moani sews traditional whole cloth quilts . . . made from two pieces of fabric, one cut into a design and appliquéd upon the other.” The detailed information in the labels comes from fieldwork and the relationship of the artists with the Utah Folk Arts Program staff. Most visitors will enter the Native Gallery first and will be immediately impressed by the large drum displayed in the center of the room and the cradleboards (decorated wooden frameworks covered with fabric or skin, used to carry or hold babies) on the walls. Items from the six Utah tribes—Goshute, Northern Ute, Paiute, Shoshone, Ute Mountain Ute, and Navajo— are represented along with artifacts created by Utah artists who come from tribes outside of the state, including Hopi and Seneca. Beadwork, baskets, and blankets are among the artistic materials on display. Carved sandstone toys shaped like trucks and horses, along with carved wood creatures with human bodies and animal heads, are some of the unexpected art forms in the room. The Rural Gallery features braided and woven rugs on two of its walls; wood carvings and paper cuts appear on the other walls. Metal sculpture depicting aspects of rural farm life occupies a central spot in the middle of the room. Wooden furniture and a totem pole with well-known Utah symbols also catch the eye. The Occupational Gallery continues the western theme suggested by the rural objects, with saddles and tack prominently featured. A colorful quilt with all the brands of the Dry Gulch Cattle Association covers much of the west wall, away from the stone gargoyle that snarls behind Plexiglas in the southeast corner. The gargoyle brings up another important Utah group that does not appear in the names of the galleries—families. The gargoyle represents several generations of a family whose occupation is stone carving. Many of the labels throughout the exhibit explain that the artist learned from a family member. Showing that Utah folk groups and art forms can be interchangeable, several items in the Occupational Gallery are made by Navajo artists, including horse cinches and saddle blankets. The Ethnic Gallery continues to display diversity with items representing emigrants from Japan, Mexico, [End Page 241] Peru, Armenia, Tonga, China, Austria, Tahiti, and Ukraine. Appliquéd quilts, lacework, paper cuts, paper flowers, painted eggs, origami cranes, woven crucifixes, and Day of the Dead figures are among the colorful and significant objects that fill the room. An understated subtheme of this gallery is another significant type of social group in Utah, one based in religion. Several thoughtful techniques enhance the appearance of the...

"Flying Home": Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and the Black Folk during World War II

Abstract This article examines the theories of the black folk (those African Americans understood to constitute a folk group) as an economic, cultural, and literary category in the wartime writing of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. It rereads this work within the context of current scholarship that historicizes and contests the construction of the folk in folklore and literary theory and their applications. This article has a particular focus on the numerous and uncollected articles by Ellison and on the oral history narratives he recorded for the Federal Writers’ Project. While both writers initially adopted a Marxist perspective on the folk, as defined by Wright’s "Blueprint for Negro Writing" (1937), the work of Ellison and Wright diverged from this platform, though in radically different ways. Ellison’s perspective developed to encompass a cultural nationalist position that was, in turn, deeply embedded in a pluralist and syncretic vision of American culture. In African American folk culture, Ellison limned a political agenda for activism. Wright, in contrast, aligned himself with the views of Gunnar Myrdal, which Ellison disputed. Recovering and delineating the ways in which Ellison’s construction of the black folk ultimately diverges from that of Wright is a key element in the rereading of the cultural politics of wartime African American writing.

Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture (review)

Reviewed by: Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture Linda Pershing Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture. By Carol Burke. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 264, preface, bibliography, acknowledgments, notes, index.) As I write this review, the war in Iraq rages with no end in sight. This war and the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah dominate the news. Militarism has a prominent place on our cultural landscape, making Carol Burke's book, Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture, especially relevant. Despite all the media attention devoted to these contemporary conflicts, public officials and pundits don't seem to be asking how gender socialization and male aggression are shaping militarism in our world. A folklorist who taught as a civilian faculty member at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Burke offers rare insights, critically examining the U.S. military as an occupational folk group with its own rituals, verbal art, and customs. Her seven years of experience and fieldwork at Annapolis yield deep material for analysis, and her keen observation of detail and human behavior enriches her findings. She documents the many ways in which military culture perpetuates and encourages sexism in its everyday practices, through basic training, military dress and speech, marching chants, hazing, sexual harassment, and other sordid, secret rituals of military manhood. Beyond offering a fascinating exposé of military masculinity and its many expressions, Burke argues that the hypermasculinity promoted by military culture is just an exaggerated and intensified version—an amplified reflection—of the larger, misogynistic culture. She demonstrates how the military establishment reinforces the principles of hierarchy, conformity, and the binary opposition of dominance and submission. For readers concerned with social justice issues, her findings are cause for alarm: in the effort to embed "the cult of masculinity" (p. xiii) in military life, military culture situates women and gays and lesbians in the place of the vanquished enemy, the dehumanized "other." Those familiar with feminist criticism know that the military is shaped by sexist and misogynist traditions. Burke takes the reader a step further by demonstrating in impressive detail just how these multifaceted traditions find expression in daily military life. She examines the military as its own cultural or folk group, one characterized by deeply rooted notions of masculinity, uncritical allegiance to country, Christian piety, strong group identity, and a set of imposed moral values. Through her analysis of many varied military rituals and practices, Burke clearly demonstrates that sexism and racism have shaped military practices. Her study would benefit, however, from additional attention to class issues: how the military has often relied on the poor and working classes to fight the battles and protect the interests of the rich and privileged. Burke provides an excellent case study of folklore as the instrument of cultural continuity and oppression. Her investigation of expressive behavior in the military indicates that blind obedience to authority is a requirement for service. She notes that the suppression of individual differences for the sake of group conformity and identity is a key value. Her data suggest, I would add, that along with negation of the personal and individual come a series of corollaries: the negation of critical thinking, debate, reasoned discussion, and ethical decision-making. There is little good news here for [End Page 368] those of us who have focused our work on folklore as resistance to, or liberation from, dominant cultural values. The military rituals and practices that Burke investigates clearly have one goal in mind: conformity to a notion of masculinity as it is conventionally and conservatively defined in military culture. Burke's book also examines what happens to women when they enter the military system of "gender apartheid" (p. x). She asks whether women will ever be treated equally and with respect and whether they will have access to all levels of military service, including intensive combat roles. Burke makes the case that women can be successful and should have the opportunity to advance in all aspects of the military. This feminist interrogation of the current military...

"Flying Home": Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and the Black Folk During World War II

This article examines the theories of the black folk (those African Americans understood to constitute a folk group) as an economic, cultural, and literary category in the wartime writing of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. It rereads this work within the context of current scholarship that historicizes and contests the construction of the folk in folklore and literary theory and their applications. This article has a particular focus on the numerous and uncollected articles by Ellison and on the oral history narratives he recorded for the Federal Writers' Project. While both writers initially adopted a Marxist perspective on the folk, as defined by Wright's "Blueprint for Negro Writing" (1937), the work of Ellison and Wright diverged from this platform, though in radically different ways. Ellison's perspective developed to encompass a cultural nationalist position that was, in turn, deeply embedded in a pluralist and syncretic vision of American culture. In African American folk culture, Ellison limned a political agenda for activism. Wright, in contrast, aligned himself with the views of Gunnar Myrdal, which Ellison disputed. Recovering and delineating the ways in which Ellison's construction of the black folk ultimately diverges from that of Wright is a key element in the rereading of the cultural politics of wartime African American writing.

Encyclopedia of American folklife

American folklife is steeped in world cultures, or invented as new culture, always evolving, yet often practiced as it was created many years or even centuries ago. This fascinating encyclopedia explores the rich and varied cultural traditions of folklife in America - from barn raisings to the Internet, tattoos, and Zydeco - through expressions that include ritual, custom, crafts, architecture, food, clothing, and art. Featuring more than 350 A-Z entries, Encyclopedia of American Folklife is wide-ranging and inclusive. Entries cover major cities and urban centers; new and established immigrant groups as well as native Americans; American territories, such as Guam and Samoa; major issues, such as education and intellectual property; and expressions of material culture, such as homes, dress, food, and crafts. This encyclopedia covers notable folklife areas as well as general regional categories. It addresses religious groups (reflecting diversity within groups such as the Amish and the Jews), age groups (both old age and youth gangs), and contemporary folk groups (skateboarders and psychobillies) - placing all of them in the vivid tapestry of folklife in America. In addition, this resource offers useful insights on folklife concepts through entries such as community and group and tradition and culture. The set also features complete indexes in each volume, as well as a bibliography for further research.

How Brown Was My Valley

“Brownfields” in the environmental context is one of those modest success stories that come out of the environmental regulatory arena from time to time. The Brownfields Initiative is important enough that, in her recent resignation, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christine Todd-Whitman wrote that “our success in enacting long-overdue brownfields legislation is already accelerating the reclamation of abandoned parcels of land in hundreds of communities across America”. For years, critics have hammered away at the wasteful, ponderous, and punitive features of two federal laws, the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and its so-called “Superfund” program, which deals with abandoned contaminated facilities, and the 1976 Resource Conservation and Regulation Act (RCRA), which regulates hazardous waste operations and sites. Begun informally in 1995, the EPA's “Brownfields Initiative” (www.epa.gov/brownfields) allowed innovative compromises to be made between those laudable but burdensome laws, and the reality of returning industrial sites to beneficial use relatively quickly. A “brownfields site” is defined as any real property whose expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence (or potential presence) of a hazardous substance, solid waste, pollutant, or contaminant. These are often abandoned industrial properties and other areas that suffered from lack of attention and no hope of redevelopment. The EPA estimates that between 500 000 and one million brownfields sites are spread across the US. Generally there is no responsible person to remediate the property, so it has to be assessed, investigated, or cleaned up by someone who is not potentially liable for cleaning it up, pursuant to some sort of arrangement with the EPA or an appropriate state or local agency. The program has received general bipartisan support both in Congress and at state level, has helped spur the redevelopment of properties that might still be festering, and has fostered inner-city restoration and renewal projects. It has also added thousands of jobs to new businesses which once steered clear of contaminated real estate, the associated difficulty of cleaning it up, and the draconian laws that might have held them liable if they took on the task. Some 40 states have now developed voluntary programs that are cleaning up hundreds of brownfield sites. In 2002, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act became law. It codifies many of EPA's policies regarding brownfields and provides assessment grants for community planning and the investigation of potential sites. Grants are awarded through a competitive system that ranks proposals. The law also created revolving loan grants for brownfields cleanups and job training grants for those living in such areas. Importantly, it provided certain legal exceptions from the Superfund law for innocent and adjacent landowners, prospective purchasers, and others agreeing to undertake remediation of contaminated properties. The legislation also applies to former hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities. Finally, the law promises to streamline required cleanups and the revitalization of urban areas which heretofore remained abandoned. In addition, certain tax incentives now exist to spur cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields in distressed urban and rural areas. The EPA began the RCRA Brownfields Prevention Initiative in 1998, encouraging the remediation of some lower priority hazardous waste sites that needed cleaning up. A potential RCRA Brownfields site is a RCRA facility, or portion of such a facility, that is not in full use, where there is redevelopment potential, and where reuse or redevelopment is slowed due to real or perceived concerns about actual or potential contamination, liability, and RCRA requirements. The Brownfields program has been accompanied by a national realization that voluntary cleanups, which bring contaminants down to reasonable levels rather than zero, are the wiser, easier, and more practical course. To that degree, the Brownfields Initiative has been a nationwide success. Still, much could be done to improve it further. Financing and grants are still limited and red tape clogs projects in some states. Nevertheless, “the greenfields that we used to roam,” in the words of the folk group The Brothers Four, are now visible alongside new businesses and new opportunities unimaginable a quarter of a century ago. Douglass Rohrman

The Trial Lawyer's Art (review)

Reviewed by: The Trial Lawyer's Art James Deutsch The Trial Lawyer's Art. By Sam Schrager. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 245, 15 black-and-white photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) Readers of this journal may often face the challenge of proving to the public that folklore is not found exclusively in rural or exotic areas, among elderly rustics with little formal education. That folklore is central to the lives of some of the most highly educated members of society may shock certain sophisticates who fail to see the folk among them. Such was the case in the summer of 1986, when professional trial lawyers in suits and ties became one of the leading exhibits in the annual Festival of American Folklife (now [End Page 497] known as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) in Washington, D.C. Placed on the National Mall next to wood carvers from New Mexico and moonshiners from Tennessee, the participants in the American Trial Lawyers Program successfully demonstrated to an often skeptical public that law-school graduates and distinguished members of the Bar may also be active bearers of tradition. Sam Schrager, the curator of this 1986 Folklife Festival program, has expanded his original project to produce The Trial Lawyer's Art, an insightful and lucid examination of contemporary occupational folklore. Based in part on the tapes and transcripts from the 1986 program, as well as ethnographic research conducted in the criminal courtrooms of Philadelphia, Schrager makes it clear that trial lawyers-like coal miners, lumberjacks, stone carvers, firefighters, and cowboys-constitute an occupational folk group in every meaning of the term. Defined as "the small subset of criminal and civil attorneys who regularly argue cases before juries" (p. 6), trial lawyers directly compete, often one against another, in performance narratives and logical analysis, until a discerning audience of 12 renders a final verdict. The best trial lawyers, like the legendary Cecil B. Moore of Philadelphia, regard the courtroom as not just a stage on which to perform but a primal field of combat that must be controlled and dominated at all costs. One of the secrets of Moore's success was to "make the jury forget the defendant and try the two lawyers" (p. 94). Both the performative and combative skills of trial lawyers are indelibly captured in Schrager's study. His first two chapters closely examine the oratory and persuasive skills of Roger King, a district attorney for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With meticulous transcriptions that illustrate both the poetics and the formulas of courtroom oratory, Schrager demonstrates that King and other luminaries have a formidable repertoire of formulaic expressions, rhythmic repetitions and signifiers, and distinctive body movements and gestures that can be artfully employed to sway a jury. The book's third chapter explores the "well-honed folk identities" that individual trial lawyers from around the country have constructed over time (p. 103), and chapter 4 gathers together an assortment of "war stories"-told with eloquence, pathos, and self-deprecating wit-that further illustrate the maxim that "nothing lawyers do is original. It's a tradition" (p. 114). Consequently, for members of this occupational folk group, the trial itself is a collective ritual in which their artfully competitive performances are carefully crafted to provide "the appearance of truth" (p. 5). But our system of justice seeks more than simple appearances, and the author, to his credit, concludes by assessing the consequences and moral responsibilities of the trial lawyer's art. Granting that the best lawyers with the best resources have the best chance of winning, Schrager calls for greater parity (in terms of legal skills and resources) between the two sides in order to achieve the fairest verdict possible. That this solution seems far too idealistic for the cutthroat competitors described elsewhere in this volume is no reflection on Schrager. Like all folk groups, occupational or otherwise, trial lawyers will try to maintain the efficacy of their cultural practices in part by resisting the efforts of reformers to elevate and enlighten the (so-called) debased elements of the folk. One might even swear that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. James Deutsch George Washington University Copyright...

The Strategy to be "Paperless" Via a Cost-Effective Filmless Plan

The group of folks assigned to the project were identified, and on April 23, 2001, an Request For Information (RFI) was released to 11 preidentified Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) vendors. Our project was unique in 2 respects. First, there was an aggressive timeline. Second there was specific outpatient environment requirements. There was a need to move images and other patient-related data between several sites while depending heavily on the Wide Area Network (WAN) design rather than the typical Local Area Network (LAN) configuration. We learned quickly that there was not one live site, at which we could visit to observe our vision in action, nor had any solution been built to accomplish our specific objectives. The months of May, June, and July consisted of vendor meetings, RFI response reviews and, clinical and corporate visits ending on August 9, 2001 when our prime vendor of choice was selected. During this process, we identified deal breakers outlining specific needs for "go live," which is targeted for Q2 (2nd Quarter) 2002. The biggest workflow opportunity is to be paperless as well as filmless. By this we not only mean traditional RIS information but also patient documents (insurance information, physician script) as well as modality-patient-specific information. All of this information needs to be available electronically to accomplish) any patient record, any place, any time! The month of August was filled with WAN and LAN solution investigations. The solution of choice will be both cost effective and challenged to achieve 99.9% reliability. A cost-benefit analysis was performed and reviewed to better understand our return on investment. The months of September and October have been dedicated to Computerized Radiography (CR) technology. The TEAM reviewed 3 solutions, which consisted of both sit-down sessions as well as clinical site assessments. Again, "deal breaker" criteria were summarized and a solution chosen. Contract negotiations will soon conclude, and an aggressive implementation will begin!

Literary Legacies, Folklore Foundations: Selfhood and Cultural Tradition in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature

In this provocative study of eight novels, Karen E. Beardslee asserts that American writers often engage with folk traditions as a necessary part of their characters journeys to wholeness. Focusing not only on African American, Native American, and Hispanic American cultures but also on women s culture, Beardslee traces the connections between folk legacies and the search for selfhood in both nineteenth- and twentieth-century works. Within each chapter, a novel by a contemporary author and one from an earlier period are brought together: Whitney Otto s How to Make an American Quilt and Harriet Beecher Stowe s The Minister s Wooing; David Bradley s The Chaneysville Incident and Charles Chesnutt s The Conjure Woman; Leslie Marmon Silko s Ceremony and Zitkala-Sa s American Indian Stories; and Roberta Fernandez s Intaglio and Maria Cristina Mena s The Birth of the God of War. These pairings are not based on matters of intertextuality or influence but are chosen according to the folk groups to which the novels characters belong. This strategy enables Beardslee to trace the particular legacies that inform the work of the twentieth-century authors. As Beardslee notes, contemporary texts and the critical commentary on them have focused, until fairly recently, on the search for self in male (usually white) characters. Such works have also positioned that search outside the character s family or community and have usually emphasized its futility. With the growing shift toward multiculturalism in fiction, however, folk traditions have come to play an increasingly crucial role in characters journeys to self-awareness as well as in the success of those journeys. Thoroughly researched and cogently argued, this book makes a significant contribution to the study of both folklore and literature as it explores the relationship between knowing one s cultural heritage and achieving a sense of self that is whole instead of fragmented, connected instead of drifting. The Author: Karen E. Beardslee teaches in the Department of Language and Literature at Burlington County College in Pemberton, New Jersey. Her articles have appeared in MELUS, The Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature, and the Zora Neale Hurston Forum.

Democracy and slavery in frontier Illinois: the Bottomland Republic

Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic. By James Simeone. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. Pp. x, 289. Maps, illustration, notes, sources, index. Cloth, $38). James Simeone, Associate Professor of Political Science at Illinois Wesleyan University, has written a stimulating and rather complex study of the events, issues, and key people surrounding the debate over whether to call a constitutional convention in Illinois in 1824. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had prohibited slavery in the territory, which included what later became Illinois, exempting those slaves already residing in the new area. This Ordinance was reaffirmed in the 1790s and the first Illinois Constitution (1818) did not alter this position. But by 1824 the white folks (chiefly poor upland southerners) wanted to change this Constitution to make Illinois a slave, rather than a free, state. The outcome of the efforts of the white folks is well-known: on August 2, 1824 the call for a convention was defeated by a vote of 6,640 to 4,972. As traditional narrative points out, Illinois was thereby saved from slavery and the non-conventionist group of big folks (including elite northerners and abolitionists) were the saviors of the Prairie State. When the Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Missouri to become a slave state, the white folks became concerned about whether they could compete economically with Missouri without the further importation of slaves into the fertile bottomlands in the southern part of Illinois. Professor Simeone argues that the white folks, who were bottomland republicans, believed that their egalitarian ideals would be strengthened by allowing slaveholders to migrate to Illinois. The white folks wanted slavery for the short-term, not necessarily forever. They needed slaves now to ease the present labor shortage, to protect the commonalty, to enhance the status of the poor whites and, most essentially, to do the extremely difficult work of clearing the bottomlands to make agriculture possible. Simeone explains that the problems of the period 1819-1823 were so overwhelming to the white folks that they sought to make Illinois a slave state in order to assure their own equality. The legislature of 1822-23 focused on the convention issue; factions were formed and infighting began between the conventionists and the nonconventionists. In his discussion of the debate over the convention and the structuring of Illinois politics, Simeone introduces many individuals who play key roles in the Early National Period of Illinois. The information which Simeone provides on Ninian Edwards, Jesse B. Thomas, Daniel Pope Cook, Nathaniel Pope, Elias Kent Kane, John Reynolds, John Mason Peck, and a host of other key figures is a major strength of his book. …

RECIPROCAL BILINGUALISM AS A CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY: THE CASE OF CYPRUS

Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, has never been monolingual. For over four hundred years the two main languages of the island have been Turkish and Greek. Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots met each other in the streets, but seldom in the schools. The Greek language had a place in the Turkish-Cypriots' educational system during some periods in history, but the Greek-Cypriots have never given the Turkish language a place in their school system. Until recent years, the majority of Turkish-Cypriots have had communicative competence in Greek. In contrast, there have been very few Greek-Cypriots who had communicative competence in Turkish. The history of Cyprus clearly shows that lack of policies for bilingualism on the island has weakened the good relationship between the two folk groups. The fact that the learning of the global language English is happening to the detriment of the learning of Greek among Turkish-Cypriots makes the integration of the two main cultural groups of Cypriots more difficult. Using the island's historical background, especially the intercommunal dispute during the last four decades as a basis, the author argues for a closer relationship between the economic, social, cultural, including bilingual and educational policy of the two parts of Cyprus. He sees this as the best peace policy for the island.

Hard travelin': the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie

For the first ever American Music Masters event sponsored by the Rock and Hall of Fame and Museum, musicians and folkies came together to salute the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie, America's folk troubadour. With contributions from Guthrie's son Arlo and his longtime friends Pete Seeger and Harold Leventhal, and with new appreciations and insights provided by scholars and critics, Hard Travelin' continues that celebration, offering a new understanding of Guthrie's contribution to America's music and culture. It is illustrated with photographs and drawings, many never-before-seen, from the Woody Guthrie Archives. Guthrie's songs -- such as This Land Is Your Land, Pretty Boy Floyd, or Roll on Columbia -- are still known and sung by many Americans, while the story of his life has taken on a mythic cast -- the modern troubadour, the hobo balladeer and union supporter, the wandering folk singer who heard and wrote in the voice of the people. Guthrie's influence is felt not only whenever someone sings one of his songs, but any time a modern folk group or rocker sings a protest song or joins a social or political cause. In this book, Guthrie's family and friends offer personal and often poignant recollections of his life. Noted writers such as Dave Marsh, David Shumway, and Robert Cantwell shed new light on the Guthrie legacy, including an expanded appreciation of his impact on rock and roll, through such figures as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. They also assess Guthrie's place in the political and social movements of his time, especially his support for unions and for the communist party; his attitudes toward race; and the little-studied topic of his visual art, the often very personal drawings, doodles, sketches, and paintings that he produced throughout his life. The book concludes with a valuable biblio/discography.

Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture.

Grounded in Charles Joyner's unique blend of rigorous scholarship and genuine curiosity, these thoughtful and incisive essays by the eminent southern historian and folklorist explore the South's extraordinary amalgam of cultural traditions. By examining the mutual influence of history and folk culture, Shared Traditions reveals the essence of southern culture in the complex and dynamic interactions of descendants of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. The book covers a broad spectrum of southern folk groups, folklore expressions, and major themes of southern history, including antebellum society, slavery, the coming of the Civil War, economic modernization in the Appalachians and the Sea Islands, immigration, the civil rights movement, and the effects of cultural tourism. Joyner addresses the convergence of African and European elements in the Old South and explores how specific environmental and demographic features shaped the acculturation process. He discusses divergent practices in worship services, funeral and burial services, and other religious ceremonies. He examines links between speech patterns and cultural patterns, the influence of Irish folk culture in the American South, and the southern Jewish experience. He also investigates points of intersection between history and legend and relations between the new social history and folklore. Ranging from rites of power and resistance on the slave plantation to the creolization of language to the musical brew of blues, country, jazz, and rock, Shared Traditions reveals the distinctive culture born of a sharing by black and white southerners of their deep-rooted and diverse traditions.

Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930-1940

Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930-1940. By Jane S. Becker. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 331. $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper) Selling Tradition adds to the critical examination of culture and folklore by asking is tradition? in a way that directs the reader to the intertwining of and modernity, two categories often considered to be in opposition. From the outset it is clear that Jane Becker is not going to let such a dichotomy go unexamined. very nature of cultural forms defined as and folk, she writes, raises questions about the process by which those forms have evolved, the new meanings they embody in historical contexts so different from those of their inception, and the implications of their new status and interpretation for members of the cultures and communities they presumably represent (3). Becker's book, as this passage indicates, can be situated among other recent studies of global cultures that are teaching us that it is no longer possible to consider or traditional as categories outside of modern, or to think of crafts as having little relationship to a field of production defined by the commercial marketplace. Becker's particular site of inquiry concerns what one could argue is the quintessential culture of the United States-central Appalachia and its handicrafts. In particular, she takes the period between 1930 and 1940, the heyday of the handicraft revival, to examine the relation among the national marketplace for goods, the definition of tradition, and the justifications for the creation of what amounted to an industry of craft production in the mountains. Along the way the reader is presented with a fascinating, grounded history of the emergence of romantic attraction to the idea of preindustrial life and culture, the relation of those views to arguments about national identity, and attempts to reform and revitalize the economically underdeveloped mountains without losing their particular traditional culture. What makes Selling Tradition most interesting, in my view, is that Becker refuses to treat this history as simply one of exploitation. Although the products of the craft industry were driven by the commercial market and therefore often had little relationship to traditional styles or modes of production, and conditions of labor were difficult, Becker shows the mountain producers of handicrafts-primarily women-participating in the marketplace as a way to earn money and support families that were having trouble surviving economically in depression-era Appalachia. The book begins with a good discussion of the notion of in America, and its ties to ideas of and authenticity in the larger context of national identity and industrial anxiety. Her critical overview of models for analyzing folk culture in a modern world is astute. Defining tradition as a symbolic construction, Becker argues that we must concentrate, therefore, on the contexts in which particular traditions and folk groups were constructed, unraveling their specific histories (39). Besides setting up her own study, the chapter also makes for a useful introduction to the history of the emergence of the folk/modern dichotomy in the United States, essential to a critical folkloristic perspective. …