Folkloristic Approach Research Articles

Folkloristic Studies of the Oral Historical Narratives

Folkloristic approaches to the study of oral historical memories are analyzed in the article. The attention of scholars from various humanities to oral history is caused by its informative, aesthetic, sociological potential, as well as the aspiration for the voice returning to a common person, change of approaches to the study of memory and subjectivity. In the post-Soviet reality, it is important to discover the silent, forbidden topics, a peculiar at least partial rehabilitation of those citizens, social strata who have been offended by the totalitarian epoch. Folkloristic experience is important in the ways of information gathering, analysis of folklore about a particular historical event, tracking communicative patterns that affect all oral evidences, especially recorded over some time distance. People tend to verbalize their thoughts, feelings, experiences according to certain schemes, laws, norms, canons, dominant ideas that exist in society at the time of recording. In addition, linguistic patterns and ready-made, stereotyped formulas, patterns form a canvas of reminiscence. Knowledge of traditional world-views and ideas of the tradition bearers helps the folklorist to reveal typical ways of nomination, unification of oral historical narratives, mechanisms of subject selection. Good erudition of the scholars about folk beliefs makes it possible to identify changes in the folk world outlook under the influence of various factors. Researchers of the oral folk word find out the ways and mechanisms of nomination, selection of topics, strategies of self-presentation, detect generalized, folklorized fragments.

Introduction into Health-Related Folklore and Its Research: From First-Hand Experiences to Second-Hand Narrating Models

y accentuating the central keywords and observations of the articles published in this special journal issue, the author – situating the articles in a broader theoretical framework – offers a glimpse at the role of the humanities in the research of the realm of health in such a unique period as the Covid-19 pandemic. The author concludes that based on the complexity of the topic (its physical and mental, individual and collective angles, impact of the mass media and partly recycled narrative models), health research needs to take into consideration the topic’s social, narrative, religious, belief, and other aspects in a nuanced way, and here folkloristic and medical anthropological approach with its specialized methodology and empirical groundedness can offer significant added value.

Folk Narratives of Balawarte in Uson, Masbate

Mystery, as viewed by the society, is usually stated by an outsider in a certain locality who sees unusual occurrence thus, series of inquiry is rolled down to seek for understanding of a phenomenon that cannot be answered by science hence, can be unlocked through the collective narratives that the folks treasured and continuously shared. These narratives form part of folklore in a society that is bound to vanishing when left undocumented.
 An hour travel from the heart of Masbate is where the small town Uson in which a Balawarte is found. This is a symbolic rock-sculpture of Mary on the seaside of the town of Uson but has created a lot of stories therein which form part to answer the mystery.
 This ignited the researchers to explore the significant narratives on this existing phenomenon. Through this, the researchers explored the historical and cultural significance of Balwarte in Uson. Also, the researchers inquired about the different narratives of it. The study is an ethnographic and folkloristic approach were used such as structured and unstructured interviews to gather the narratives. The narratives were transcribed and analyzed using Thematic Analysis to get the historical, cultural, and folkloristic contribution of it in society.

ГОСПОДАРСЬКІ СВІТОГЛЯДНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ КОЛЯДОК І ЩЕДРІВОК (ЛІНГВОФОЛЬКЛОРИСТИЧНЕ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ЛЕКСИКИ НА ПОЗНАЧЕННЯ ТВАРИННИЦТВА)

Christmas carols and shchedrivkas are a special (magical) kind of calendar ritual songs. It is winter calendar songs that store most information about the faith, history and worldview of our people. The songs often praised realia of household economies. Hence, the article takes the linguistic and folkloristic approaches to explore vocabulary, images and motives that relate to animal husbandry. This aspect of the study is relevant because it has not been studied before. According to the findings of the study, domestic animal husbandry is presented in the texts of carols and shchedrivkas by many lexical units which are combined into thematic groups. Specifically, there is a group of words that relate to cattle breeding and population (for example, herd). Special groups contain words that refer to animals in a general way (for example, cattle), as well as words that are specific names of animals (sheep, goat, cow, bull, horse, ox, chicken, etc.). The other groups combine words denoting animal products (lard, butter, cheese, etc.) and livestock-related activities such as cattle breeding, care and handling (to plough, buy, water, mow, etc.). The lyrics of the songs store information about household tools (whip, yoke, rake, etc.) and livestock buildings and structures (for example, obora, koshara (barn), etc.). The article examines the frequency of the use of the lexical units in question and describes specific functions of images related to animal husbandry. The conclusion is drawn that in Ukraine the most valued animals were sheep (they served as a source of meat, wool and milk); also, cows were widespread (dairy products). On the contrary, pigs were not popular animals for a long time. Another feature of the economic belief system of Ukrainians is that they used to farm with oxen rather than horses. In the texts of the songs, the functions of horses are very diverse, thus, require a more detailed study. The article contains the assumptions about the origin of the realia of animal husbandry in the texts of carols and shchedrivkas. Accordingly, their origin may be traced as far back as the Neolithic period, because it is at this time that cattle were largely domesticated.

Leading components of ethnic mentality in Mari verbal charms

Introduction. The relevance of the article is determined by the need for a systematic description of the national-cultural characteristics of individual peoples (in particular, Mari) and fixing the composition of the identified ethno-differentiating components of mentality, which demonstrate the identity of ethnic cultures. The article presents new data on the systemic nature of the Mari mentality, which core is a subsystem of images, symbols and values, summarizing the results of the mental functions of perception and thinking, reflected in folklore texts and are actively used in the daily life of Mari society. Materials and Methods. 600 conspiracy-spell texts, extracted from various sources, are considered in the framework of system theory using a combination of linguistic, traditional folkloristic approaches and quantitative methods. The algorithm for studying ethnic mentality, shown in the article, makes it possible to use the theoretical basis and methodological base in the study of the texts of other folklore genres belonging to other cultures. Results and Discussion. As a result of the work, a description of some national and cultural characteristics of the Mari ethnos is presented. It contributes to the preservation and enhancement of the traditional spiritual and moral values of Russian society. Conclusion. The research novelty, relevance and significance of this work are determined by the set of tasks, which results in new data on the systemic nature and components of the Mari national mentality obtained using the innovative methodology of the interdisciplinary approach applied to the study of unique folklore texts. Academic and applied significance lies in the development of a methodological base, the choice of which can be considered as a certain contribution to the creation of methods for studying ethnic mentality on the basis of folklore texts.

Environmental Wisdom in Oral Literature of Arjuna Slopes People

This study sought to describe the orientation, representation, and the relationship of oral literary texts of the Slopes Arjuna towards its nature, poetical characteristics and literary texts narrative by using ecocriticism theory. The interdisciplinary approach used to understand the data were ecocritics, literary, ethical approach to the environment, cultural approach, and folkloristic approach. The instruments used were observation and in-depth- interview. The research was conducted on the slopes of Mount Arjuna, East Java from November 2012 to February 2014. The result shows that the range of oral literature texts of Arjuna Slopes communities explicitly and implicitly, intensively and extensively, show the orientation towards nature. It shows that the oral literature of Arjuna slope people obtains the pastoral narrative and apocalyptic narrative. The study also reveals the presence of biological nature and the psychological nature which are conveyed explicitly and demonstrated in its vitality. The texts orientation towards nature is more detailed presented in the various forms of nature. Nature orientation occurred in the text becomes an emphatic and important marker of environmental wisdom literature. Furthermore, the characteristics of environmental wisdom literature which are identified and constructed based on the review of the public oral literature of Slopes Arjuna have its distinctiveness. This peculiarity is seen in the breath of cosmocentric-spirituality born from harmony syncretization between spirituality Kejawen, Islami Sarengat, Hindu-Buddhist mysticism, as the source of wisdom of environmental values in the society of Slopes Arjuna oral literature.

Жанровое своеобразие устных рассказов о голоде 1941—1945 годов

The genre specificity of oral histories about starvation of 1941-1945 is covered. The review of the main works on the history of study of oral history in the national folklore is made. Consideration of the oral history as a speech genre allowed to establish that taking into account the peculiarities of oral speech helps to understand some of its properties in a new way, which, in turn, allows to rethink the traditional folkloristic approach to its analysis. It is shown that certain types of oral histories have a dual genre nature - on the one hand, they are speech genres, and on the other - folklore. The analysis of oral histories about starvation of 1941-1945 in the context of other works of reliable stereotypical prose, including those about fighting on the fronts of the Great Patriotic war, the blockade experience, the stay in captivity, led to the conclusion that a group of oral histories about starvation of 1941-1945 can be identified as a type of speech genre memories. It is shown that at the same time it is possible to define such stories as a folklore phenomenon representing a kind of a genre of the oral story devoted to the narration about a person in an extreme life situation.

Unelõiv ja Saarepiiga: Jüri Talveti kirjanduslik "Kalevipoeg" / The Rhisomes of „Kalevipoeg“: Literary Interpretation of the Estonian National Epic by Jüri Talvet

Teesid: Artikkel keskendub eepose „Kalevipoeg“ käsitlusele võrdleva kirjandusteaduse vaatepunktist. „Kalevipoja“ uurimine ilukirjandusliku teosena muutis paradigmaatiliselt rahvuseepose senist tõlgendust ja seda tänu Jüri Talveti käsitlustele „Kalevipojast“ kui suurest Euroopa eeposest, silmapaistavast maailmakirjanduse kunsteeposte seas. Eepose teksti ja poeetika kirjandusteaduslik uurimine on selgitanud, kuidas eepose tekst on üles ehitatud sisemistele, intratekstuaalsetele seostele, mis korduvad gradatsiooniliselt ja toetuvad teatud kindlatele tekstuaalsetele sõlmpunktidele, näiteks „Saarepiiga“, „uni“ jpt. Enam kui autentsed allikad, on „Kalevipoja“ kui kirjandusliku teksti puhul oluline eepose toimimine pidevalt uusi tekste ärgitava tüvitekstina. Eepose analüüs näitab, kuidas selliste seoste alusel tekivad uued kultuurilised ühikud, kauneid näiteid selliste motiivikordustele rajatud seosteahelate kohta leidub ka Jüri Talveti luules. The article focuses on the treatment of the epic The Kalevipoeg from the viewpoint of comparative literature. This approach is a continuation of the study of literary relations of the epic which, on the one hand is opposite to, but on the other hand continues the present folkloristic approach to The Kalevipoeg as a folklore-based epic, which is based on the comparative-historical method of studying folklore. F. R. Kreutzwald’s role in creating the national epic was enormous; the epic can be conceived as a fictional and intentional piece, emphasising the role of its author. Although different genres of genuine folklore can be recognised in the epic, works of fiction of European and world classics have also been used in its construction, and the text of the epic has itself become an intertextual foundation for new works of fiction. The paradigm of discussing the epic changed due to Jüri Talvet’s groundbreaking treatment of The Kalevipoeg as a great European epic and one of the most remarkable representatives of the genre of literary epic in world literature. Literary scholarship of the text and poetics of the epic has demonstrated how the text is constructed by gradational internal intertextual relations, based on certain textual nodal points such as, e.g., ’island maid’, ’stone’, ’sleep’, etc. For example, the figure of Island Maid is intertextually related to many earlier archetexts and fundamental texts and has, in its turn, inspired other fictional texts. The author intentionally allowed for ambiguous interpretation of the death of a young girl – the girl slipped into water, but was it an accident or a suicide? The Estonian heroic epic differs from other literary epics by a gradational motif of ’sleep’, occurring through the text; by using this motif, the author develops the heroic epic into a tragedy of fate. The hero is informed about his fatal guilt in sleep long before it occurred in real life. Jüri Talvet has discovered such rhizomes of relations in the text of The Kalevipoeg due to his studies of world literature, but he has also written about them in his poetry.

BOOKS RECEIVED

Reviewed by: A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy by Ian Brodie. Jackson Trevor J. Blank A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy. By Ian Brodie. Jackson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. 255 pages. Hardcover, $60.00. Folklorists are often tasked with making sense of nonsense, breaking down the nuances of everyday life and parsing through interpersonal, artistic, and performative communications to reveal the depth and meaning behind vernacular expression and the contexts from which they derive. Talk is, of course, a foundational component of human interaction, and humor can serve as a rich and complex dimension of talk. However, while folklore scholars have traditionally prioritized orally transmitted phenomena over those which are technologically or mass mediated, few folkloristic works have managed to employ a more holistic approach that extends beyond mere textual analyses of humorous talk; they have neglected the multifaceted, layered dimensions of cultural exchange at play. In A Vulgar Art, author Ian Brodie ventures where others have not, shining new light into how stand-up comedy serves as a powerful locus of folkloric communication couched in vernacular talk, identity politics, tensions of performance and reception, cultivation and construction of material culture, as well as the curation and preservation of content in broadcast, analog, and Internet media. The book's title, A Vulgar Art, is culled from a quote by legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin, who reveled in the etymological origins of the word vulgar, noting its original meaning: "of the people." It is here, with this connotation in mind, that Brodie demonstrates how a folkloristic approach to the study of stand-up is so fitting. He begins by addressing the scattered scholarly literature on the topic of stand-up comedy, while informing readers about what folklore is, what folklorists do, and what constitutes a folkloristic approach to the study of his subject, before charting a course through a variety of both popular and less-heralded comedians' repertoires and the historical backdrops that led to the emergence of the stand-up comedy genre in the 1950s and 1960s. Brodie convincingly argues that stand-up comedy is a dialogic form in which performers talk with—and, importantly, not just to—their audiences; he diligently works to [End Page 393] lay the theoretical framework upon which the book rests, underlining the reconciliation of intimacy, distance, and shifting social contexts that comprise the cultural scene where stand-up comedy takes place. His emphasis on the dynamics of vernacular talk, supported by assiduous transcriptions and analytical annotations of joke routines, will undoubtedly meet with appreciation from oral historians. Moreover, Brodie's measured awareness of his readers is evident in the great care he takes to reiterate his methodological approaches and folkloristic background throughout the volume without obfuscating his subject matter; he moves seamlessly from considerations of live performance to the folk processes at work in broadcast and recording iterations of stand-up comedy, including its commercial distribution. The book is laced with acerbic wit and meticulous analysis, giving readers a front-row view of how comedians use the stage and microphone to bridge sociocultural distance between themselves and their audiences, recreating the intimacy of face-to-face encounters in order to allow for vernacular talk to emerge. The book analyzes routines from a variety of performers to underscore the performative and identity delineations stand-up comedians forge, with close examinations of numerous routines from the likes of Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Bill Cosby, as well as a series of revelatory interviews with Canadian comic Ron James. Brodie himself acknowledges that one of the weaknesses of previous studies of stand-up comedy has been the curious absence of interviews with actual comedians or their fans. Fittingly, his conversations with James, which are coupled with extensive background information on the comedian and chronicle everything from how he dressed and marketed himself to the different receptions that the same comedy routine garnered in different geographic areas, provide a unique oral history of the life of a stand-up comedian in all of its complex glory. Although somewhat dense at times, and likely best suited for graduate students and academic audiences...

Blas- und Bläsermusik. Musik zwischen Volksmusik, volkstümlicher Musik, Militärmusik und Kunstmusik (review)

und zwischen Volksmusik, volkstumlicher Musik, Militarmusik und Kunstmusik. By Elmar Walter. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2011. [438 p. ISBN 9783862960163. i55.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliographies, discography, indexes. The increasing but still too modest number of doctoral dissertations about is a clear indication of the importance of a field of scholarship en - compassing disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, history, sociology, and educational sciences. Research in is increasing but still not firmly anchored in European universities. Elmar Walter's dissertation provides detailed insights into four aspects of in German-speaking countries. While the most important historical part covers the first 250 pages of the large thesis, the second part deals with analyses of compositions from polkas to symphonic works for band. The book ends with some shorter digressions and comprehensive indexes. The introduction is devoted to an indispensable definition of the terms appearing in the title. It is based on a review of numerous antecedent studies on music, including such basic works as Achim Hofer's Blasmusikforschung. Eine kritische Einfuhrung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992) and Werner Bodendorff's Historie der geblasenen (Obermayer: Buchloe, 2002). Defining terms within and across languages can be a difficult task. It seems that some terms cannot be assigned uniformly, as for example genre, which is partially due to the complex relationship in German between Gattung (type, species, genre) and Genre (genre). This also includes the distinction between Blasmusik and Blaser musik. The English translation would be in both cases, respectively musique a vent in French. But the nuances between these two terms would neither be comprehensible in English, nor in French and, in most cases, do not apply to in the English and North American tradition. While Blasmusik suggests a folkloristic approach of making in the German-speaking Alpine region, the term Blasermusik could be understood as more closely related to the term wind It encompasses both meanings: in classical and in chamber music, and symphonic in large orchestras. Walter proposes the combination of both terms as a solution, thus Blas- und Blasermusik. Two further terms cause similar problems: Volksmusik can be appropriately rendered with the English term music; the former describes authentic of the German-speaking countries, whereas music does the same for authentic in the English-speaking sphere. Often the German term is augmented with adjectives such as echt, unverfalscht, and original (pure, unadulterated, original). Volkstumliche Musik is harder to render in English; a matching translation could be This arose from music, and it is associated with German tradition in a sound-shape recognized worldwide. Here Walter quite rightly detects an etymological relationship with the term music by comparing folk and popular, the latter originating from the Latin term populus. The determining factor seems to be mass media distribution. Both and folksy often are performed on instruments; popular music, however, is not. Further - more, is barely imaginable without military (Militarmusik). Mili - tary is mainly functional music, and at its core is a body of music. Finally Walter defines art (Kunstmusik) as for its own sake with compositional complexity and aesthetic requirements. This remark is also valid for the first windmusic oeuvres by mainly English composers. Walter enumerates Holst, Vaughan Williams and Grainger among those composing art for band often based on folksongs. Walter's book has an intelligible structure with an emphasis on these four aspects: music, folksy music, military music, and art music, all in relation to music, which it discusses from different points of view. …

Pinomäen ajat

This article examines a group of Swedish houses in Pinomäki district in Pori built during the reconstruction period which followed the Winter War (1939 – 1940) and the Continuation War (1941 – 1944; Second World War). The purpose of the article is to explore the research work on built cultural environment from the point of view of resident interviews, and it is aimed at discussing the importance of folkloristics and intangible cultural heritage in the fieldwork concerned with built environment. The folkloristic approach has not traditionally been combined with cultural heritage research. However, in this article the starting point is that especially in building inventories, which are compiled for the purpose of acting as background reports for zoning, the folkloristic perspectives are related to space through the narrative elements therein. As part of the building inventories, resident interviews are conducted, in which the residents inform the researcher about modifications and repairs made in the building. When buildings are described, they do not appear as a separate physical phenomenon, but various life events are integrated into the stories. Based on these stories, the researchers focus on picking out information that is related to living and building use. Through this information, concrete connections can be found to the area and to the historical events which have shaped it. The stories told by residents are especially essential in cases where no other information is available on the area. When it comes to the reconstruction period, the importance of intangible cultural heritage as well as the stories told by the residents are significant, because the residential areas are rather similar to each other in appearance and their interpretation methods have become stereotypical. The present and former residents of Pinomäki district in Pori provided a significant amount of new information about the construction and the occupation of the area, which has not been written down before. Thus it is important to increasingly evaluate the significance of building inventories and to aim at developing a method to comprehend more widely the crucial role that the intangible cultural heritage has in cultural environmental processes.

Practice Theory in Folklore and Folklife Studies

Since the 1960s, folkloristic approaches in North America and Europe have been thematised with the keywords of performance and practice, respectively. Although the orientations built around the keywords share a concern for conceptualising folklore as a type of expressive action, significant theoretical differences are apparent. Arising at a similar juncture in the twentieth century in response to social upheaval, they differ in the use of explanation or generalisation with performance often representing singularity (and emergence) of an event and practice signifying the aggregate (and precedence) of folk behaviour. An evaluation of their trajectories into the twenty-first century suggests the more expansive explanatory potential of practice theory in folklore and folklife studies, particularly if the mission of such studies is oriented toward a "mobile ethnography" of everyday life. Although sharing sociological and anthropological theories of practice advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens, folkloristic ideas of practice focus on cognitive and cultural rationales underlying repeated, variable behaviour and framed activities.

Breakthrough into Comparison: ““Moving”” Stories, Local History, and the Narrative Turn

This article centers on the comparative study of two little stories, an expressive category valorized in recent decades by scholars across the disciplines. As a methodology, comparison has been lauded for its potential to help researchers avoid appropriating expressive culture and pressing it into the service of grand metanarratives or naturalized dichotomies. By bringing together two literally emplaced narratives—one from Adams County, Ohio, and the other from Kelibia, Tunisia—we hope to begin a conversation about what such a comparative methodology might look like and how it might achieve these ends. Examining the poetics and performance of these tales, we explore how both narrators resist conceptual abstractions such as nation and modernity; in the process, we evaluate folkloristic approaches to petits recits and compare them with those extant in studies of literature and the human sciences.

Folkloristic Approach on Unification Culture of North and South Korea

Folkloristic Approach on Unification Culture of North and South Korea

Spectacular Reproduction

Ron Harris captured the popular imagination in October 1999 with a website where he auctioned off the ova of fashion models to the highest bidder. This article treats the controversy surrounding Harris' site within a dual frame of critical theory's approach to reproduction and a folkloristic approach to discourse. The website fuses traditional narrative motifs and structures with the logic of advertising, seventies television, family-values rhetoric, and the fertility industry. I argue that the great attraction of ronsangels.com is that it put into relief the intervention of mechanical reproduction in human fertility together with the state of genetics at the turn of the 21st century. The result is not only a disconcerting aestheticization and commodification of biological reproduction, but also the biological reproduction of a particular aesthetic and moral code--a generation of reality by model.

Langston Hughes and the Blues (review)

Reviewed by: Langston Hughes and the Blues Kevin Eyster Langston Hughes and the Blues. By Steven C. Tracy. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 305, introduction to the paperback edition, introduction, notes, bibliography, discography, indexes.) The release of the first paperback edition of Steven C. Tracy's Langston Hughes and the Blues, originally published in 1988, coincided with Hughes's one hundredth birthday on February 1, 2002. In this book Steven Tracy, himself a talented blues musician and the author of many contributions to blues scholarship, explores Hughes's appropriation of blues forms and themes in his poetry throughout his literary career. Though he does not make it explicit, Tracy is indebted in his literary folkloristic approach to Alan Dundes's emphasis on identification and interpretation when analyzing folk and literary genres. The significant addition to the 2001 edition is the new introduction. Tracy reflects on the responses of initial reviewers, notes recent publications on the blues and on Hughes, and praises the rise in popularity of the blues in the United States during the past decade. Tracy also lists websites where blues music in all of its styles and forms is now available on compact discs rather than LP records; readers more familiar with Hughes than the blues will find this list especially useful. The rest of the book comprises endnotes, bibliography, discography, the original introduction, and three chapters that place poet and genre in historical, cultural, literary, and musical contexts. One strength of the book is the extensive endnotes, forty-three pages in all, which are "meant to take the reader back to the source, the elemental realm of the blues tradition that inspired Hughes, frequently by providing sources for the great recordings of blues performers who do not need but deserve our attention" (p. x). In the first chapter, "Folklore and the Harlem Renaissance," Tracy draws on Dundes and Barre Toelken for functional definitions of folklore and relates them to the rise of the blues as marketable music during the 1920s. Tracy explores the attitudes of Harlem Renaissance intellectuals toward folk materials, dividing them into "the Old Guard and the New" (p. 17). Among the "Old Guard" triumvirate of W. E. B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, and Alain Locke, it was Johnson's understanding of folk music in particular that had the most influence on Hughes in his literary uses of the blues. Tracy places Hughes in the "New Guard" with Sterling Brown and Zora Neale Hurston, who understood the folk and their lore and championed both more readily than their predecessors. In chapter 2, "Defining the Blues," Tracy effectively explains the complexity of the blues. Acknowledging that "there are many different types of blues" (p. 49), he offers an insightful overview of previous studies of the genre. He juxtaposes multiple definitions with singers and their songs performed and recorded over time in various settings. As a blues purist, Tracy favors the indigenous nature of the folk blues while accepting the inevitable commercialization and urbanization of popular blues forms. Tracy states that Hughes "wished to be 'authentic'" in his use of the blues, "though he knew he wanted his poems to do more than he felt his sources did" (p. 45). Less concerned with the African and European influences on the development of the blues, Hughes was more interested in the blues as an American art form. [End Page 491] In chapter 3, "Creating the Blues," Tracy delineates the characteristics of the musical composition of twelve-bar and eight-bar blues stanzas, making fruitful comparisons between blues performances and Hughes's lyrics. He correctly asserts that there is no substitute for partaking of a blues performance or listening to recordings of blues songs and that "there has been no system of musical notation devised that totally captures the blues as they are performed" (p. 145). Nevertheless, Tracy's own line and stanzaic transcriptions are effective. In addition, he offers cogent close readings of Hughes's ethnopoetical and typographical renderings of blueslike songs as poems. In conclusion, he shows how Hughes's uses of the blues in such earlier collections of his poetry as Fine Clothes to the Jew (Knopf, 1927) and Shakespeare in Harlem (Knopf...

Creating a Seto Epic

In this study I explore the collaborative framework in which this text was produced, probing the circumstances and individual relations as well as representational agencies involved. The analysis applies an interdisciplinary anthropological and folkloristic approach, informed by hybridity and the blurring of disciplinary boundaries in historicizing inquiries into cultural documentation and textual practices.

Plum and bamboo: China's Suzhou chantefable tradition

In the cities of the Yangzi River delta region of China, audiences sip tea in story houses while storytellers speak and sing stories accompanied by stringed instruments. The stories unfold week after week, usually revolving around a love intrigue. Plum and Bamboo is a thorough introduction to this enchanting oral narrative tradition that still flourishes in Shanghai and in Suzhou, an ancient known as the city of gardens. Storytelling in China was once a major art form that rivaled opera and other performance genres. The Suzhou chantefable of today is a rich, local tradition and one of the most viable storytelling traditions in the world, with hundreds of active storytellers in the Yangzi delta region. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and an appreciation of the Chinese art, Mark Bender utilizes a folkloristic approach to provide an overview of the tradition, focusing on the contextualized performance of narrative. In addition to supplying historical and contextual background, the book examines how oral territory is opened and explored in performance. Plum and Bamboo also features an in-depth exploration of a performance transcript of the Meng Lijun story and interlinear commentary by the storytellers; four appendixes including outlines of traditional stories, some of which are synopsized here for the first time in English; and a romanized transcript of a portion of a performance in Suzhou dialect.

Folkloristic Approaches in Library and Information Science

Folkloristic Approaches in Library and Information Science

“Folkloristic approaches in library and information science”20008Betsy Hearne (Ed.). “Folkloristic approaches in library and information science”. Library Trends, Vol. 47 No. 3, Winter 1999. 341‐604 pp. $18.50

“Folkloristic approaches in library and information science”20008Betsy Hearne (Ed.). <i>“Folkloristic approaches in library and information science”</i>. Library Trends, Vol. 47 No. 3, Winter 1999. 341‐604 pp. $18.50