March Madness of Folklore Books

Not that many books coming out this month - but it's all about the quality and not the quantity here at The New Vernacular Culture! Might even have time to catch up on the reading!

• The Glens of Antrim: Their Folklore and History - Michael Sheane.
• Traveler's Accounts as Source Material for Irish Historians - C. J. Woods. Maynooth Research Guided for Irish Local History.
• Georgia Through Its Folktales - Michael Berman. The country Georgia, not the state.
• Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature - John D. Niles. This paperback is going on my wishlist!
• Lore of an Adirondack County - Edith E. Cutting. You have to sit in an Adirondack chair to read this.
• Mysterious Celtic Mythology in American Folklore - Bob Curran.
• Legends and Folktales: Eighteen Fairy Tales from Romania - Mite Kremnitz. From the nineteenth-Century German collector.
• The Oral Tradition of the Baganda of Uganda: A Study and Anthology of Legends, Myths, Epigrams and Folktales - Immaculate N. Kizza.
• Legends and Landscape: Plenary Papers from the 5th Celtic-Nordic-Baltic Folklore Symposium, Reykavik 2005 - edited by Terry Gunnell.
• Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China - David Johnson. Harvard East Asia Monographs.

Folklore in the News

• Pictured above is Dr. George Lewis, Texas folklorist and English professor who recently passed away. Fitting tribute from one of his students.
• Fr Pavel Stefanov of Shoumen University in Bulgaria reviews the book Ariadne's Thread.
• A long, interesting and ancient (already in it's tenth year!) thread on the song Lakes of Ponchartrain. Also from Mudcat, a discussion the song Down in the Willow Garden.
• Mental Floss has a brief gloss on the practice of bloodstopping through bible verse.
• I can not overstate how much of an influence Chuck Perdue was on my work and my graduate school life, I am saddened to hear of his passing. I am proud to have his signature on my dissertation. Look for a more full posting about his influence on my approach to folklore (I stole the title of this blog from him)!
• Speaking of Chuck's legacy, check out the Virginia Archive of Traditional Culture, named after Chuck and Nan Perdue's sons: Kevin and Kelly.
• The American Folklore Society annual meeting is in Nashville this year in October, here's an invite.
• Report on the project Folktales and Facets by Kathryn La Barre & Carol Tilley at the University of Illinois.

What's Going On in the Folklore-o-verse?

Folklore just keeps on happening all around us!

• The Crooked Road heritage music trail in Virginia has been named a distinctive destination by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
• A transcription of a radio program broadcast in China about the Lomaxes. (in English)
• Paul Wagner - a c-villain and documentarian interested in folklore and American culture - has a new film about thoroughbred horses in Kentucky.
• Musings by The Embodied Movement about distress and some of it's pertinence to folklore.
• More urban legends about the Super Bowl. Who dat?
• I can watch videos of pretty Russian women singing all day long.
• Another weird list of phrases with the word folklore in 'em!
• Dark Raven has some lovely pix of Russian woodwork on his blog.
• When folklore and fantasy/romance novels collide.
• An interesting message-board convo on what it means to be a contemporary slavic pagan.
• Ok, about halfway through this rather amateurish video about the Domovoi, a message popped up: "If you would like to hear more about the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party go to www.nazi.org." A true WTF!!!!! moment.
• That crazy video did get me to this amazing video of Traditional Slavic Beauty.

It's Friday - Folklore Friday!

In an odd twist of fate, Folklore Friday this week actually falls on a Friday. Good times, good times.

• The American Folklife Center announces the Parsons Fund Award - you have until March 12th to apply for the grant!
• Molly's Country Memories discuss an example of American Folk Art I have yet to encounter: the bottle tree.
• Steve Vockrodt ties folklore studies into the Super Bowl. Who Dat?
• If you find yourself in Tarpon Springs, Florida, next week, give a visit to a talk from a contributor to the WPA Florida Writer's Project, Stetson Kennedy.
• Long bio of Zora Neale Hurston.
• Great collection of myths associated with the Super Bowl.
• Again, don't know if this is legal, but a pdf edition of Dundes' Interpreting Folklore.
• A long list of phrases with the word folklore in 'em. I have no idea what this means or where it is from - it reminds me a bit of the yankee foxtrot hotel radio stations.
• Only eight years late - but Google has alerted me to the passing of Lauri Honko in 2002.
• Introducing Alex Enkerli - linguist, anthropologist & folklorist.
• Texas Devil in Russia visited Mandrogi - a Russian mix of Storyland and Sturbridge Village - and was left unimpressed.
• Angry Russian explains Maslenitsa.
• Every few years someone writes an article or book about dying languages. Here's this year's article.
• Abstract for an article about the Chudes in Norwegian and Russian folklore.

February Folklore New Releases

A bunch of interesting titles are coming out this month - we should try for twenty-eight titles in twenty-eight days!

• Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay: A Case Study in Local Folklore - David Waldron & Christopher Reeve. Amazon has no information on this title, but I doubt it was written by Superman.
• Narrative and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories - Gregory Currie. Narrative study from a philosopher's point-of-view.
• A Concise Companion to Postcolonial Literature - edited by Shirley Chew and David Richards. Part of the series "Concise Companions to Literature and Culture."
• The Hausa of Nigeria - Frank Salamone.
• The Renaissance Literature Handbook - edited by Susan Bruce and Rebecca Steinberger. Part of the series "Literature and Culture Handbooks."
• Warlpiri Dreamings and History: Newly Recorded Stories from the Aboriginal Elders of Central Australia - Peggy Rockman Napaljarri and Lee Cataldi. Part of the "Sacred Literature Trust Series."
• The 1926 Miner's Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield - Hester Barron. From "Oxford Historical Monographs."
• Sacred Play: Levity and Humor in South Asian Religions - edited by Selva J. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey.
• Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology - Jennifer K. Stuller.
• Islam, Politics, Anthropology - edited by Filippo Osella and Benjamin Soares.
• The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, 30th Anniversary Edition - Michael Taussig.
• Komiks: Comic Art in Russia - Jose Alaniz. Oh yeah, right up my alley.
• Toying With God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls - Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris.

Pholklore Phriday on Saturday

The woman sitting across from in the coffee shop is watching cartoons on her laptop. Why can't I be satisfied just watching cartoons. Instead I delve into the depths and pits of the internetted community oyster-diving for these pearls.

• Google alerts sometimes throws me some material that is older - but interesting nonetheless. Questia has a preview of an article about Joe Magarac. It's behind a paywall - but if you subscribe it's worth a read.
• BCLEAR - that's the Bloomfield College Library Electronic Academic Resource, to those not in the know - has a link to the manuscript collection from the WPA. C'mon Obama, where's our WPA?
• In addition to outlawing cigarettes, the good people of the country of Bhutan is doing it's best to preserve oral lore.
• Not having spent much time in lady's rooms, I appreciate this study of latrinalia at Reed & Oberlin.
• The Director of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival - Diana Parker - is retiring. Congrats on a great job!

Folklorin' On a Wednesday Afternoon

Fueled by coffee and an unrequited love for folklore, I find myself again sitting in a coffee shop in Worcester culling the Internet for interesting folklore tidbits to share with you.

• A Veteran's Group from St. Louis is employing recently returned vets to work with archeological artifacts that would have otherwise been collecting dust in boxes. I hope this program receives continued funding in the future.
• Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Huddie Ledbetter!
• There once was a feral man who lived in Haverhill.
• What is America's favorite singing folklorist up to these days?
• Addicted to Jersey Shore? I refuse to watch - I grew up around self-professed 'guidos' and 'guidettes.' Fordham University press has a list of book recommendations tailored to act as the antidote to Snooki and The Situation's poison, including a book on Italian-American vernacular culture.
• There is a bounty of folk films available for streaming at Folkstreams. Amazing and overwhelming. Just watched a great short film about Cajun fishermen who catch catfish with their bare hands. Date movie!
• The writer may hate the word, but an interesting post about how a word has traveled from African folklore into American sports cliche: the story of mojo.
• Ice dancing is awful, just awful.
• The Russian duo Velena specialize in what they call ethnotronic music: incorporating elements from both folk and electronic.