Between October 12-15, more than 700 scholars from around the world convened at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus to explore the theme “Peace, War, Folklore.” Representatives from IU Press and the Journal of Folklore Research (JFR) were on hand to greet members of the American Folklore Society during the society’s 2011 Annual Meeting.
At panels and plenaries, meeting participants discussed the ways individuals and communities use expressive culture to protest inequities, mediate trauma, or resolve conflict. And in the book room, attendees browsed past issues of the journal, which has regularly explored how people make war and peace. Relevant articles in recent decades include:
· “The Role of Oral Traditions in the War of National Liberation in Zimbabwe: Preliminary Observations” (Emmanuel Chiwome, JFR Vol. 27, No. 3, 1990)
· “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers and the Culture of Conflict” (Jeff Ferrell, JFR Vol. 28, No. 2/3, Special Double Issue: Labor Song: A Reappraisal, 1991)
· “Palestinian Humor during the Gulf War” (Sharif Kanaana, JFR Vol. 32, No. 1, 1995)
· “World Trade Center Jokes and Their Hungarian Reception” (Lajos Csaszi, JFR Vol. 40, No. 2, 2003)
· “The Traditionalization of Women's Dancing, Hegemony, and Politics in Malawi” (Lisa Gilman, JFR Vol. 41, No. 1, 2004)
· “Narrative in Times of Crisis: AIDS Stories in Ghana” (Kwesi Yankah, JFR Vol. 41, No. 2/3, Special Double Issue: Advocacy Issues in Folklore, 2004)
· “‘Life in the TV’: The Visual Nature of 9/11 Lore and Its Impact on Vernacular Response” (Rosemary V. Hathaway, JFR Vol. 42, No. 1, 2005)
Those who stopped by the IU Press table also got a look at our most recent issue (JFR 48:2, 2011). In this issue, Gregory Schrempp compares the work of Richard Wrangham and Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the process challenging rhetorical tendencies to pit science against traditional wisdom. Two articles investigate cultural performances in Central Asia: Svetlana Adonyeva and Laura J. Olson discuss Russian stories about believed supernatural events (bylichki), suggesting how they help narrators interpret past experience, claim particular social roles in the present, and offer prescriptions for future action; Maureen Pritchard explores the changing contexts and meanings of koshok, a ritualized expression of grief in present-day Kyrgyzstan. Finally, Timo Heimerdinger introduces readers to the Schnullerfee, a fairy that helps wean children from pacifiers in German-speaking areas; Heimerdinger’s article places this current parental strategy for dehabituation in the context of contemporary medicalization discourses.
Many passers-by at the AFS meetings also entered their names into a drawing for a free electronic subscription to the journal. This year’s winners are: Erik A. Aasland, Michael E. Bell, Rebecca Wilso, John Summerlot, and Judith Cohen.
The book room closed Saturday afternoon to make space for the dinner and live music that capped this year’s AFS meeting, but we welcome continued virtual perusal of (and additions to!) the journal’s many offerings. To learn how to contribute to the Journal of Folklore Research, visit www.indiana.edu/~jofr. To subscribe visit http://www.jstor.org/r/iupress.
Figure 1. The dummy tree at the University Hospital Dresden, August 2010. Photo by Norbert Kaiser and made available on Wikipedia via a Creative Commons license.
Journal of Folkore Research 48.2, page 200, "Pacifiers and Fairies," by Timo Heimerdinger
