Dear Reader,
In this issue Folklore Forum is pleased to present, after some delay, proceedings from the third annual collaborative conference between the Indiana University Folklore and Ethnomusicology Student Associations and The Ohio State University Folklore Student Association. The 2010 conference was held April 2-3, 2010 at The Ohio State University in the brand new Ohio Union. Drawing students from universities as diverse as Arizona State University, the Eastman School of Music, and University of Jyväskylä in Finland as well as the two schools involved in planning the conference, the 2010 conference focused on the theme of contact. Diane Goldstein delivered the keynote address “The Power of the Personal: Appropriation and the Narrative Gaze.”
Participants in the IU/OSU graduate student conference have often remarked on the productive discussions produced through the small size of the conference and the high caliber of the work presented. We hope that this third issue highlighting the conference will help to continue those discussions.
The IU/OSU conference always features a lively poster session. Timon Kaple’s poster “Cowboy Tourism: Performing Southern Masculinity and Authenticity” is presented here along with an extended abstract; we hope that Folklore Forum’s ability to present such visual media will help to facilitate the same kinds of conversations which take place during these poster sessions. The winner of the prize for best poster, Mary Mesteller’s “Variation of Manufactured Folk Drama: A Case Study on the House of Prayer Hell House in Elletsville, Indiana” is presented here in article form. Mesteller examines Hell Houses through the lens of folk drama while showing how one particular Hell House has shaped the basic form to suit its community.
Jeremy Stoll’s “Rama for Beginners: Narratives of Heroic Indian Comic Books” analyzes the use of traditional narrative in Indian comic books. Stoll argues that the figure of Rama is transformed into a contemporary hero in a way which simultaneously addresses contemporary issues and affirms traditional worldview. Suzanne Barber’s “Negotiating a Shire: The Transformation of Local Values in the Society for Creative Anachronism” is a fieldwork based article discussing the creation of aesthetic coherence in a particular Shire of the Society for Creative Anachronism are reflected in multiple genres of folklore. Her article also makes use of Folklore Forum’s online format by incorporating images from her fieldwork.
As always, we invite our readers to continue the dialogue on these articles using the tools available thanks to our publication format.
Kristina Downs
Editor, Folklore Forum
Folklore Forum 