Folklore Commons^™

Maine Folklife, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, Maine Folklife Center

Maine Folklife Center Newsletter

Once again, folklorist Edward D. Sandy Ives has been recognized by his peers for his outstanding work. This time he received the Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership at the American Folklore Society meetings in New Mexico October, 2003. In presenting the award to Sandy Ives, Lee Haring remarked that he had known both Sandy and Kenny Goldstein for many years. He imagined what Kenny would have said if he'd been told an award was to be given to Sandy. He concluded that Kenny would have shouted, at the top of his lungs, "OF COURSE!"

Jacobite Past, Loyalist Present, Michael Newton

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

This article is the first analysis of Gaelic sources relating to the involvement of Scottish Highlanders in warfare in North America from the opening of the French and Indian War to the end of the American Revolution. A careful reading of these primary sources — almost totally unknown to historians — can provide a unique window on the sentiments and reasoning of Highlanders regarding these conflicts. This analysis of contemporary Gaelic poetry demonstrates that there is a high degree of continuity and consistency in the ideological framework of the lines of political argumentation from the Jacobite era through the end …

Iron Age Chariots And Medieval Texts: A Step Too Far In "Breaking Down Boundaries"?, Raimund Karl

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

Analysing “Celtic” chariots by using Iron Age archaeological material and Early Medieval Irish texts might seem to be more than just one step too far in breaking down boundaries. Considering the huge chronological and geographical gaps between the sources, the objections raised against the concept of “Celticity” by Celtosceptics, and the antinativist school of thought in Irish literature, such an approach might look like outright nonsense to many archaeologists and scholars in medieval literature alike. Using a “functional” method according to the new Viennese approach to Celtic Studies, to allow cross-disciplinary comparison of archaeological, historical, iconographic, legal, linguistic, literary and …

“Becoming Cold-Hearted Like The Gentiles Around Them”: Scottish Gaelic In The United States 1872-1912, Michael Newton

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

Historians have occasionally recognized the presence of Scottish Gaelic-speaking immigrants in the United States, but no previous study has attempted to determine the relationship between the Gaelic-American community and their language in detail. This article makes use of evidence available in contemporary periodicals to examine the attitudes of Scottish Gaels resident in the United States towards their native language from 1872 to 1912, and attempts to assess the efforts made to maintain that language. The failure of Gaelic to thrive in the United States is evident in the lack of development of effective strategies to buttress the language. The evidence …

Young Childrens' Understanding Of Superstitions, Kara Yeckering

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The aim of this study was to examine young children's understanding of superstitions—specifically bad luck superstitions. Children between the ages of 4 and 9 received a set of interview questions concerning their experiences with superstitions, their beliefs about the efficacy of superstitions, and their knowledge of the mental and physical components of superstitions. Participants also completed a belief task designed to assess the relative importance of belief and action in superstitions. The findings indicate developmental patterns in children's awareness of superstitions and beliefs in efficacy of superstitions. With age, children demonstrated a significantly greater awareness of superstitions. In contrast, children …

Narratives Of Cancer Survivors In Religious Life, Andrea Kitta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Narratives of Cancer Survivors in Religions Life is a careful consideration of the narratives of cancer survivors, specifically those in Catholic religious life. Through the use of interviews and secondary sources, the author addresses such issues as relationship with God, stigmatization, community life, Parson's Sick Role, and labeling theories. This thesis also considers the perceived audience during the performance of narratives, specifically, if cancer survivors in religious life perceive God to be a part of their audience and looks at the structure of narratives concerning cancer survivorship.

Breton At A Crossroads: Looking Back, Moving Forward, Lenora A. Timm

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

This paper examines the changing status of the Breton language over time, with particular emphasis on developments in the past century. Diglossic and oppositional relationships with French are discussed, as well as the shift in symbolic value accorded Breton in recent decades, the opposition between neo- and traditional Breton, and prospects for its persistence in the new century and millennium.

Vanishing Point: An Examination Of Some Consequences Of Globalization For Contemporary Irish Film, Sean Crosson

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

In the following article, some films produced with the support of Bord Scannán na hÉireann (The Irish Film Board) since its reconstitution in 1993 are examined in light of the work of global anthropologist Arjun Appadurai and his theory of global cultural flows. I suggest that cinema, primarily of Hollywood origin, has had a notable influence on the development of Irish society and Irish film. Contemporary Irish film itself also reflects the failure of Irish history to excite the imagination of Ireland’s youth as effectively as the seductive depictions of America’s past as mediated through the Western and gangster films. …

Maine Folklife, Vol. 9, Iss. 1, Maine Folklife Center

Maine Folklife Center Newsletter

It may not be the most dignified of nautical customs, but it's certainly one of the oldest and most widely observed. When a vessel approaches the Equator, crew members who are crossing for the first time must appear before King Neptune and his court to demonstrate their worthiness as subjects of the sea. Proof is exacted through tests and punishments that can range from the mildly embarrassing-singing a song or reciting a nonsensical rhyme-to much more grueling treatments: running the gauntlet, tarring and feathering, or crawling through slops. The custom earns the sailor or passenger little more than a certificate …

Reed, Sheryl Diane (Fa 190), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 190. Paper written by Reed entitled, "The War at Home" (17 p.), based on interviews with various Bowling Green, Kentucky individuals about the effects of World War II on them and the home front. Also includes cassette tapes (4) and transcriptions (3).

Common Origins/"Different" Identities In Two Kaqchikel Maya Towns, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Kaqchikel Maya residents of San Antonio Aguas Calientes and Santa Catarina Barahona (neighboring towns in Guatemala) tell the same origin story. This story is used to root historically their concepts of collective identity and community. However, residents in each town hold that those in the other town have no real claim to the story. Both towns can equally claim this origin story, but the debate between residents of these towns offers an opportunity to discuss how the meaning of place is related to the historical and ethnographic contexts of which that place's residents are part. By weighing the story and …

"An Outsider's View Of Modern Ireland: Michel Houellebecq's Atomised", Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Flowering Thorn, Thomas A. Mckean

All USU Press Publications

The flowering thorn expresses the dual nature of the ballad: at once a distinctive expression of European tradition, but also somewhat tricky to approach from a scholarly perspective, requiring a range of disciplines to illuminate its rich composition. Most of this latter quality has to do with the very features that characterize ballads... or narrative songs. These include an appearance of fragmentation; a wide range of cultural and social referents; complex, evocative symbolic language; and variation. The notable multiformity of meaning, text and tune is mirrored in scholarship, too. The Flowering Thorn is therefore wide ranging, with articles written by …

Of Corpse, Peter Narvaez

All USU Press Publications

Laughter, contemporary theory suggests, is often aggressive in some manner and may be prompted by a sudden perception of incongruity combined with memories of past emotional experience. Given this importance of the past to our recognition of the comic, it follows that some "traditions" dispose us to ludic responses. The studies in Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture examine specific interactions of text (jokes, poetry, epitaphs, iconography, film drama) and social context (wakes, festivals, disasters) that shape and generate laughter. Uniquely, however, the essays here peruse a remarkable paradox-the convergence of death and humor.

Two studies …

Galway Arts Festival, 2003: Focusing On Home, Still Delighting, Christie L. Fox

English Faculty Publications

For twenty-six years the Galway Arts Festival has “morphed” the city of Galway into its natural logical conclusion: the city already boasts a young, artistic community, but for two weeks each summer, the festival brings the spotlight and the crowds to Galway for a celebration of the arts. Of late, however, the festival has suffered from decreased government expenditures on the arts—as have all the arts in Ireland. Recent festivals have been far more subdued than the extravagant Millennial Festival in 1999, during which the city teemed with outdoor events and more than one hundred thousand people gathered to watch …

Creating Community: Macnas’S Galway Arts Festival Parade, 2000, Christie L. Fox

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.