Encyclopedia of American Folklife

Encyclopedia of American Folklife
Author: Simon J Bronner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1469
Release: 2015-03-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317471954

American folklife is steeped in world cultures, or invented as new culture, always evolving, yet often practiced as it was created many years or even centuries ago. This fascinating encyclopedia explores the rich and varied cultural traditions of folklife in America - from barn raisings to the Internet, tattoos, and Zydeco - through expressions that include ritual, custom, crafts, architecture, food, clothing, and art. Featuring more than 350 A-Z entries, "Encyclopedia of American Folklife" is wide-ranging and inclusive. Entries cover major cities and urban centers; new and established immigrant groups as well as native Americans; American territories, such as Guam and Samoa; major issues, such as education and intellectual property; and expressions of material culture, such as homes, dress, food, and crafts. This encyclopedia covers notable folklife areas as well as general regional categories. It addresses religious groups (reflecting diversity within groups such as the Amish and the Jews), age groups (both old age and youth gangs), and contemporary folk groups (skateboarders and psychobillies) - placing all of them in the vivid tapestry of folklife in America. In addition, this resource offers useful insights on folklife concepts through entries such as "community and group" and "tradition and culture." The set also features complete indexes in each volume, as well as a bibliography for further research.

American Folklore

American Folklore
Author: Jan Harold Brunvand
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 812
Release: 2006-05-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135578788

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

Toward a Sound Ecology

Toward a Sound Ecology
Author: Jeff Todd Titon
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 025305236X

How does sound ecology—an acoustic connective tissue among communities—also become a basis for a healthy economy and a just community? Jeff Todd Titon's lived experiences shed light on the power of song, the ecology of musical cultures, and even cultural sustainability and resilience. In Toward a Sound Ecology, Titon's collected essays address his growing concerns with people making music, holistic ecological approaches to music, and sacred transformations of sound. Titon also demonstrates how to conduct socially responsible fieldwork and compose engaging and accessible ethnography that speaks to a diverse readership. Toward a Sound Ecology is an anthology of Titon's key writings, which are situated chronologically within three particular areas of interest: fieldwork, cultural and musical sustainability, and sound ecology. According to Titon—a foundational figure in folklore and ethnomusicology—a re-orientation away from a world of texts and objects and toward a world of sound connections will reveal the basis of a universal kinship.

Public Folklore

Public Folklore
Author: Robert Baron
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2010-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1604733160

A landmark volume exploring the public presentation and application of folk culture in collaboration with communities, Public Folklore is available again with a new introduction discussing recent trends and scholarship. Editors Robert Baron and Nick Spitzer provide theoretical framing to contributions from leaders of major American folklife programs and preeminent folklore scholars, including Roger D. Abrahams, Robert Cantwell, Gerald L. Davis, Archie Green, Bess Lomax Hawes, Richard Kurin, Daniel Sheehy, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Their essays present vivid accounts of public folklore practice in a wide range of settings—nineteenth-century world's fairs and minstrel shows, festivals, museums, international cultural exchange programs, concert stages, universities, and hospitals. Drawing from case studies, historical analyses, and their own experiences as advocates, field researchers, and presenters, the essayists recast the history of folklore in terms of public practice, while discussing standards for presentation to new audiences. They approach engagement with tradition bearers as requiring collaboration and dialogue. They critically examine who has the authority to represent folk culture, the ideologies informing these representations, and the effect upon folk artists of encountering revived and new audiences within and beyond their own communities. In discussions of the relationship between public practice and the academy, this volume also offers new models for integrating public folklore training within graduate studies.

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
Author: Ellen Koskoff
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 2651
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351544144

This volume makes available the full range of the American/Canadian musical experience, covering-for the first time in print-all major regions, ethnic groups, and traditional and popular contexts. From musical comedy to world beat, from the songs of the Arctic to rap and house music, from Hispanic Texas to the Chinese communities of Vancouver, the coverage captures the rich diversity and continuities of the vibrant music we hear around us. Special attention is paid to recent immigrant groups, to Native American traditions, and to such socio-musical topics as class, race, gender, religion, government policy, media, and technology.

Finnish Folk Poetry and the Kalevala

Finnish Folk Poetry and the Kalevala
Author: Thomas A. DuBois
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2022-02-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317945999

Since its initial publication in the early nineteenth century, Elias Lonnrot’s Finnish epic Kalevala has attracted international interest and scholarship. However, the author comments that the distorting lenses of translation, cultural difference and historical distance, have rendered the work a cryptic and often misinterpreted text outside of its country of origin. Even within Finland, scholars have found it difficult at times to judge the relation of the Kalevala to its oral sources. Lonnrot’s meticulous notes and discussions of intent and accomplishment make clear what he changed and how he went about it, but give us less inkling of why. This study's view is that the key to understanding Lonnrot’s changes lies in Romantic aesthetics and in the intellectual and socio-political agendas which they encode. Lonnrot created a Romantic epic out of Baltic-Finnic folk poetry, an epic complete with the narrative, generic, gendered and political characteristics of literary epics in nineteenth century’ Europe.