Cultural studies glosses on its terms and definitions YET has managed to become THE hot field. Perhaps folklore's obsession with defining itself down to its shoelaces has been its downfall. While it was/is necessary to create an understanding and establish boundaries for the field, the obsession with defining what is and what is not folklore, in turn limits huge categories and excludes areas as of yet to be conceived.

I remember sitting in class my first semester desperately trying not to roll my eyes as people went around and around and around about "Artistic communication...." "Was this artistic communication, was this? was Joan Baez as folk singer? No, but Mick is. Tom Leherer couldn't be folkloric...." and the professor standing there and ordaining, that is folklore, that isn't folklore, that will be folklore later on. Has the obsession with creating the credentials of a bonafided field of the humanities/social sciences with attendant theory, history, definition, and methodology actually served as the means of folklore's impending doom?

Having fastened on hard and fast to what quickly became outmoded and limiting definitions and techniques, we, as a discipline, are content to believe in folklore for folklore's sake (as viewed through the artistic eyes of Newell and Boaz), rather than compromise, or re-cant earlier pronouncements about the essence of folklore. Folklore suicidally ignores vibrant forms of human expression, that are like flames all around, licking at the foundations of institutionalized folklore. Oh, that was a tirade in true Amanda style!!

Newfolk :: Manifesto :: Responses: Amanda Banks : Bill Ellis : Debora Kodish : Karen Dietz