Maybe I didn't make clear exactly how I was addressing the issue of the Manifesto. I'll try again.

The Manifesto blames the present malaise of folkloristics on a group of "Old Boys" who are "bitter selfish, complacent careerists who seem intent on choking the life out of a potentially vital discipline" or (alternately) "seem intent on sucking the life out of a once vital field." They do this by expressing hostility to students and discouraging them, "overtly and covertly," from studying contemporary culture. One of the most significant ways that they do this is by applying an "intolerant, dated, backward, inflexible definition of folklore." As a result, it becomes harder and harder to refute the claim of those outside our discipline that folklore is a marginal field that makes "no significant contribution to their departments."

Most of this is simplistic and phrased in what I have called a "victimization narrative." One can substitute the name of virtually any folklorist in the "Old Boys" slot; alternatively, one can champion the same names as being exceptions to the rule. Significantly, others' postings have praised some of the folklorists who have, in my experience, shown a "taxonomic" indifference or hostility to the work I and others have done in contemporary folklore.

This simply shows that scholars are human: they like some people's research, dislike others. Likewise, those of us who have been discussing contemporary culture are also human: sometimes we're hot; sometimes we're turgid. Implying that the Old Boys are "intent on sucking the life out of a once vital field" turns fallible academics into pasteboard Draculas that everyone can freely hate and frames us as victimized heroes and heroines who can only succeed by staking those Draculas in the heart.

I asked what definition of folklore was being questioned. Neither definition that I use in my classes seems inflexible or intolerant. So far as I can see from scanning the responses, this question seems not to have been answered.

I also asked how true it was that people outside of folklore *always* dismiss research into contemporary culture as trivial and marginal. While I've met this reaction at times, I've also been heartened by the growing use of folklore research in sociology and religious studies. People outside of folkloristics seem rather interested rather than the contrary: I even got compliments when I gave a paper on the "Bosom Serpent" legend to the very, very conservative Hawthorne Society last summer.

And I thought that it would be more constructive to blame the poor job market for folklorists on broader, more economically-focused reasons, not the malice of a cadre of "Old Boys." The answer to the job situation probably lies in training grad. students to be smarter infiltrators of departments, not in registering complaints about NAME DELETEDs.

Meantime, there is no harm in networking, so long as we don't become fixated on "ain't it awful" complaints and work toward to some result. The electronic journal is a good idea, but I think probably limited in influence. What I'd like to see is a good undergraduate textbook that could be used by a Folklorist (TM), an English person with folklore interests, or by the increasing numbers of instructors teaching multicultural courses. Having that in hand would go a long way toward curing the eye glaze and pontifical ignorance that we do occasionally meet in the academy.

Hope this clarifies my position and makes it clear how I am addressing Yarbrough's Manifesto.

BE Bill Ellis Associate Professor, English and American Studies
President, International Society for Contemporary Legend Research
Highacres, Penn State University--Hazleton, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291
Voicemail: 717-450-3026
FAX: 717-450-3182
Home page: http://www.hn.psu.edu/faculty/bellis/