Journal Archives:

Issue 6 June 2002

Special Monograph Issue

This article contains some content of a graphic and disturbing nature and is intended for mature readers. Scholars of high school age or younger are invited to read the article A Model for Collecting and Interpreting: World Trade Center Disaster Jokes by the same author.

• Making a Big Apple Crumble:
  The Role of Humor in Constructing a Global Response to Disaster
  by Bill Ellis
  • Chapter One: Introduction.
    Page 1 :: Page 2
  
  
  • Chapter Two: The Latent Period
    Page 3
  
  
  • Chapter Three: The First American Wave
    Page 4 :: Page 5
  
  
  • Chapter Four: The British Wave
    Page 6 :: Page 7
  
  
  • Chapter Five: The Second American Wave
    Page 8 :: Page 9 :: Page 10
  
  
  • Chapter Six: The Move to Closure
    Page 11 :: Page 12
  
  
  • Chapter Seven: Conclusion
    Page 13
  
  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articles

• A Model for Collecting and Interpreting
  World Trade Center Disaster Jokes.
  By Bill Ellis

  A model for predicting the timing and nature of disaster jokes. Watch next issue for part 2, in which events are analyze on the basis of the model's projections.

• Spontaneous Shrines: A Modern Response to Tragedy and Disaster
  Update note: 3/1/02
  By Sylvia Grider
  

  Preliminary Observations Regarding the Spontaneous Shrines Following the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. An examination of the creation, iconography, and documentation, of spontaneous shrines at the sites of disasters and violence, with particular attention to the World Trade Center disaster

Notes

• Despatches from Lower Manhattan .
  By Constance Ash

  A journal of the disaster zone, NYC

• A Supplemental Update to: Unprintable Reactions to All the News That's Fit to Print: Topical Humor and the Media .
  By Joseph P. Goodwin

  As a contextual referent to the study of topical humor, the author has updated his 1989 article which we reprint with permission from Southern Folklore 46:1 (1989), pp. 15-39. The reader is advised to read the original article first. Warning: Some people with find this material troubling, some offensive, and others in bad taste. Nevertheless, it is important that we document and study these cultural responses to disaster. Please consider your own sensibilities

Articles

• Children's Folklore, Children's Brains.
  By Jay Mechling

  An over view of cognitive theory demonstrating the importance of children's folklore to children's cognitive development.

• Knowledge Management and the Creation of Affecting Works
  By Karen Dietz
  

  A folkloristic case study of the creative culture of an entertainment industry giant.
  Part 1 Part 2

• Pilgrimage as Performance: Ste. Ann de Beaupre.
  By Lydia Fish

  The performative aspects of devotions at pilgrimage sites are examined. Return in December for photo essay to accompany this article

• Inventing and Invoking Tradition in Holocaust Memorials
  By Simon Bronner

  The creation of meaning in holocaust memorials.

Reviews

• The Mining Company: Ancient/Classical History.
  By Lynn Gelfand

  The Mining Company mines the web for ancient history.

• The Old Town School of Folk Music.
  By John Cash

  The Old Town School of Folk MusicWebsite of a Chicago folkmusic institution

Articles

• Let's Get Physical: A Quantum Look at the Queer Space-Time Continuum.
  By Joseph P. Goodwin

  An examination of the metaphors of Quantum Physics for Queer Theory



• Folklore and the Rise of Moderation Among Organized Skeptics.
  By Stephanie A. Hall

  A preliminary study of organized Skepticism in its move toward moderation.



• International Folk Dance in Canberra, Australia.
  ByGillian Polack
  

  An overview of the phenomenon of folk dancing in non-ethnic communities in Canberra, Australia.

• A Seeker's Guide to Modern Witchcraft and Paganism
  By Anne Lafferty
  

  An overview for the lay person interested in Witchraft and Paganism in America today. Of particular interest to the young seeker and the family and friends of Witches and Pagans.
  

• "Don't Dream It, Be It": The Rocky Horror Picture Show as Cultural Performance
  By Liz Locke
  

  An analysis of audience participation-response to the cult film as ritual community building based on popular culture.
  Part one | Part 2 | Part 3
  

• The Goth Explosion in Science Fiction Culture
  By Camille Bacon-Smith
  

  An ethnographic examination of the rise of goth culture in the science fiction community.
  part 1 | part 2
  

• Haunted Worlds: Narrative, Ritual, and Carnival in Gothic Role-Playing Games
  By Lynn Gelfand
  

  An examination of the phenomenon that joins two popular culture favorites--Role Playing Games and Vampire fiction with a Goth sensibility producing a performance of culture for its participants.
  Part 1|Part 2
  

Notes

A Letter from Littleton By MB & SB (mother and son)

Some post-tragedy comments from Colorado

Revisiting Myself I: Observations by JK ( Art by D)

Feelings in the gothic sensibility. (The writer is now a successful college graduate and doctoral student in folklore. The Artist is now a successful college graduate and professional graphic designer.)

Revisiting Myself II: Poem by JK (Art by D)

Verse in the gothic sensibility.

Latchkey Diary: A Crisis in Images

As directed by the young artist, no name or explanation/analysis of the drawings are given. The artist is now a successful designer.

Littleton to Belgrade: Keywords by JZ ( Art by D)

Bitter days. The author is a Chinese graduate student living in America. See above for artist.

Littleton to Belgrade: Responses by JZ ( Art by D)

Readers add to the Keywords.

Articles

• Editorial: Folklore and Communications: A Special Issue
  By Camille Bacon-Smith, editor
  

  Folklore as a discipline has a lot to offer other fields. In this issue, we are happy to demonstrate that fact with a series of articles that address issues of Communication and Folklore

• Folklore and the Comic Book:
  The Traditional Meets the Popular
  By Amanda Carson Banks and Elizabeth E. Wein
  

  A discussion of traditional folkloric archetypes used to creative effect in contemporary comic books such as HellBlazer and Sandman
  part 1 | part 2

• Consider the Source:
  Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief
  By Tyrone Yarbrough
  

  A discussion of modern conspiracy theories, including the death of Princess Diana, that first debunks the debunkers and then examines the phenomenon in terms of belief and worldview.
  Part 1 | Part 2 | part 3 | part4 | part 5

• Something Rich and Strange:
  Technologies of the Sacred in Glassie and Greenaway
  By Liz Locke
  

  A discussion of Romantic Folklore and Postmodernism testing the categorical limits on folk art imposed in Henry Glassie's The Spirit of Folk Art with an analysis of Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books.
  part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Articles

• Guest Editorial: Papa Boas's Children
  or The Road to the Center of Folklore: A Folk History
  By Stephanie A. Hall, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
  

  An editorial in response to the Manifesto . Talks about life on the fringes--of the discipline, of the culture, and makes a plea: to survive, Folklore as a discipline has to move past survivalism.

• Cultural Diversity, Alternative Medicine & Folk Medicine
  By David Hufford, University of Pennsylvania and Hershey Medical Center
  

  The implications of cultural diversity on the praction of medicine, with an explanation of how the regulatory practices in medicine have suppressed traditional medical systems of ethnic populations.

• Pomofemmes Strike Back
  By Camille Bacon-Smith, Temple University.

  A performance paper. Combines ethnography of the science fiction publishing industry with some discussion of postmodern application of folkloric archetypes in hi-tech landscapes of the arts.

• Face Value: A concept of Face in African-American Culture
  By Tyrone Yarbrough

  A discussion of the African roots of African-American gestures and face--saving it, challenging it, and conceptualizing it.
  Part 1 | Part 2