This first ethnographic study of a folklife festival focuses on festival participants--the dancers, musicians, storytellers, and artisans at a public display of folk culture. These essays investigate the contention by supporters of these events that this form of folkloric representation is as intellectually legitimate as scholarly research.
Since its origins in 1967, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival has gained worldwide recognition as a model for the research and public presentation of living cultural heritage and the advocacy of cultural democracy. Festival curators play a major role in interpreting the Festival's principles and shaping its practices. Curatorial Conversations brings together for the first time in one volume the combined expertise of the Festival's curatorial staff—past and present—in examining the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s representation practices and their critical implications for issues of intangible cultural heritage policy, competing globalisms, cultural tourism, sustainable development and environment, and cultural pluralism and identity. In the volume, edited by the staff curators Olivia Cadaval, Sojin Kim, and Diana Baird N’Diaye, contributors examine how Festival principles, philosophical underpinnings, and claims have evolved, and address broader debates on cultural representation from their own experience. This book represents the first concerted project by Smithsonian staff curators to examine systematically the Festival’s institutional values as they have evolved over time and to address broader debates on cultural representation based on their own experiences at the Festival.
Drawing on his diverse experiences in producing exhibitions and public programs, the Smithsonian's Richard Kurin challenges culture brokers--museum professionals, filmmakers, journalists, festival producers, scholars, etc.--to reveal more clearly the nature of their interpretations. Kurin discusses the ethical and technical problems faced by anyone charged with representing culture in a public forum. 33 photos.
Knowledge of folk custom and folk belief can help to explain ways of thought and behavior in modern America. American Folklife, a unique collection of essays dedicated to the presentation of American tradition, broadens our understanding of the regional differences and ethnic folkways that color American life. Folklife research examines the entire context of everyday life in past and present. It includes every aspect of traditional life, from regional architecture through the full range of material culture into spiritual culture, folk religion, witchcraft, and other forms of folk belief. This collection is especially useful in its application to American society, where countless influences from European, American Indian, and African cultural backgrounds merge. American Folklife relates folklife research to history, anthropology, cultural geography, architectural history, ethnographic film, folk technology, folk belief, and ethnic tensions in American society. It documents the folk-cultural background that is the root of our society.
Music has always been integral to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, with songs such as Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," J. Cole's "Be Free," D'Angelo and the Vanguard's "The Charade," The Game's "Don't Shoot," Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout," Usher's "Chains," and many others serving as unofficial anthems and soundtracks for members and allies of the movement. In this collection of critical studies, contributors draw from ethnographic research and personal encounters to illustrate how scholarly research of, approaches to, and teaching about the role of music in the Black Lives Matter movement can contribute to public awareness of the social, economic, political, scientific, and other forms of injustices in our society. Each chapter in Black Lives Matter and Music focuses on a particular case study, with the goal to inspire and facilitate productive dialogues among scholars, students, and the communities we study. From nuanced snapshots of how African American musical genres have flourished in different cities and the role of these genres in local activism, to explorations of musical pedagogy on the American college campus, readers will be challenged to think of how activism and social justice work might appear in American higher education and in academic research. Black Lives Matter and Music provokes us to examine how we teach, how we conduct research, and ultimately, how we should think about the ways that black struggle, liberation, and identity have evolved in the United States and around the world.
The Japanese say that ‘folk song is the heart’s home town’. Traditional folk songs (min’yo) from the countryside are strongly linked to their places of origin and continue to play a role there. Today, however, they are also taught as a quasi-art music, arranged for stage and television, quoted in Westernized popular songs and so forth.
Here are more than two hundred oral tales from some of Louisiana's finest storytellers. In this comprehensive volume of great range are transcriptions of narratives in many genres, from diverse voices, and from all regions of the state. Told in settings ranging from the front porch to the festival stage, these tales proclaim the great vitality and variety of Louisiana's oral narrative traditions. Given special focus are Harold Talbert, Lonnie Gray, Bel Abbey, Ben Guiné, and Enola Matthews—whose wealth of imagination, memory, and artistry demonstrates the depth as well as the breadth of the storyteller's craft. For tales told in Cajun and Creole French, Koasati, and Spanish, the editors have supplied both the original language and English translation. To the volume Maida Owens has contributed an overview of Louisiana's folk culture and a survey of folklife studies of various regions of the state. Car Lindahl's introduction and notes discuss the various genres and styles of storytelling common in Louisiana and link them with the worldwide are of the folktale.
