Abstracts of Papers Presented at PSAC 1998, Ottawa

Abstract of Paper Presented at 1998 IASPM-Canada Conference, "Taste, Texts and Markets," Montreal

Abstract of Paper Presented at 1998 Women's Studies Conference, Ottawa

Folkloric Fiction Reviews

by Niko Silvester

Secret Masses at Midnight: The Legend of the Grotto in Renews, Newfoundland

by Tammy Lawlor

Field Notes

Progress Report

Notables

Folklorists Work in Alberta

John Bodner (MUN). "Space and Place in the Occupation of Tree Planting."
This paper outlines the dual effects of work technique and space as a social construction in the shaping of an occupational folk group. Of central importance is the question of how the tradition (as both a conservative and dynamic force) of tree planting is re-created by young seasonal workers from year to year. It will be argued that the study of occupational groups needs to be broadened beyond considerations of technique to include the study of workers' environment (both that which they create/control and that in which they operate with only a limited degree of agency.) Studying both the skills involved in free planting as the "central shaping principle of an occupation," and the spatial arrangement of the camp in which the tree planters live, addresses issues of innovation, invention, and continuity.

Anna Keamey Guigne (MUN). "Talking About the National Museum and Folksong Research in Newfoundland: "Who is Margaret Sargent Anyway?"
In 1949, having recently graduated from the Toronto Conservatory of Music with a degree in Musicology, Margaret Sargent joined the National Museum of Canada. She worked for two years transcribing material from Marius Barbeau's wax cylinder recordings. During this period, on behalf of The National Museum, in 1950 Sargent also conducted fieldwork in Newfoundland, Canada's newest province. Her work was later taken over by Kenneth Peacock.
Today little is known of Sargent's activities while in the province. Some suggest that she collected very little because she was so inexperienced. Drawing on frrsthand documentation from Sargent as well as correspondence of the period, I examine her motivations for going to ewfoundland and her findings in relation to folklore studies of the period. In so-doing I re-evaluate Sargent's contribution to Folklore Studies in Canada.

Kristin M. Harris (MUN). "The Hazards of the Global Village: An Examination of E-mail Virus Hoaxes as Contemporary Urban Legends."
This paper will examine the phenomenon of the computer e-nail virus hoax as it exists in our technologically entrenched society. With increased and widespread use of the World Wide Web in our lives, concerns about use and misuse of this technology prevail. Buzzwords and symbols such as "global village; "surfing the net" and :) are part of a codified language that has invaded our everyday sensibilities. Thus it is not at all surprising that urban legends about e-mail viruses such as "Penpal Greetings" and "Join the Crew" exist. Along with all the advantages that this advanced technology brings, new fears about dominance and dependence arise. This paper will discuss the use of the word "virus" as a metaphor for the fear of medical viruses that has taken hold of contemporary society, and analyze the ramifications of these contemporary legends on the culture of the Internet.

Mikel S. Koven (MUN). "'You Don't Have to be Filmish': The Toronto Jewish Film Festival."
Are film festivals true festivals as folkiorists understand the term? Some folkiorists shy away from viewing festivals whose focus is popular culture oriented, seeing instead a commercialization factor as replacing the expression of the community itself (Stoelje, 1992, 261-262; Abrahams, 1982, 171). Through this paper, I shall be outlining the many ways in which the Toronto Jewish Film Festival community is indeed a festival, and could even be classified as a "nativistic movement." For here is a festival developed by, run by, and attended by members of the Toronto Jewish community, with the specific affect to be part of a city-wide cultural revival. Film, for this festival, is just the medium of cultural transmission that was chosen.

Lara Maynard (MUN). "The Make-Workers Behind the Label: The Hibernia Offshore Oil Development and Oppositional Newfoundland Identity."
The application of the "make-work" label to the Hibernia Offshore Oil Development and its broader association with Newfoundland has been lamented as being akin to the Newfie joke. This paper relays the comments of Newfoundland workers involved with the Construction phase of the Hibernia offshore platform on the label and then considers how their responses rely on ideas of oppositional identity, including the dichotomies of "have" and "have not" Canadian provinces, and Newfoundland and the "mainland" other.

Neil V, Rosenberg (MUN). "'Following the Swallow': How a Folksong Took Off."
"She's Like the Swallow," a lyric folksong that has been documented from oral tradition only four times since it was first collected in Newfoundland by Maud Karpeles in 1930, is, in spite of its relative rarity in local singing traditions, one of the best-known Newfoundland folksongs in Canada. The reasons for this popularity lie in the ways in which it has been presented in print and on record. After describing the ethnographic data and suggesting a possible "Ur-form", this paper examines the song's media history. Showing how both text and tune of the two variants presented in the media have been recast from their original ethnographic forms for publication, it discusses its art song and folk revival histories. The aesthetic and ideological changes it has undergone are discussed in terms of issues of region and class in the uses of folk song for purposes of symbolic identity.

Contessa Small (MUN). "Words of Wisdom: Accident Narratives in a Pulp and Paper Mill."
In this paper I will discuss occupational accident narratives collected from Corner Brook, Newfoundland pulp and paper mill workers. Relying mosdy on personal experience accident narratives, I will introduce issues related to death, danger, safety and survival in the workplace, and address how mill workers actively and passively participate in accident narration in order to socially and personally deal with these issues. I claim that the abundance of first and second hand accounts of accident narratives not only indicates worker awareness of this potential danger in the workplace, but also points to strategies for handiing this potential. Characteristics and classification of the death narrative, the injury narrative and the close call narrative will also be provided along with illustrations of each type.

Diane Tye (MUN). "'I Could Just Go On and On (and On!)': An Analysis of Annual Christmas Letters."
Writers of annual Christmas letters come from a broad cross section so that their expressions differ markedly in content, structure and language. Authors draw on conventions that range from poetry and religious symbolism to humour and cynicism; messages may be explicitly expressed or coded. Yet in their reporting of physical, social, emotional and spiritual journeys, letters externalize inner challenges and affirm ties to kin and community.

Holly Everett (MUN) "Garage Sales and Ice Cream: Marketing Classical Musk to Popular Audiences in Austin."
KMFA-89.5 FM is a listener-supported, non-profit classical music station broadcasting out of Austin, Texas, a city better known for its popular music (e.g., "Austin City Limits"). Now in its thirtieth year of operation, KMFA has gone from fewer than 100 member/supporters to over 6,500, each of these pledging annual financial support. Throughout its history, the station's board of directors, staff and listeners have wrangled over the station's mission, not to mention the very definition of "classical music." While current programing continues to focus on compositions in the Western classical tradition, it also collapses cultural hierarchy culture/popular culture) by including Broadway show tunes, "traditional" fare by ensembles such as the Chieftains, and orchestral arrangements of songs by groups like The Beatles, in order to capture a broader audience.
In the mid 1990s, KMFA hired a development director to increase not only the station's revenue, but also its public profile. A number of events, including garage sales and old-fashioned ice cream socials, were staged to increase interaction between station personnel and listeners. While, publicly, KMFA pursued a larger share of Austin's radio market, competing with two other public radio stations, internal constructions of the station's mission were crashing and, in many cases, crumbling.

Contessa Small and Diane Tye (MUN). "Playing Out Female Sexuality: An Analysis of Women's Shower Games."
Based on interviews, participant observation, and archival documentation, this paper explores games played at home-based wedding and baby showers held in Newfoundland. Here we argue that games incorporating implicitly sexual talk and joking or the mimicry of sexual acts are a traditional form of female bawdy humour. Relying on folklorist Joan Radner's theory of ferninist coding, we show how shower games not only help bond patty participants but help celebrate.

Newfoundland's Supernatural Landscapes: A Progress Report
by Deva McNeill, MUN

Beginning in the spring of 1997, I've been collecting sacred and supernatural legends and memorates associated with landscape features, both built (bridges, grottos) and natural (barrens, hollows), across Newfoundland. Particular emphasis has been on the areas around the Codroy Valley and on the Southern Shore of the Avalon Peninsula. Fieldwork is being supplemented with material from MUNFLA and historical sources from the nineteenth century. Looking for common features in the stories and the landscapes they are associated with, it is my hope that this work will bring me closer to understanding the interaction between people and the familiar landscapes of home. This research was initiated by my desire to investigate such questions as: why do we feel the way we do about a particular place? What is it about a place that makes us feel uneasy, filled with awe, or safe? Why does one landscape inspire us with its beauty and another fill our hearts with dread?

John Bodner, MUN, has been awarded the 1999 F.A. Aldrich Graduate Award and was the recipient of the David Buchan Graduate Research Award in Folklore for Winter 1999.

Jane Burns, MUN, has been awarded an Institute of Social and Economic Research Doctoral Fellowship for 1998-1999.

Holly Everett, MUN, was named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies and awarded the University Medal for Excellence in Graduate Studies upon convocation.

Paul Gruchy, MUN, was the 1998 recipient of the F.A. Aldrich Graduate Award, the Very Reverend Edward and Marjorie Rusted Harlow Travel Award and the Bowring/Harlow Scholarship.

Kristin Harris, MUN, has been awarded The David Buchan Graduate Research Award in Folklore for winter 1998.

Douglas Jole, MUN, has been awarded an honourable mention from the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research for his submission for the 1999 David Buchan Student Essay Prize, "The Bigfoot Legend: Towards a Diachronic Study of Changing Texts and the Effects of Media on Contemporary Legend."

Mikel Koven, MUN, was named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies.

Lara Maynard, MUN, has been named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies and awarded the Guigne' International Ltd. Graduate Research Award in Folklore and Technology for 1998 and the Women's Association of Memorial University of Newfoundland Graduate Scholarship for 1998.

Cathy Rickey, MUN, received the Mary A. Griffiths Memorial Bursary for Folklore Field Research for 1998-1999 and the Neil Murray Graduate Research Award in Folklore for 1998-1999.

Niko Silvester, MUN, has been named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies.

Ranald Thurgood, MUN, has been named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies.

Wendy Welch, MUN has been awarded the Guigne International Ltd. Graduate Research Award in Folklore and Technology for 1999 and the David Buchan Graduate Research Award in Folklore for fall 1998.

After much blood, sweat and tears (and a few grant applications), the Huculak Chair of Ukranian Culture and Ethnography at the University of Alberta in Edmonton hired four students for the summer of 1998 under the supervision of Dr. Andriy Nahachewsky. The four students worked on a variety of projects. Linda Jendzjowsky and Roman Tarnowsky had the huge task of pulling together the incomplete catalogue of some 20,000 books, manuscripts, cassettes, videos, photographs and artifacts that comprise the Ukranian Folklore Archive. Rita Dirks worked on refurbishing a manuscript of the memoirs of Peter Svarich towards publication. Jason Galinowski, an MA student in the Ukranian Folklore Program, conducted interviews and gathered information about life in the Alberta Ukranian communities in earlier years, concentrating on the biographies of key individuals in several locales.