Emerging Perspectives in the Study of Folklore and Performance

Just over half a century ago, the rise in what became known as the "performance turn" in folklore studies led to the diffusion of performance as both a lens and a key concept across a wide range of humanistic disciplines. Now, it's time to take stock of the myriad ways in which performance and folklore studies have developed along both parallel and intersecting paths. Emerging Perspectives in the Study of Folklore and Performance reveals the captivating world where folklore and performance studies meet up, revealing both the connections and disparities between the two fields. From the mid-20th century to the present day, luminaries like Richard Bauman, Erving Goffman, Roger Abrahams, Charles Briggs, Richard Schechner, Dell Hymes, José Esteban Muñoz, Peggy Phelan, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Deborah Kapchan, and Diana Taylor have woven a rich tapestry of discourse, seamlessly blending the realms of folklore and performance. Editors Solimar Otero and Anthony Bak Buccitelli present a magnificent collection of chapters that delve into the intricacies of this enduring relationship. These diverse essays explore how folklore and performance intersect in realms as varied as digital culture, social movements, ritual, narrative, race and technology, archival practices, ambient play, post-human intersectionalities, speculative world-making, and embodied knowledge. Emerging Perspectives in the Study of Folklore and Performance is a must-read for scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike, offering fresh insights into the evolving landscape of folklore and performance studies and transforming the ways that we connect to culture, place, and community.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: Reopening Performance, by Charles L. Briggs Acknowledgments Introduction: Emerging Perspectives in the Study of Folklore and Performance, by Solimar Otero and Anthony Bak Buccitelli Part I: Resituating Histories, Ideas, and Practices 1. The Weight and Lightness of Tradition: Interpreting Repetition in Folklore, by Anthony Bak Buccitelli 2. Contested Ancestors: Toward a Genealogy of Everyday Life in the Postdiscipline, by Eric Mayer-García 3. Minting Money: Queer Temporality and Performance in Ethnography, by Sarah M. Gordon 4. Kenneth Burke Meets the Flop-Eared Mule: A Fiddle Tune and the Performance of Form, by Gregory Hansen Part II: Performance of Materiality, Virtuality, and the Spiritual 5. A Glitch in Time: Digital Interruptions and Spaces of Haunting, by Kit Danowski 6. Ancestoring: Materializing Memory, Mourning, and Resuscitation through Performance, by Solimar Otero 7. Memeing Together: Performance, Competence and Collective Creativity in Digital Folklore, by Sverker Hyltén-Cavallius Part III: Performance, Polyphony, and Embodied Knowledge 8. White Moral Feelings and National Affect in Audience Reactions to Danse du Ventre and Coochee-Coochee in the Late Nineteenth-Century, by Pris Nasrat 9. Reverse, Rewrite, Reclaim Coloniality in Chicanx Flamenco at the Miss Indian World Pageant, by Erica Acevedo-Ontiveros 10. Queerly Beloved: Reflecting on Embodiments and Explorations of Gender and Pleasure Through Tango Queer, by celia meredith Part IV: Performing Community, Situating Dissent 11. Performing Together: Rethinking Definitions of Performance as Participatory Practice, by Katherine Borland 12. A Framework for Analyzing Power and Performance: Music, Activism, and a Veterans' Anti-War Coffeehouse, by Lisa Gilman 13. Spectacular Dissent, by Sabra Webber 14. Performative Landscapes: An Exploration, by Lisa Gabbert Index

About the Author :
Solimar Otero is Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, and Gender Studies at Indiana University. She is author of Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures and editor with Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera of Theorizing Folklore from the Margins: Critical and Ethical Approaches (IUP, 2021). Anthony Bak Buccitelli is Interim Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs, Associate Professor of American Studies and Communications, and Director of the Pennsylvania Center for Folklore at the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg—Capital College. He is author of City of Neighborhoods: Memory, Folklore, and Ethnic Place in Boston and editor of Race and Ethnicity in Digital Culture: Our Changing Traditions, Impressions, and Expressions in a Mediated World.

Review :
"At last, a long-awaited fresh look at the neglected yet critically important relationship between folklore and performance studies. Presenting a range of very twenty-first century case studies, editors Otero and Buccitelli have skillfully organized diverse essays around themes that spark reader engagement with intersectional and inventive approaches melding folklore and performance. The two disciplines resound with connection and new vitality in this valuable collection. Worthy of attention by humanities scholars everywhere, this volume forecasts a surge of interest in recognizing and continuing to strengthen the bond between these sister disciplines. Do wishes (performatively) come true? Yes! This is the book I wished for in my many years as a folklorist teaching in a performance studies department."—Kay Turner, New York University "A remarkable collection. Global in range yet attentively grounded in local expression, this is a rarity of intellectual and creative achievement. It restores concepts of performance to their rightful primacy in folklore studies while unapologetically inviting connections to broader social and critical theory—and to far-reaching political and ethical implications. It further reconvenes important conversations between folklorists and other scholars of performance in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In doing so, this collection upholds the finest academic and activist tradition. It honors the insights of the past, sagaciously attends to the concerns of the present, and most importantly, welcomes and prepares the way for future generations of scholars and performers. All who care about our world made better through courageous cultural expression will find a reason to thank the contributors for these inspiring pages."—Stephen Olbrys Gencarella, University of Massachusetts