Folklore Students and Faculty Present at American Folklore Society Conference
Congratulations to Folklore graduate students Melanie Kimball, Drake Hansen, and Mustafa Cingoz, who presented at the American Folklore Society annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Melanie and Mustafa participated in a poster session, in which they briefly presented their research and then fielded questions from the audience. Melanie’s poster, “Tuning Out the Dark: Music as a Defense and Folk Solution,” presented her research on the use of music as an apotropaic and folk remedy for fear. Mustafa’s poster, “Authenticity of Turkish Folk Music Under Digital Storm,” argued that the Aşık bağlama minstrel tradition creates community in the context of digital assaults on tradition. Drake Hansen presented his full paper entitled “Dressed for Attention: Tensions in the Online and Offline Realities of Digital Aesthetic Folk Groups.” In it, he examines how online groups build identification and community through particular aesthetics. Folklore student Samuel Rowles was also in attendance.
Faculty presented as well. Lisa Gabbert presented “Alternative, Distorted, Manipulated, and Tested: Children’s Folklore and Reality,” in which she argued against commonly held distinctions about boundaries between play and reality, while Lynne McNeill participated in a well-attended forum on “joy.” Afsane Rezai was also in attendance.