A Call for Help

To be frank, I've been avoiding repurposing/ rewriting my paper. And here's why: I feel almost like I have to start from scratch.

My first argument: The church's condemnation of the Elizabethan stage was because of Shakespeare's use of powerful folklore (part 1) which is similar to educators' condemnation of "the Internet" because of it's use as a powerful vehicle for folklore (part 2).

But now, I want to focus on the audience of folklorists and aim more for getting them to study folklore on the Internet which is something that is just not common in the field, that prefers to study the weird and archaic over folklore that the majority of people participate in because that feels more like popular culture or something (still trying to understand why people don't study folklore forms on the Internet when they're so obvious). But it's not like anyone is outright condemning or fearing the Internet or even saying that it isn't a valid vehicle for folklore. They're just plain not heeding it. Most of the studies are about folklore transmitted face to face but they're missing out on this rich world of new folklore genres and forms.



So, I feel like my original argument doesn't fit anymore. My new aim is a lot like my part 2 of my original argument because I have somewhere to go with it - give internet folklore more attention, which they're not doing, but I'm not sure how to ground this in Shakespeare anymore and I feel like I did this so powerfully before.

I wonder if there's a place in Shakespeare that challenges traditional ways of doing things. The theme of the conference I want to present at is The Continuity and Creativity of Culture and in the description, they seriously focus on the former, even calling folklorists "workers in a discipline dedicated to the documentation of continuity" and stating that, "folklorists often have an intimate view of the creativity necessary to preserve the continuity of traditions." I think I would like to push off of and almost against this notion a bit (even though it makes me nervous to do so) by arguing that folklore as a discipline tends to focus on long-standing tradition and does not look hard enough at emerging traditions and forms of folklore, amazingly creative as they are in preserving culture and relational ties. The description of the conferences theme states: "One of our field’s key concepts, tradition involves both conservation and change; the creativity that exists within tradition and shapes change invites closer examination." I want to somehow talk about the importance of change and adaptation in tradition, this creativity aspect, especially in a world, the majority of which moves at a very fast pace.

Do these ramblings make any sense? Does anyone have ideas of where to start with the Shakespeare side of things or an idea of how I can just slightly alter my original argument to fit within the constraints of my current argument?