Comparable Work - Annotated Bibliography of Books and Articles about Digital Folklore

Primary Text: 

Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Ed. Trevor Blank. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009.  

Suggested to me by Dr. Eric Eliason. The introduction by Blank himself is great and the articles inside are a good sampling of what kinds of things folklorists are looking at on the internet. 

Early Works:

Dorst, John. "Tags and Burners, Cycles and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic Age." Journal of Folklore Research. 27.3 (1990): 179-190. Web.
Sent to me by Lynne McNeill and suggested as background knowledge of my subject. 

Howard, Robert Glenn. "Electronic Hybridity:  The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web." Journal of American Folklore. 121 (2008): 192-218. Web.
Sent to me by Lynne McNeill and suggested as background knowledge of my subject. 

Nothing Makes My Day like Success with Social Proof

I wrote Lynne McNeill, the folklore professor at USU that Dr. Eliason suggested to me as a good person to contact about Digital Folklore, last night and she responded this morning! She was amazingly helpful! It has totally renewed my interest in and excitement for my subject, which was flagging after my muse and inspiration left me to myself last night while trying to rewrite my submission.

I told her the direction I am heading in (to advocate the remix culture of the internet being the perfect venue for both the dissemination of existing traditions/lore and the creation of new genres of folklore and thus requiring more attention from folkloristics) and she confirmed that I'm heading in the right directions, saying: "Right now, your question of remixing is a good one--not only are traditional forms of folklore being revived on the Internet, but new forms, like image macros and memes, and coming to prevalence.  There's not much general writing about it all yet--lots of conference papers and lots of individual case studies as articles and book chapters, but no prevailing work on it other that Trevor's book."

I asked her to point me in the right direction as far as sources for my research of folklore on the internet and methodology for studying Internet folklore, and told her what sources I had already found. She confirmed that I had "found many of the main resources out there" and gave me additional direction. She not only recommended a book and certain articles, but also attached PDF copies of those articles to the email! Talk about helpful! (and of course, I sent her a huge thank you email right back).

Love's Labor's Lost and Folklore in the Digital Age

We live in a remix culture. This is extraordinarily problematic when considering current copyright laws, but that is a discussion for another day. In our culture, we take things we've heard, seen, read, or experienced and incorporate them and remix them for our own purposes. In academia, this is as simple as quoting someone and expanding upon that quote to support your argument (and then citing them so as to protect their intellectual property). On Facebook, this could be taking a movie still and commenting on it with your own words to make a witty point. On YouTube, this is taking clips from several different romantic period movies and putting music over it to make a romantic music video.

There are a billion and a half ways we remix, but this concept of remixing wasn't born of the digital age. Authors have always borrowed from others authors, reference popular culture works to make a joke, and taken age-old fairy tales and made them their own (a nod to Mr. Disney).

American Folklore Society Annual Conference Submission?

I'm looking around for conferences I could submit my paper to. I'm still in the process of redirectioning and repurposing my paper, so I haven't yet written an abstract. I'm just looking for an audience for when I do. 

Missed Opportunities:

I just missed the boat for the Western States Folklore Society annual conference. It's being held the day I graduate (April 20th) in CA, but abstracts were due back in February and it costs a fee just to submit. It's too bad because they were accepting student papers, and I would have loved to aim for something like this. I also just missed the Folk Alliance International conference which took place at the end of February, but I couldn't find any information about paper submissions anyways. There is a Folklore and Fantasy Conference being held in the UK on April 15th. I missed the deadline for that in late January, but I think it would've been a great audience for my subject. I might still write them and see if my topic would've even been interesting to them (just by asking if they take late submissions). Another conference I would've loved to have presented at is WKU's student research conference which seems much less intimidating to me than others, but again the deadline was in February and the conference is this Saturday.  

Major Possibility: The American Folklore Society Annual Conference

I finally found a HUGE conference who's deadline hasn't passed though! The American Folklore Society, or the AFS, produces an annual meeting each October that brings together more than 700 folklorists from around the world to exchange work and ideas, and to create and strengthen friendships and working relationships. This year's conference will be held on October 24-27 at the historic Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year's theme: "The Continuity and Creativity of Culture" is perfect for my paper's topic! I can challenge the assumption implied in the theme's description that the "disruption" of "cultural continuity... threaten[s] well-being and long-standing social interactions" by talking about online culture's ability to enhance and further relationships and social interactions through the transmission of folklore. 

If I choose to submit to this conference, I have till March 31st to solidify my direction, do my social research, finish my paper and make sure that it follows the guidelines set for submissions, write both a 500 word abstract and a 100 word abstract and there is a registration fee of $95 (not to mention, if my paper was actually selected, travel costs to get to New Orleans in October - though there are some grants I could apply for). I would be informed by June 1st, if my paper was accepted. It's a tad intimidating though... Do you guys think I should go for it? 

(Oh and just as a reminder to myself, there are more folklore resources I need to remain aware of here)

Repurposing Beginnings

I've decided to focus on the folklore aspect more in my paper. As I mentioned before, I think it would be interesting to see how correct I am in my assumption that folklorists are resistant to breaking from tradition. So I stopped by my folklore professor's office for a chat.

We talked about whether he considers things like memes, themed photographs, and some Pintrest stuff folklore as well as stories people tell on their blogs and such. He said the line is fuzzy. It's not that he is resistant to changing the definition of folklore; just that he doesn't really think about it much. He said most people in his field are gathering folklore via the traditional means (face-to-face) and the same goes for the majority of his students. He hypothesized that this might be because folklore archives and other collection methods just haven't updated to store these kinds of things: in the William A Wilson folklore archive here at BYU, you have to have a physical copy of your project. These things just aren't stored online. So, he said, for example, you couldn't use an animation or a Youtube video. They're not stored online or digitally.

He's not sure how others in his field feel about the "issue" and so to his knowledge it's not really divided into two camps of opinions, more just that some might choose to explore this avenue, but most don't.

He did give me a list of people that I should talk to and one book to check out:

The book is called Folklore and the Internet and contains essays written by a number of folklorists. It is edited by Trevor Blank.

Jaquie Thursby here at BYU could tell me more about the use of folklore in literature/Shakespeare.

Greg Kelly is a contact of his at Guelph University in Canada who studies folklore online.

And I'm most excited to talk to Lynne McNneal is up at Utah State. She is all over the eFolklore idea.

Paper Reflections

Here's the link to what I would call my final paper, but I know I'll be editing, changing focus, and taking it in new directions before April comes around.

My writing process: 

With this paper, in contrast to so many others I've written in college, I wrote slowly. A lot of the information I gathered while writing blog posts ended up in my final paper (some of it word-for-word from my blog). I wrote in hour or two hour chunks, because that's all that was afforded to me with little Bracken needing my attention. I ended up really enjoying writing this way. I was not to worn out from sitting down and writing an entire day and a half and staying up all night the day the paper is due, which is how I usually write. I feel like I really benefited from being able to roll my topic around in my head for so long and articulate my thesis to so many people during social proof. My thesis changed over and over, and I foresee it changing again.

Some things Dr. Burton commented on while reading my paper:

I didn't really ground my paper in a good, solid close reading of the text. My focus was on contextual evidence, and my paper may have benefited from a good character or thematic analysis. But as it is, I believe my argument really does center around context, so I may not go back and add this in.

This has a lot to do with my intended audience for the paper, which was another thing Dr. Burton asked about. He said my paper seemed divided in its function and purpose: was this a Shakespeare paper with a little application to modern times or an argument focusing on its audience as academics with a little history to back it up. I'm thinking, ironically I know since we're in a Shakespeare course, that it is actually more of the latter.

DONE!

Finally finished my rough draft! 

If anyone has time today before my interview at 2 p.m to edit, I'd be happy to exchange for taking a look at your's as well! 

Teaser

Using the following information in my paper. Bet you can't wait to read that!

Here's a link to the article about the rat carcass in a Mountain Dew if you're interested -- of course you are, admit it.

More Tweethis Results

Conversation about my original Tweethis on Facebook:

Reactions to my "Outline" / Elaborated Thesis on Facebook:

New Facebook Tweethis

Now I've gone the complete opposite direction (too long) and prolly no one will post on this either. LOL. 

I also posted a link to facebook of my rough rough draft. How brave is that?!

Tweethis Succes

So, I connected my Facebook and Twitter feeds so that when I posted my tweethis to Twitter, it posted automatically to Facebook. 

I got two likes on Facebook. It was a little encouraging, but something about one being my mother-in-law and one being a close friend, didn't make it feel like any big success. I'm thinking that 140 characters is just not enough to invite attention on Facebook. Not enough at all. I'm going to post a much longer thesis on Facebook as well as an invitation for others to comment on my post following Ellie's example. 

BUT!!!

I did have something amazing happen with my Tweethis on Twitter!! Someone retweeted me! Someone I don't even know and who doesn't follow me... so I'm hypothesizing they must have found me in a search. Well, you better believe I started following them! I retweet! I'm so honored! sniff* Thank you GallowayNightSky!

And you better believe I thanked him:

Tweethis

Be honest, does this make any sense out of context?

The power of #Shakespeare’s plays to popularize #folklore frightened institutions much like modern fear of tech’s power to quickly share unvalidated knowledge

I'm sending it out into the twitterverse in a few seconds and I just feel like it seriously weakened my thesis to shorten it to so few characters. #anxiety!

Update:

Just kidding - the earlier tweethis was less than 140 characters without spaces. I hate the 140 character rule so much. Here is the actual tweet i'm sending out:

#Shakespeare’s power to popularize #folklore scared institutions much like modern fear of tech’s power 2 quickly share unvalidated knowledge


In case you didn't see the link earlier,


Here is my rough draft so far. It is a beautiful mess.

Books and Blogs: Research in the Digital Age

Books I'm Using

My "Research Station" pre-apocolyptic writing stage

The Fear of Folk

I can't find the embed feature I once used to embed a Google document into a blog post but my outline is up at this link and commenting is enabled. I'd love your feedback there. It's very rough at the moment but will update as I work on it.

Still working on my thesis/ tweethis because I'm changing tack a little here. I'm excited to get it up and out there though!

Progress Report: Phases 1 and 2 of Research Paper

I'm required to document my research and writing process for the Shakespeare research paper I'm doing this month. According to the assignment instructions, here are the components I must include. If I have met those requirements, I have included a link to a post or posts that document my efforts for that component:

Phase 1

Exploration - 

I did a couple of posts to explore my topic. I first found interest when I wrote this post about Jews in England and the folklore surrounding them in Shakespeare's time. Then I did a Twitter search and found THE leading work on the topic by Thiselton Dyer. Then I found both an essay and a Cardiff University course on my topic. Then I really started to explore a thesis for my topic. Then I settled on my paper topic and solidified what my thesis was by talking about it out loud. 

Textual Analysis - 

I didn't do this post till later, but I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my textual analysis post and performed digital analysis. 

Social Proof (finding) - 

I found a ton of people to contact and did a sort of annotated contact list. I did a google blog search and found a Shakespeare troupe, Shakespeare in the Ruins, the vice-chair of whom I wrote about my thesis. He wrote me back!

Phase 2

Performance Analysis -

 I skipped this one, for lack of time in catching up from being sick. Sorry!

Annotated Bibliography - 

Here it is!

Digital media and online resources - 

I found a youtube video of a folktale behind Hamlet and posted about it. I had success with a google alert.

Social Proof (contacting) - 

I contacted two more people. Patrick Ryan who is a storyteller that wrote a picture book about Shakespeare and Folklore and Susan Nyikos who is a professor of English at Utah State University and teaches about Shakespeare and folklore. 

Phase 3

"Tweethis" statement - I think I've almost got my thesis down to a tweetable statement but it is difficult because there are so many components of my argument that build upon one another. 

Posted draft with peer interaction

Evaluation of a peer's draft

Scholarly Sources: Shakespeare and Folklore

I thought I had posted this already. I did this a while back!

Found at JSTOR:

Folklore and Shakespeare
Author(s): Kenneth MuirReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 2 (1981), pp. 231-240Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1259478 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 14:51


The Folklore of Shakespeare
Author(s): Henry B. WheatleyReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec. 31, 1916), pp. 378-407Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255592 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 14:58


Some Folklore Incidents in Shakespeare
Author(s): H. Coote LakeReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec. 31, 1928), pp. 307-328Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255967 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 15:07

Books (at our library):

This is the pioneering work on the Folklore of Shakespeare written over a century ago by T.F. Thiselton Dyer

My favorite find. A children's picture book about folk tales that Shakespeare drew on. An excellent way to introduce yourself to the topic.

A book about folklore in Elizabethen times, recommended for study by author Kenneth Muir who wrote one of the articles I found. 

No way: Google Alert Success!

Most of the stuff my Google alert on "Shakespeare AND Folklore" turns up for me is useless. A surprising amount of it is obituaries... no really. But I had a very happy find the other day! It may have just found me my next contact about my paper, someone who might be really interested to read what I have to say, an audience for my topic. 

Google sent me a bio article about a Hungarian English professor at USU who studies and teaches both Shakespeare and folklore! No way, right?! An English. professor. from Utah. IN Utah. Who knows about BOTH Shakespeare and folklore! Well, I thought it was cool. 

Her name is Susan Nyikos. From the article about her, she sounds like a delightful person and an excellent professor. So I hopped on over to the USU site and found her contact information in the English department directory. I promptly shot her off an email similar to the one I sent Mr. Ryan so that I had as much time as possible to hear back from her. 

Digital "Close" Reading

So I'm testing out a theory. I recently read Stanley Fish's article on The Digital Humanities and interpretation entitled Mind Your P's and B's. If you haven't read his three article series on the Digital Humanities, you are seriously missing out. Major kudos to my classmate Kaleigh for getting in touch with him about her project!

Anywho, in this article he asserts that we can begin our interpretation by using the tools of the digital age (i.e. a simple computer search for the number of p's and b's in a passage) as the spring board for our interpretation, by doing some very quick text mining, seeing what the numbers reveal, and interpreting those numbers. In Fish's reply to Kaleigh's email, he says the reverse might also be possible, which is what I've always considered text mining useful for: "If you had formulated a reading of Shakespeare and wanted to know whether certain formal patterns would lend it support , it might well be useful to run the numbers."

Might nothing, Mr. Fish. I say we come to the text with our interpretation pretty much already in our heads according to our life experience. Certain things are going to jump out at us and we're just mining the text for more support for our position. Hence, the digital tools we have just speed up that process.

Shakespeare in the Ruins Reply

Yes!!!! It worked! I'm now excited to look for evidence of scholarly scorn towards A Midsummer Night's Dream and to take a look at The Striker (see below). This social proof thing is kind of exhilarating when it works. I've been in several of Dr. Burton's classes and this has always been the aspect of his teaching that intimidates me most and always seems to fall by the wayside, but not so this time!

Here's Kevin's response:

Hi Bri!

How great to receive your e-mail! It's always a relief to know that someone is reading those things...

I love your thesis, and I definitely concur. As a matter of coincidence, the next show that SIR will be "stripping down" for this fall's tour is A Midsummer Night's Dream which, as I'm sure you know, is bubbling over with folklore and fairy tale references, and is almost certainly Shakespeare's most popular and most produced comedy. In my experience, it also tends to be the subject of a certain level of scorn among "serious" scholars as well as actors, which, as you appear to be suggesting, is likely no coincidence.

I would be thrilled if you decided to reference my story, particularly if it in any way helps to promote Shakespeare in the Ruins (perhaps a link to the website...)

Let me know if there's anything you need me to do!

Thanks Again,

Kevin
Artistic Co-Chair, SIR

---

Hi Bri,

As a bit of a sidebar, I wonder if you're familiar with Caryl Churchill's play "The Skriker"? It's an incredibly complex, fascinating treatment of traditional English folklore for adult contemporary audiences. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend it.

Cheers,

Kevin

The Original Cinder-Fella

This post has been removed out of respect to its subject who has asked that all mention of them be removed from this blog.