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VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore

a membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society

Dedicated to publishing the content of folklore in the words and images
of its creators and practitioners

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Voices magazine is available only to members of New York Folklore Society. To ensure that you don’t miss another issue of Voices magazine, return the form with your membership or renewal check right away! Voices calls on you to join!


Check our submission guidelines for authors.

Send your letter to the editor here
.
Folklorists are writers. We write every day: monographs and scholarly articles, field notes, festival and event brochures, exhibit texts, grant applications, final reports, press releases, proposals. In fact, I would say that time spent writing is more than fifty percent of any folklorist’s annual cycle of work. The essentials of folklore—the ethnographic material—are fundamental to a great story. As any fieldworker can attest, entering into the personal experience of another individual is expansive and illuminating. The everyday becomes novel when viewed from the viewpoint of the uninitiated. The job of the folklorist is to translate that experience to those who may not get the opportunity to go through it themselves and to help the reader to find meaning in the experience.

The history of folklore scholarship is replete with examples of good writing. The founding of the New York Folklore Society’s New York Folklore Quarterly in 1945 acknowledged the multitude of folklore materials and the many talented writers in the field of folklore. Benjamin Botkin, former head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress and a New York Folklore Society founder, encouraged the publication of folklore for a popular audience, as did founders Louis Jones and Harold Thompson. In the first half of the 1900s, folklorist Zora Neale Hurston wrote novels based on her fieldwork experiences, while at the same time publishing scholarly articles on African American folk culture. Contemporary folklorists, including Edith Cutting, Betty Belanus, Kirin Narayan, Joanne Mulcahy, and many others, have published poetry and fiction that draws upon ethnographic materials gathered in the field. Within the academy, folklorists have found their unique niche in designing and offering writing classes that draw upon student experience.

...

The New York Folklore Society remains in the forefront of a creative movement. The impulse in 1945 to publish the folklore of New York State for the people of the state is continued today through this publication, Voices. The editors of this publication encourage your submission of scholarly writing, as well as nonfiction, fiction, poetry, memoir, and other forms of creative literature.

Ellen McHale, Ph.D., Executive Director
New York Folklore Society


New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org
     

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Listen to New York Folklore Society’s executive director, Ellen McHale interviewed by Steve Black for his radio show, Periodical Radio
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Although folklore belongs to everybody, the periodicals that discuss it mostly belong to specialists. Voices is the great exception— anybody can and everybody should read it.
—Lee Haring, Professor Emeritus of English, Brooklyn College, CUNY

Voices cover

up arrow image Look inside VOICES, Vol. 37, Spring-Summer 2011

Dr. Eileen Condon, Editor for Voices replaced Dr. Felicia McMahon who held the post from 2003-2008. Eileen holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and has specialized in the study of popular religion, folksong, and folk music. Currently a Program Director at Manhattan’s Center for Traditional Music and Dance, Eileen previously worked as staff folklorist for the Dutchess County Arts Council in Poughkeepsie, following three years as a visiting professor at the University of Toledo, Ohio. She has served as a program consultant to the New York Folklore Society since 2005 and is a regular columnist for Voices.

Inquiries regarding the submission of manuscripts and book reviews for inclusion in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Voices can be directed to Eileen at econdon@ctmd.org (preferred) or via the New York Folklore Society, P.O. Box 764, Schenectady, NY 12301 (Attn: Eileen Condon, Editor). Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of folklore in the words and images of its creators and practitioners, in New York State. The journal welcomes submissions in a wide variety of formats, ranging from research-based articles written in an accessible style, to interviews, photo essays, artwork, poetry, and master artist profiles. View submission guidelines here.


WHAT’S INSIDE?

Voices features articles, stories, interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from people in all parts of New York State, folklorists and non-folklorists alike. The magazine also publishes peer-reviewed, research-based articles, written in an accessible style, on topics related to traditional art and life, including ethnic culture. Informative columns on subjects such as legal issues, photography, sound and video recording, archiving, ethics, and the nature of traditional art and life appear on a regular basis.

What always strikes me about Voices is its clarity and openness, both in design and content. It’s inviting, lively, and readable and has plenty of variety. It presents artists and communities with respect and sensitivity, yet one learns too about what folklorists do and who they are. Voices gives a picture of New York State and its people that cannot be found elsewhere.
—Anna Lomax Wood, Director, Association for Cultural Equity



Send Your Story to Voices!
Did you know that Voices publishes creative writing, including creative fiction (such as short stories), creative nonfiction (such as memoirs and life/work stories), and poetry? We also publish artistic and ethnographic photography and artwork, in addition to research-based articles on New York State folk arts and artists. If you are one of New York’s many traditional artists or working in a traditional occupation—including fishing, boat building, traditional healing, instrument making, firefighting, and nursing, to name a few—please consider sharing your life or work story with the readers of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. Check out our new column heading First Person, which spotlights folk artists and folk arts workers, giving creative people space in each issue to share their life stories in their own words. First Person allows people to share the reasons they have spent a lifetime supporting or recreating New York’s diverse traditions, passing them down through generations—whether it’s gardening, carving, roots music, village dancing, egg decorating, weaving, quilting, fiddling, traditional singing, basketry, ethnic foodways, traditional calligraphy, or home altar building. For more information, see our submissions guidelines on this page or contact me, Eileen Condon, acquisitions editor of Voices, at econdon@ctmd.org.



FROM THE EDITOR
From the Spring-Summer 2011 issue of Voices:

The Spring–Summer 2011 issue of Voices brings readers another tasty mix of story, ethnography, and analysis of New York traditions, upstate and downstate. We open with SUNY–Oneonta English professor Jonathan Sadow’s “Bagels and Genres,” an insightful and witty musing on what—in critical theory, as in life—makes a bagel a bagel, from Vegas to Montreal to New York. In “Petanque in New York,” Valérie Feschet, an anthropologist at the Université de Provence, shares a detailed portrait of the history, the play, and the multiethnic enthusiasts of this traditional French bowling game in New York City. By independent scholar and video artist Berta Jottar, “From Central Park Rumba with Love!” documents the sights, sounds, and struggle of the rumberos of Central Park to continue to practice their art in public spaces, despite prohibitions from the mayor’s office. We travel upstate with old-time fiddler and music educator Jackie Hobbs, a member of a multigenerationally musical family, who describes a tremendous musical resource for New Yorkers, musicians, and folk music historians: the wealth of recordings and biographical materials in the archival holdings she curates at the North American Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame and Museum in Osceola, New York. We wrap up in “A Family History Quilt,” by Adirondack quilter and community scholar Ruby L. Marcotte, with photography by George Ward. Step by step, Ruby leads us through the experience of refurbishing a family quilt—and tells about an uncanny coincidence she uncovered in the process. Finally, New York Folklore Society staff folklorist Lisa Overholser reports on the society’s annual meeting and September 2010 conference on Latino folklore, which was attended by young Latino folklore and ethnomusicology scholars from New York and across the country.

We offer our kudos to Voices columnist John Thorn, who was recently named official historian for Major League Baseball. In this role he will continue and expand his longstanding research on baseball and spearhead other special projects for the league. John’s most recent book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, was published in March; his other books on baseball include Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Total Baseball encyclopedia series. John also served as the senior creative consultant for Ken Burns’s 1994 documentary series, Baseball. Congratulations, John!

The New York Folklore Society joins with the New York State folk arts community in mourning the untimely loss of Mark J. Wright, artist advocate, theater director, performer, and program director at the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Mark died at his home on November 12, 2010, at age fifty. On January 30, dozens of performers, friends, and colleagues from the Central New York arts community honored Mark and his work with a four-hour tribute performance, which raised funds for the Mark J. Wright Scholarship for Young Artists. Contributions may be mailed to the Central New York Community Foundation at 431 East Fayette Street, Suite 100; Syracuse, New York 13202.

Voices thrives on the interplay between its readers and authors. Please keep your comments and contributions coming. Whether online through our web site or by “snail mail,” our suggestion box is always open.

Eileen Condon
Acquisitions Editor
New York Folklore Society



FROM THE DIRECTOR
From the Spring-Summer 2011 issue of Voices:

At a March 2011 symposium on cultural and heritage tourism held at Colgate University, keynote speaker Cheryl Hargrove spoke of the increasing importance of “place,” both to the residents of an area and to those who are touring a region. In exploring a place, visitors and residents alike are concerned with the “authentic local experience,” whether it is to sample the regional food, participate in a community festival, or visit a historic site. Hargrove stressed the need to preserve and protect the cultural and environmental resources of an area and to find a comfortable fit between the needs of a community and the interests of the tourist. The sustainability of cultural or heritage tourism should not be measured by the number of visitors nor the economic impact those visitors make on a locale, but rather by the quality of the local experience—which will satisfy the needs of both the tourist and the host community.

Folklorists can offer important insights on a community as tourism site. Drawing upon knowledge gained through ethnographic fieldwork, folklorists are able to provide interpretive frameworks for a better understanding of a community’s traditions and cultural arts and may have a broader vantage point on a community’s cultural assets. In conducting a folk cultural documentation project, a folklorist often records that which speaks to the interests of the cultural heritage tourist: as Hargrove explained, “the traditions, art forms, celebrations, and experiences that define this nation and its people.”

In 2009 and 2010, the New York Folklore Society worked in collaboration with the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor to develop an inventory of cultural and artistic sites that might interest a visitor to the Erie Canal Corridor. Assembling a team that included Daniel F. Ward of the Erie Canal Museum, Todd DeGarmo of Crandall Public Library, and Erin Dorbin of SUNY–Albany’s public history program, the New York Folklore Society developed an inventory of sites that reflect New York State’s rich artistic and cultural history and connection to the canal. Architecture, art, music, and literature in New York were influenced by the development and expansion of the canal system, from its original footprint to that of the present. You can view the inventory selection online.

The New York Folklore Society continues to reach out to communities across the state, forging new collaborative partnerships. In the first half of 2011, the New York Folklore Society has presented programs or professional development workshops in Albany, Amsterdam, Batavia, Buffalo, Canton, Niagara, Saratoga, and Schenectady. Maybe we’ll be in your community soon! Please check our web site for upcoming events.

Ellen McHale, Ph.D.
Executive Director
New York Folklore Society


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