Tradition in Flux: What Folklore Contributes to Area Studies

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

What does folkloristics—the study of folklore, or the creative and expressive dimensions of human experience and worldviews—contribute to Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies? How might the study of folkloric forms—verbal art, material culture, customary practice, and belief—illuminate transformations to social, political, cultural, historic, and economic processes across space and time, and the ways we remember, narrate, and perform our experiences of the world? This roundtable assembles folklorists who represent a breadth of topical, methodological, and area foci to discuss their visions for folkloristic contributions to ASEEES. Panelists will each discuss how they understand and situate themselves as folklorists, the interdisciplinary conversations their work participates in, and the enduring questions they probe. They will also address topics such as the role of folklore in empire, nation-building, and anti-imperial resistance; shifting understandings of place, belonging, and cultural heritage; transforming understandings of belief; questions about the scope of “region”; and new directions for ASEEES. We invite audience members to ask questions of our field and hope to offer a robust conversation about the transdisciplinary collaborations that strengthen our shared commitment to a complex, ever-changing region and its peoples. This panel is sponsored by the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association (SEEFA).

Sub Unit

• Folklore Studies

Chair

• Sarah Craycraft, Harvard U

Roundtable Speakers

• Benjamin Gatling, George Mason U

• Carol T. Silverman, U of Oregon

• Iryna Voloshyna, Indiana U Bloomington