On its back cover, Patrick B. Mullen’s Right to the Juke Joint: A Personal History of American Music(University of Illinois Press, 2018) is aptly described as “part scholar's musings and part fan's memoir”. Mullen is professor emeritus of English and folklore at the Ohio State University and across the eight chapters that make up this book, he enthusiastically and engagingly describes his many encounters with a wide range of vernacular musics throughout the north American continent and details his experiences with the musical genres, performers, events, and songs that have shaped the soundscape of his life. As his fellow music scholar, E. Cecilia Conway puts it: this “book lets us ride shotgun with Mullen on his journey from Beaumont, Texas boy to Ohio professor to dancing to 'Don't Be Cruel' and 'The Twist' amidst the diversity of American Music. Read Pat Mullen at his expansive best."Rachel Hopkin is a UK-born, US-based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century (Verso, 2017) introduce readers to important work in Anglophone cultural studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, media theory, speculative realism, science studies, Italian and French workerist and autonomist thought, two “imaginative readings of Marx,” and two “unique takes on the body politic.” There are significant implications of these ideas for how we live and work at the contemporary university, and we discussed some of those in our conversation. This is a great book to read and to teach with! Carla Nappi is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh. You can learn more about her and her work here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Although bluegrass music is typically associated with the bluegrass state of Kentucky and Appalachia, the genre is actually played in many pockets all around the world.  In Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe (University of Illinois Press, 2017), Lee Bidgood explores the popularity of bluegrass in the Czech Republic.  Bidgood is an associate professor of bluegrass, old-time, and country music studies in the Department of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University and an accomplished musician himself.  He begins his study with a description of the development of the cultural landscape within this central European nation and explains how a confluence of factors within that landscape – not least a fascination with American pop culture and the appeal of the rural – led to the popularity of bluegrass music within certain circles, and also discusses how the genre was able to survive under Communism.  In addition, Bidgood’s investigation includes his exploration of some of the identity issues facing these central Europeans who have chosen to play a music more commonly associated with a foreign and distant land. In a recent review of the book in the Journal of Folklore Research, Philip Nusbaum noted that Bidgood’s music-world credentials include “fiddling with the Steep Canyon Rangers, a leading group from North Carolina; and touring the Czech Republic and other European countries with European bluegrass bands.” Nusbaum goes on to write that in “Czech Bluegrass, Lee combines experience playing bluegrass professionally with his ethnographic abilities and detail-oriented library research. The outcome is a model of reportage on a contemporary musical idiom, bluegrass music in the Czech Republic”. In Czech Bluegrass, Lee combines experience playing bluegrass professionally with his ethnographic abilities and detail-oriented library research. The outcome is a model of reportage on a contemporary musical idiom, bluegrass music in the Czech Republic.  Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Kate Parker Horigan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University, and a co-editor of the Journal of American Folklore. In Consuming Katrina: Public Disaster and Personal Narrative (University of Mississippi Press, 2018), she explores some of the numerous narratives generated by Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effects on residents of New Orleans in 2005. Her investigation includes personal narratives of those directly affected by the hurricane and which were recorded as part of the “Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston” project (SKRH).  In SKRH – which was set up by folklorists Carl Lindahl and Pat Jasper – survivors were given the training and other resources to interview one another about their experience of the events (see this site for more information).  Horigan notes that many of the narratives collected by SKRH counter widespread and pernicious claims which circulated via the media and through other channels during and after the disaster, including allegations that victims threatened those involved in the rescue effort. Horigan also interrogates survivor narratives as they are re-presented within more mainstream works inspired by the event, including Dave Egger’s Zeitoun; A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge, a graphic novel by Josh Neufeld; and the documentary film, Trouble the Water. She argues that such re-presentations: “propagate dangerously limited and stereotypical representations, which in turn inform responses to disasters such as Katrina.  They also allow audiences to feel sympathy for survivors, without feeling complicit in their conditions of suffering or compelled to act” (5). Horigan suggests that an alternative and more ethical route in re-presenting narratives is to do so in such a way that the original narrators are able to negotiate the ways in which their stories are reproduced.  In other words: When trauma becomes public, as the insatiable appetite for disaster stories demands that it must, the texts that most ethically adapt personal narratives are those that include the survivors’ own crucial engagement with the processes of narrative production” (5). Ultimately, Horigan argues that a “better grasp on the processes of narration and memory is critical for improved disaster response because stories that are widely shared about disaster determine how communities recover” (5). Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Bill Ivey’s Rebuilding an Enlightened World: Folklorizing America (Indiana University Press, 2018) advances the idea that we are entering a post-enlightenment world increasingly characterized by alternative facts, fake news, and doubts over the “objective” truths of science. Faced with the failure of data-driven social sciences to explain these phenomena, and to anticipate the behaviors of the American voter in 2016 or the middle-class-teenager-turned-ISIS-fighter, Rebuilding advances folklore as a potential alternative to preserve the Enlightenment’s progress and potentially make good on its promise. Drawing on the work of seminal figures of American folkore’s recent past, including Richard Dorson, Americo Paredes, Archie Green, Ralph Rinzler, and Henry Glassie, rebuilding examines the a range of phenomena including the 2016 presidential election, Black Panther, the rise of fake news, and Story Corps for a way to recognize and value alternative knowledge systems. The path forward is anything but clear, but perhaps folklore, with its focus on myth, legends, festival, vernacular beliefs, and modest listening, can provide tools for this complicated future. Timothy Thurston is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. His research examines language at the nexus of tradition and modernity in China’s Tibet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

In Quilts and Health (Indiana University Press, 2017), Marsha MacDowell and her colleagues examine the phenomenon of health-related quilts, of which there are millions around the world. In fact, and as this book documents, almost any illness, disease, or condition is likely to be associated in some way with quiltmaking. Quilts are made to support health education and patient advocacy, to raise funds, to memorialize those passed, to promote personal well-being, and to comfort others in distress. Some quilts even document medical history; for example, Ohio-based quilter Helen Murrell created a piece that serves as a statement of outrage for the unjust treatment of 600 African-American men who, without their knowledge or consent, were subjected to a forty-year medical experiment of the United States government.  During the experiment, 399 men were deliberately infected with syphilis and were allowed to go untreated, even after a cure was developed. Quilts and Health explores the myriad connections that are forged between disease, recovery, and quilt making.  As the authors note, systematic study of quilts and the stories they hold has “great potential to help us understand the human experience for illness and health, advance medical knowledge, and, ultimately, enhance the quality of health, outcomes, and life” (2). McDowell’s co-writers are Clare Luz and Beth Donaldson, both of whom are also based at Michigan State University. Luz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Medicine.  Donaldson is Digital Humanities Project Asset Coordinator at the Museum and Coordinator of the Museum’s Quilt Index. Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

People have long been captivated by stories of dragons. Myths related to dragon slaying can be found across many civilizations around the world, even among the most ancient cultures including ancient Israel. In his book The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations, Robert Miller chronicles the trajectories and transformations of this myth, and brings out the major role of dragon slaying in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Join us as we talk with Robert Miller about an age-old, fascinating topic: dragons! Robert D. Miller II earned his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from the University of Michigan, and is Associate Professor of Old Testament at The Catholic University of America, and Research Associate with University of Pretoria, South Africa. His other books include Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries BC (2005), Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel (2011), and Covenant and Grace in the Old Testament: Assyrian Propaganda and Israelite Faith (2012). Robert teaches courses in Old Testament, the ancient Near East, and Archaeology. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author ofThe Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Ann K. Ferrell is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Folk Studies program at Western Kentucky University, and also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore. Her first book, Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century (University of Kentucky Press, 2013) is the result of multiple research methodologies including extensive ethnographic fieldwork, archival investigation, and rhetorical analysis. The book’s introduction includes a history of tobacco production in the United States along with a summary of changes in attitudes towards the product over time – the most significant shift coming in the wake of the 1964 Surgeon General’s report confirming its detrimental health effects.  Thereafter, the book is divided into three parts. Part One offers a detailed description of the work involved in raising the eponymous crop as well as how that process has changed over time. Part Two, titled “The Shifting Meanings of Tobacco,” is based upon Ferrell’s study of the representation of tobacco – or its non-representation – in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture newsletters from the 1940s up until the time of her fieldwork (c. 2007); here Ferrell shows how the state’s response to tobacco’s fluctuating fortunes played out in rhetorical decisions made manifest on the page.  For example, recent depictions of tobacco farming suggest it has been relegated to part of Kentucky’s heritage rather than its present, despite the state still being home to thousands of tobacco farms.  In the third part of the book, Ferrell combines her ethnographic research with her study of rhetoric to consider what it means to be a tobacco farmer in Kentucky in the 21st century; whereas claiming such an identity in the past might well engender pride and respect, it has become stigmatized and therefore more likely to provoke disdain at best. Partly as a result, recent decades have seen the development of the complex concept of tobacco nostalgia, characteristics of which include mourning the “golden age of the tobacco man”. In addition, Ferrell investigates why “just growing something else” is by no means as simple an endeavor as it sounds. Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century has been widely-acclaimed.  For example, in his review for the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Jeffery A. Duvall described Ferrell’s monograph as “an illuminating account of how burley tobacco, once a proud symbol of the economic strength and cultural heritage of the commonwealth, has in recent years been scrubbed from the consciousness and public image of Kentucky, and the impact this has had upon tobacco farmers in the state.”  In addition, Burley received the 2014 Wayland D. Hand Award (awarded by the American Folklore Society to the best book to combine historical and folkloristic methods and materials). Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

In Chinese Heritage in the Making: Experiences, Negotiations, and Contestations (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), edited by Christina Maags and Marina Svensson, gathers authors from a variety of disciplines to examine the growing emphasis on heritage in contemporary China. Since China began its heritage turn in the 1990s, and especially since 2004 when it became the sixth nation to ratify the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Chinese state’s enthusiastic promotion of safeguarding traditions, objects, and sites has empowered communities to carefully engage with the cultural practices. Using an approach that draws from the young discipline of critical heritage studies and featuring chapters examining festivals, museums, architecture and more, this volume shows how attention to the dynamic engagements between local stakeholders, government representatives, and cultural specialists can provide important perspectives on cultural forms in China and beyond. These questions are particularly important both for understanding both culture work in twenty-first China, and in the field of folklore studies. Timothy Thurston is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. His research examines language at the nexus of tradition and modernity in China’s Tibet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

The Lòlop’ò of Southwest China’s Yunnan Province have a folktale in which they, Han Chinese, and Tibetans were given the technology of writing. The Han man was wealthy, purchased paper, and wrote on paper. And so the Han continue to have writing today. The Tibetan man wrote on an animal hide, and so the Tibetans now have writing as well. The Lòlop’ò man, being poor, wrote on buckwheat pancakes. He ate the pancakes on the way home, and the Lòlop’ò now keep their texts orally among a group of ritual specialists. In Erik Mueggler’s Songs for Dead Parents: Corpse, Text, and World in Southwest China (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Lòlop’ò oral literature and Han Chinese writing feature prominently in local “work on the dead.” For the Lòlop’ò, one’s familial ancestors, and non-familial ancestors are present in the world, and people maintain complex intimate relations with them that are not constrained by death. These relations find expression in rituals in which souls are given material body and then dispersed again, in laments and chants, and in gravestones inscribed with Chinese. In examining these various factors, this book provides new pathways for studying the anthropology of death, and for understanding ethnic minority experience in Southwest China. Timothy Thurston is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. His research examines language at the nexus of tradition and modernity in China’s Tibet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore