Rigor and Remembrance

Last week, I presented a paper at the 81st meeting of the Western States Folklore Society. It was a great time!

What a pleasure it was to hobnob with a bunch of folklorists all weekend, and hear talks on proverbs, Internet cryptids, fairy tales, peep stones, place relationship, and, and, and—I came home with much to think about.

While I was there, I presented a talk of my own about how academic guild history and oral folk tradition create two different ways of being in time. The practices of historical scholarship generate stories that are temporal, linear, bounded and distanced. The practices of telling and retelling stories in an embodied social setting, by contrast, generate stories that are spatial, cyclical, boundless and immediate. In some ways, the two couldn't be more different—and yet their overlaps are surprising.

Listen to the reading that I gave »
Download the paper itself »

Also, the University of Las Vegas has some incredible built spaces, and let me just say, April in the desert is a glorious thing.