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Louisiana Folklore Society

The Louisiana Folklore Society was founded in 1956 to encourage the study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional cultures of Louisiana. Our members include university professors, professional folklorists in the public sector, secondary school teachers, museum workers, graduate students, and other individuals interested in Louisiana's traditions and cultural groups.

Officers
Annual Meeting
Membership
Louisiana Folklore Miscellany
2008 Meeting
2007 Meeting
Articles Online From The Louisiana Folklore Miscellany

 

2008 Officers

President Susan Roach, Louisiana Tech University, Dept of English
Vice President Keagan Lejeune, McNeese State University, Dept of English
Secretary Joyce Jackson, Louisiana State, Dept of Georgraphy and Anthropology
Treasurer Sheila Richmond, Northwestern State University, Louisiana Folklife Center
Director at Large Frank de Caro, New Orleans
Miscellany Editor Carolyn Ware, Louisiana State University, Dept of English
Liaison to Louisiana Folklife Program Dayna Lee, Northwestern State University, Regional Folklife Program

 

Annual Meeting
The Louisiana Folklore Society holds an annual meeting in the Spring which features an invited address by a keynote speaker and presentations by members of the society. The next meeting will be in Leesville, Louisiana. See below for details about the 2008 and 2007 meetings.

 

Membership
Annual dues are:

Regular Membership - $10
Student Membership - $5
Institutional Membership - $15

To join the Louisiana Folklore Society, send the appropriate dues to:

Sheila Richmond, Treasurer
Louisiana Folklife Center
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
email:
richmonds@nsula.edu

 

Louisiana Folklore Miscellany
The society also publishes Louisiana Folklore Miscellany
, which appears annually. Members of the society receive the annual Miscellany as well as information on the annual meeting and other occasional informational mailings. Click here to see articles listed below that have been posted online.

Louisiana Folklore Miscellany publishes articles, notes, and commentaries on all aspects of Louisiana folklore and folklife. The Miscellany uses the same "References Cited" style as The Journal of American Folklore. Please consult a recent issue of either journal for form and style. Submissions to Louisiana Folklore Miscellany should be sent to:

Carolyn Ware, Editor
Louisiana Folklore Miscellany
Department of English
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
email: cware1@lsu.edu
[phone] 225-578-3022

 

The 2008 Annual Meeting
The Louisiana Folklore Society's 52st annual meeting for 2008 was held at University of New Orleans on March April 4-5, 2008 with the meeting theme of Where is Home and What Is It Like? Reconstructing Louisiana Material and Psychological Landscapes. The meeting highlighted assessment of Gulf Coast traditions and the concept of home, be it the Gulf Coast, the hill country, the Delta, or a home away from home. Over twenty presentations and displays consider occupations such as shrimping, barkeeping, and bakeries; ethnic traditions including Vietnamese, Muslim, Latino, Czech, and Celtic; material culture from shotguns to houseboats; and Mardi Gras, All Saints’ Day, and disaster tourism. The meeting began on Friday, April 4, at 2 p.m. with presentations and continued on Saturday, April 5th with a full day of presentations. All events were open to the public. This program was funded in part by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

The keynote address on Friday, April 4, 7 pm was Shotgun Houses: Their Future 35 Years Later by John Michael Vlach, Professor at George Washington University, and noted authority on folk and vernacular architecture. He returned to New Orleans to give an update on the 35th anniversary of his first visit to research the history of the shotgun house. Dr. Vlach has concentrated his scholarship on aspects of the African Diaspora by conducting field research in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica), and across the southern regions of the United States. Author of ten books, his titles include such seminal texts as The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts, Common Places: Readings in Vernacular Architecture (with Dell Upton), By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife, Plain Painters: Making Sense of American Folk Art, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery, and Barns (winner of the 2003 Kniffen Prize for Best Book on North American Material Culture). Dr. John Michael Vlach spoke on the history and future of the shotgun house in New Orleans. He is completing the definitive work on the shotgun house and has written widely on folk and vernacular architecture.

Saturday’s program also presented invited presentations from Nicole Eugene and Shari Smothers, two interviewers from The Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston Project. The goal of this project is to voice, as intimately as possible, the experiences and reflections of those displaced to Houston by the two major hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast. Trained as interviewers in special Library of Congress field schools, Shari Smothers and Nicole Eugene, African American women who were living in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and then evacuated to Houston, their new home, will make presentations on their experiences as interviewers for the project.

Click here to see the 2008 Program Schedule.

 

The 2007 Annual Meeting
The Louisiana Folklore Society's 51st annual meeting for 2007 was held at Louisiana State University on March 9-10, 2007.

The meeting began on Friday, March 9, at 7 p.m. with a keynote address titled “Carnival Traditions and New Orleans” by Roger D. Abrahams and Nick Spitzer. Abrahams and Spitzer are co-authors of the recent book Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America’s Creole Soul. Roger Abrahams is Hum Rosen Professor of Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, and Nick Spitzer is producer and host of the public radio series American Routes. Their talk was free and open and the public, and took place in the Grand Salon at the French House on the LSU campus. The lecture and meeting wase supported by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and by funds from LSU’s Department of English and Program in Louisiana and Caribbean Studies.

The meeting continued at the French House on Saturday, March 10th with a full day of presentations by folk artists, folklorists, community organizers, and filmmakers. Special this year was a panel of artists documenting their own cultural traditions such as Acadian weaving, old country dances, boat building, and herbal medicine, and a panel discussion on documenting Mardi Gras. Also new was a community panel presentation titled “After the Flood: A New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Status Report,” featuring Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Chair (Guardians of the Flame), Littdell S. Batiste (Queen, Creole Wild West), Clarence Dalcour (Big Chief, Creole Osceolas), Eugene Thomas (Big Chief, Whiter Eagles), Markeith Tero (Big Chief, Trouble Nation), Nadia Robinson (Queen, Young Guardians of the Flame), and Kevon Colley, Jr. (Big Chief, Young Guardians of the Flame). The program ended with a reception and screening of the films By Invitation Only and All on a Mardi Gras Day from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday.

Click here to see the 2007 Program Schedule

 

Articles Online From The Louisiana Folklore Miscellany

Gaines' Fifteen Narrators: Narrative Styles and Storytelling Technique in A Gathering of Old Men - By Marcia Gaudet

From Custom to Coffee Cake: The Commodification of the Louisiana King Cake - By Janet Ryland

Georgie and Allen Manuel and Cajun Wire Screen Masks - By Ronnie E. Roshto

"Keep Your Mind and Your Hands Busy:" Expressive Dimensions of the Lone Quilter - By Susan Roach

Louisiana Foodways in Ernest Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying - By Courtney Ramsay

Decorating for the Shrimp Fleet Blessing: Chauvin, Louisiana - By Betsy Gordon

Bonfires on the Levee: A Family Tradition in Ascension Parish - By Carol Gravois

Waiting for Babies: Lay Midwives in Louisiana - By Maida Owens

Neither Spared nor Spoiled: The Mardi Gras Chase in Choupic, Louisiana - By Madeline Domangue Cagle

From Evangeline Hot Sauce to Cajun Ice: Signs of Ethnicity in South Louisiana - By Barry Jean Ancelet

Contemporary Cauchemar: Experience, Belief, Prevention - By Katherine Roberts

Field Notes on All Saints' Day, 1985 and 1986 - By Rosan Augusta Jordan and Frank de Caro

Croatians in Southeastern Louisiana: Overview - By Carolyn Ware

Pretty, Little, and Fickle: Images of Women in Cajun Music - By Laura Westbrook

Introduction and Use of Accordions in Cajun Music - By Malcolm Comeaux

Excerpts from The Anonymous Breaux Manuscript - Translated by George Reinecke

 

National Endowment for the Arts.

 
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