The Uses of the Folk

by Miller, Karl Hagstrom

• ISBN13: 9780822365525
• ISBN10: 0822365529
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

The Uses of the Folkintroduces a new way of understanding the relationship between artists and populations designated as "the folk" and the scholars who define them. The issue begins with the premise that vernacular culture is an important tool through which communities assert their interests and identities within national and international politics. More than simply protecting or preserving traditions in the face of modernization, folk culture-and state or academic interest in it-gives many practitioners a rare but powerful voice within debates about modernity, national identity, and culture from which they have typically been barred. Folk communities often show a profound willingness to change the presentation of the culture in order to gain maximum advantage from authorities needed for authenticating power. The essays explore a variety of incarnations of "the folk," from the contested meanings of folk dance in creating a national culture in twentieth-century Haiti and Nicaragua, to the ways that the London Museumrs"s collection of artifacts challenged early-twentieth-century British notions of gender, labor, and citizenship, to the production of urban folklore in New York City.The Uses of the Folkidentifies folk culture of the past and present as an important site of ongoing struggle-one affecting all scholars who draw on folk or vernacular culture in their work.Contributors. Adina Back, Jordanna Bailkin, Regina Bendix, Katherine Borland, Sally Charnow, Peggy P. Hargis, Georgina Hickey, John Howard, Shafali Lal, R. J. Lambrose, Ronald Radano, Kate Ramsey, Gerald Shenk, David Takacs, David Waldstreicher, Daniel Walkowitz, Steve Zeitlin

Table of Contents

The Uses of the Folk
Editors' Introduction	1	(6)
Karl Hagstrom Miller
Ellen Noonan
FEATURES
Without One Ritual Note: Folklore Performance and the Haitian State, 1935--1946	7	(36)
Kate Ramsey
Radical Conservations: The Problem with the London Museum	43	(34)
Jordanna Bailkin
Marimba: Dance of the Revolutionaries, Dance of the Folk	77	(32)
Katherine Borland
REFLECTIONS
Reflections on the Folk	109	(1)
Karl Hagstrom Miller
The Uses of Disciplinary History	110	(5)
Regina Bendix
Narrating Black Music's Past	115	(4)
Ronald Radano
Patrolling the Boundaries	119	(6)
Daniel Walkowitz
HISTORIANS AT WORK
The Folklorist As ``Cultural Activist'': An Interview with Steve Zeitlin	125	(12)
Adina Back
Sally Charnow
TEACHING RADICAL HISTORY
Activist Pedagogy	137	(1)
Heidi Tinsman
Using History to Inform Political Participation in a California History Course	138	(11)
Gerald Shenk
David Takacs
Teaching Eighties Babies Sixties Sensibilities	149	(66)
Georgina Hickey
Peggy G. Hargis
(RE)VIEWS
Coming to Terms with the Right
Review of Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932--1968; and Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right	167	(7)
John Howard
Orphaned, Adopted, and Abducted: Parents and Children in Twentieth-Century America
Review of Julie Berebitsky, Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851--1950; Paula S. Fass, Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America; and Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction	174	(11)
Shafali Lal
Founders Chic As Culture War
Review of Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation; Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic; and David McCullough, John Adams	185	(10)
David Waldstreicher
``History Will One Day Have Its Say'': New Perspectives on Colonial and Postcolonial Congo
Review of Ronan Bennett, The Catastrophist; Ludo De Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba; Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa; Johannes Fabian, Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire: Pagan Kennedy, Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo; Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible; Michela Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo; Lumumba: Death of a Prophet, directed by Raoul Peck; Lumumba, directed by Raoul Peck; Pieces d'identites, directed by Mweze Ngangura	195	(14)
Yael Simpson Fletcher
In Memoriam
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti: Seventy-Five Years Later	209	(2)
The Abusable Past
R. J. Lambrose	211	(4)
Notes on Contributors	215