On September 15, 2006, the academic journal ORAL TRADITION, founded in 1986 by the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri, entered a new chapter in its existence as an international and interdisciplinary forum for the study of worldwide oral traditions and related forms.
As of this date the journal became available electronically and free of charge at http://journal.oraltradition.org as a series of pdf (Adobe Acrobat) files, with key-word searching of all online texts and with embedded multimedia. In addition to the current issue (volume 21, number 1), four years of back issues have already been posted, and plans are underway to include the entire twenty-two years of ORAL TRADITION by the end of 2007.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Third Class: Quarters, Tar(a)bish, Hearts, Poodles, Cinderella... and ETHICS!
Does life get any more exciting than talking about ethics? Methinks not.
First, we wrassled with the issue of 'ownership': last class (which blogically has been remembered solely for its Top Gun aspects) we talked about the spurious idea of 'communal ownership'. If something belongs to 'the folk', then it in essence belongs to no one person: so I can come along, take it, and make it mine.
Some brave soul offered Tarabish as an example: it is a game 'owned' by Cape Bretoners. But now someone has come along and published a book that, first of all, offers the 'official' version and, second of all, makes money therefrom.
So I offered up the example of Hearts. When I was a sprig of a lad (the sprig being me and the lad being my father), I would spend many an evening at the New Edinburgh Pub in Ottawa playing Hearts with kith, and not with kin. The rules had been learned over the course of kith's respective childhoods. But then we went away to university and bought computers, and played Microsoft Hearts, which introduced us to new rules (principally the proscription against playing a heart or the Queen of Spades on the first round). When we came back after first-year, several of us had changed our way of playing, having learned the 'official' rules. No resolution was found, and eventually we stopped playing as we could not reconcile.
The question deals with the difference between a type and a version: there is the bidding, trumping, exchanging game that is recognisably something called Tarabish, and there are the specific instances of a group's rendition of that game. To establish one as the definitive way to play is to elevate a version to that of type.
A type is, in a way, the aggregate of all versions: we know how to recognise a version of Cinderella because it has enough of the features that are common to all versions and thus to the tale-type Cinderella; at the same time, we only know the tale-type Cinderella because we have gathered enough individual stories and recognised patterns between them to file them all under the general heading 'Cinderella. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario or, for vegans, a bean and sprout one.
My poodle, Fifi, is a poodle because she shares a series of features - or motifs - with all other poodles: fluffy, strangely shorn, skittish, long-legged, canine, etc. But unless we had a large assembly of fluffy, strangely shorn, skittish, long-legged canines that were recognisably similar, we wouldn't have the category 'poodle' to begin with.
So (and this is the point): when we collect, we are collecting a version that is unique to the performer even when the type is considered 'communally owned' (and even when the performer prides themselves in an almost slavish rendition of the type and denies personal artistry). It's still theirs, and that is something we need to heed when collecting and - and this is the point - subsequently distributing our collectanea.
More thics to come, campers. Read the AFS statement again (for those who didn't the first time), and CBU's Human Subjects Utilization Ethics Review - Application and Guidelines, and start to think about how to reconcile the two.
First, we wrassled with the issue of 'ownership': last class (which blogically has been remembered solely for its Top Gun aspects) we talked about the spurious idea of 'communal ownership'. If something belongs to 'the folk', then it in essence belongs to no one person: so I can come along, take it, and make it mine.
Some brave soul offered Tarabish as an example: it is a game 'owned' by Cape Bretoners. But now someone has come along and published a book that, first of all, offers the 'official' version and, second of all, makes money therefrom.
So I offered up the example of Hearts. When I was a sprig of a lad (the sprig being me and the lad being my father), I would spend many an evening at the New Edinburgh Pub in Ottawa playing Hearts with kith, and not with kin. The rules had been learned over the course of kith's respective childhoods. But then we went away to university and bought computers, and played Microsoft Hearts, which introduced us to new rules (principally the proscription against playing a heart or the Queen of Spades on the first round). When we came back after first-year, several of us had changed our way of playing, having learned the 'official' rules. No resolution was found, and eventually we stopped playing as we could not reconcile.
The question deals with the difference between a type and a version: there is the bidding, trumping, exchanging game that is recognisably something called Tarabish, and there are the specific instances of a group's rendition of that game. To establish one as the definitive way to play is to elevate a version to that of type.
A type is, in a way, the aggregate of all versions: we know how to recognise a version of Cinderella because it has enough of the features that are common to all versions and thus to the tale-type Cinderella; at the same time, we only know the tale-type Cinderella because we have gathered enough individual stories and recognised patterns between them to file them all under the general heading 'Cinderella. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario or, for vegans, a bean and sprout one.
My poodle, Fifi, is a poodle because she shares a series of features - or motifs - with all other poodles: fluffy, strangely shorn, skittish, long-legged, canine, etc. But unless we had a large assembly of fluffy, strangely shorn, skittish, long-legged canines that were recognisably similar, we wouldn't have the category 'poodle' to begin with.
So (and this is the point): when we collect, we are collecting a version that is unique to the performer even when the type is considered 'communally owned' (and even when the performer prides themselves in an almost slavish rendition of the type and denies personal artistry). It's still theirs, and that is something we need to heed when collecting and - and this is the point - subsequently distributing our collectanea.
More thics to come, campers. Read the AFS statement again (for those who didn't the first time), and CBU's Human Subjects Utilization Ethics Review - Application and Guidelines, and start to think about how to reconcile the two.
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