Timothy Lloyd’s edited collection, What Folklorists Do, introduces the scope of folklore practice to the broad public, other academics, and folklorists themselves. The book looks both to the past and to the future, reflecting on the diversity of what folklorists have achieved and the promise of what lies ahead. In seventy-six essays, pioneers, leaders, and advocates in the field give views on their work in folklore. The essays are brief and succinct, most no more than three pages long. Some are biographical, others more conceptual, but each contributor presents a key skill or approach used or developed in folkloristic work.
The collection logically begins with a section titled Researching and Teaching, containing essays that address the core of the folklore endeavour. These contributions focus on the different cultural documentation skills that folklorists learn, what makes them different from other academics. Some essays here deal with major folklore research tools, including basic fieldwork issues or techniques (Tom Mould); how folklorists collaborate on research across disciplines or countries (Sheila Bock; Dorothy Noyes); how folklorists pursue ethnography (Meghan McGrath); and how folklorists adapt the digital humanities (John Laudun) or newer specialities like big data (Timothy Tangherlini) to cultural research.
Most of this initial section, however, focuses on teaching. Academic folklore took hold in universities in the mid-twentieth century as the humanities expanded to include overlooked peoples and cultures. Essays here demonstrate the breadth of how folklorists have continued to expand their reach in higher education. Teaching folklore takes all forms: from undergraduate introductory surveys (David Todd Lawrence) to graduate seminars and PhD supervision (Ray Cashman), from a community college (David Puglia) to even a medical school (Bonnie Blair O’Connor).
The reach of folklore––like most liberal arts disciplines—has moved into public sector and applied work. In the past fifty years, folklore has succeeded in bridging the gap between universities and public institutions, and the book covers public and applied folkloristic approaches to issues as diverse as health (Diane Goldstein), environmentalism (Mary Hufford), and the development and implementation of national and international cultural policies (Valdimar Hafstein). Folklorists have also created policies and programs for curriculum development and delivery, working, for example, within the K-12 school system to explore folkloric forms and performances (Ruth Olson; Lisa Rathje). Contributions also range through the work of folklorists in areas of cultural production, including museums (Carrie Hertz; Jason Baird Jackson); music (Daniel Sheehy); film (Tom Rankin); and festival (Maribel Alvarez). More public advisory work, such as historic preservation (Laurie Kay Sommers), or cultural industries, like heritage tours (Joan L. Saverino), are also explored.
Luisa Del Giudice discusses the advantages of working under that increasingly common rubric of “independent scholar”––perhaps a more dignified and gentler term than “unemployed” or “underemployed.” Subsequently, one area in which the collection is lacking is exploring why some folklorists find themselves without work. The American Folklore Society (like most academic societies) has a membership category for “Independent or Contingent” scholars. But AFS also has an “Underwaged” category. The collection could have benefitted from essays from the underwaged, unemployed, or precariously employed, as well as those who have pursued a post-folklore career. Occasionally a contributor mentions the difficulties of finding consistent funding for work (e.g., Susan Eleuterio). But in the professional journeys of folklorists, how many have needed to rely upon the financial support of family, or turn to a job that has nothing to do with folklore, to carry out projects that involve folklore materials? The possibility of not finding a job as a folklorist is a reality. When we can better understand the reasons why young folklore graduates are struggling in their career paths, we can work on solutions to address the gaps, whether through better training, mentorship, advocacy, or networking opportunities.
Over my academic career at Memorial University, I supervised twenty-three MA theses; only ten of those students went on to a career in folklore. Of the eight PhD students I supervised, four have worked as professional folklorists. What other careers emerged among these thirty-one incredibly bright and talented students? Creative writer, toy designer, playwright, brewer and distiller, librarian, and in some cases, raising a family. Many formally trained folklorists today, despite their specialized training, seek work elsewhere. What folklorists do is sometimes not, ultimately, “folklore,” but rather a career that draws on elements of their folkloristic training. What, then, are those key skills and knowledges that a folklore degree can impart that apply universally to professional working situations?
Ultimately, the essays in this collection will leave the reader raising more fundamental questions and issues than are addressed in the book. Does a folklore degree lead one on a clear success path, or are there struggles to finding or creating a job as a folklorist? Does folklore training create a limitless skills-set, or does someone learn skills elsewhere that are then later applied to folklore work? Is folklore a clearly defined professional degree, or are there as many variants of a folklorist as there are tale-types?
Universities have become much more attuned to the notion that a graduate degree has to have some clear and immediate relation to a professional job. In his introduction, Lloyd is optimistic as to the future of folklore (and the humanities generally) within this changing academic world. But clearly there has been a slow atrophying of graduate folklore programs in North America. While folklore programs will not all disappear, the numbers of folklorists with a graduate degree who can expect an academic or public/applied job specifically in folklore grows smaller and smaller—just as it has in many other areas of the social sciences and humanities. What folklorists can do becomes increasingly challenging, especially in this present intellectual climate where most pursuits outside of STEM are dismissed.
Timothy Lloyd’s book is a useful collection on a number of levels, helping the reader understand the working world of the professional folklorist. Taken as a whole, the collection is, in a sense, an occupational folklife ethnography of a particular academic subject, albeit almost exclusively in the United States. The commentaries of so many diverse individuals about their day-to-day activities indicate how an emerging intellectual interest has gained a niche in both the academy and larger institutional world. But the essays also bring up the longstanding debate of what is the difference between an academic “discipline” or “field,” and where the pursuit of folklore might fall in that debate. Is folklore a discipline requiring advanced training (a degree) and AFS networking, or is it a subject field that is open to all regardless of training and networks? Professional possibilities in folklore studies from the essays in What Folklorists Do seem endless. They point to an optimistic future, but many challenges remain.
--------
[Review length: 1113 words • Review posted on May 7, 2023]