Folklore Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/11750

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Open Access
Bridging the Gap: How the Digitalization of Language Revitalization Programs Can Connect the Displaced and Disconnected in Native American Communities
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Miller, Gabrielle; Lowthorp, Leah
This research examines how the digitalization of language classes that use communication technology can help bridge a gap between Native American community members who feel displaced or disconnected from their culture while understanding the relationship that language, place, and identity have on this issue. For this research, I conducted a series of ethnographic interviews with two participating groups: Two language teachers belonging to the Confederated Tribes of Coos Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, and three participants who have expressed feelings of displacement or disconnection from their culture. Along with my interviews, I include my own experiences with this topic and feelings of displacement and disconnection. This study analyzes and explores these topics using a folkloric lens in order to understand the relationship that Native American language revitalization efforts have on identity, highlighting the importance of cultural and community connections. My analysis shows that there is a strong correlation between issues with identity in Native Americans and their connection to place, native language, and connections to culture. I conclude that the inclusion of online forums such as online classes, social media, and meetings that utilize communication technology such as Zoom, within Native American language revitalization efforts, aids in feelings of connection to culture, language, and community for displaced or disconnected community members, ultimately aiding in their views of identity.
Open Access
ORGANIZING AND OCCUPATIONAL CULTURE AT AMAZON FULFILLMENT CENTERS
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) DeVane, Lillian; Lowthorp, Leah
I argue that workers can find meaning in their work through the connective process of organizing. I demonstrate how metric-driven workplaces like Amazon severely impact worker culture. I discuss Amazon as a worksite both through outlining the economic forces that contributed to its rise as a uniquely powerful corporate employer and exploring the online laborlore of the Amazon worker on the social media site Reddit. Finally, I analyze my fieldwork with Amazon workers through a folkloric lens and center the contemporary worker within the boundaries of laborlore scholarship.
Open Access
Bridging the Gap: How the Digitalization of Language Revitalization Programs Can Connect the Displaced and Disconnected in Native American Communities
(University of Oregon, 2024) Miller, Gabrielle M.
This research examines how the digitalization of language classes that use communication technology can help bridge a gap between Native American community members who feel displaced or disconnected from their culture while understanding the relationship that language, place, and identity have on this issue. For this research, I conducted a series of ethnographic interviews with two participating groups: Two language teachers belonging to the Confederated Tribes of Coos Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, and three participants who have expressed feelings of displacement or disconnection from their culture. Along with my interviews, I include my own experiences with this topic and feelings of displacement and disconnection. This study analyzes and explores these topics using a folkloric lens in order to understand the relationship that Native American language revitalization efforts have on identity, highlighting the importance of cultural and community connections. My analysis shows that there is a strong correlation between issues with identity in Native Americans and their connection to place, native language, and connections to culture. I conclude that the inclusion of online forums such as online classes, social media, and meetings that utilize communication technology such as Zoom, within Native American language revitalization efforts, aids in feelings of connection to culture, language, and community for displaced or disconnected community members, ultimately aiding in their views of identity.
Open Access
"Never, Ever, Turn Out The Lights": Podcasts, Supernatural Personal Experience Narratives, and Folkloric Transmission
(University of Oregon, 2024-06) McNeil, Melanie Claire
This thesis examines supernatural personal experience narratives presented in “true horror” podcasts. Through content analysis, I investigate four podcasts featuring supernatural personal experience narratives and compare their modes of narration and presentation, as well as their approaches to gender and place. I argue that the unique affordances of the podcast format allow for the modern folkloric transmission of supernatural experiences and the creation of a parasocial cycle of intimacy between the submitter, host, listener, and the podcast as a whole.
Open Access
Women Over 50 Club: Age and TikTok Dancing in the COVID-19 Pandemic
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-10) Lutnesky, Ariel; Wolf, Juan
With the COVID-19 pandemic came the rise of TikTok, a video-making and -sharing app where users often choreograph and post short dances to song clips. TikTok is commonly associated with teens; however, this overlooks that there are many older women on the app, identifying through hashtags such as #over50club and #grandmasoftiktok. The question this paper aims to answer is how TikTok dancing videos created by women over 50 represent their community while navigating concepts of success. I employ Diane Goldstein’s folklorist’s toolbox and Richard Bauman’s ideas of framing while keeping in mind the contexts in which these videos came—the COVID-19 pandemic and stereotypes that older women face. I categorize TikTok videos under five subgenres: knowledge, age, confidence/self-positivity, calls to community, and amusement. Women over 50 use dancing videos to play with and reject stereotypes associated with each subgenre (except calls to community), claiming autonomy in narratives about their community.
Open Access
The Supernatural Folkloresque: Folklore, Popular Culture, and Supernatural Belief
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Stavynska, Iryna; Wojcik, Daniel
Building upon the study of the folkloresque pioneered by Michal Dylan Foster, this thesis examines a sub-type of folkloresque popular culture that is inspired by supernatural folklore, termed here “the supernatural folkloresque.” Drawing on the existing research from the fields of sociology, folkloristics, religious studies, history, and popular culture studies, as well as examining supernatural folkloresque films and television shows prominent within American popular culture of 1995-2022, I argue that supernatural folkloresque programs tend to signal dissatisfaction with a “disenchanted modernity” and advocate for re-enchanting the world and bringing back the (perceived) lost magic and meaning, which is to be achieved through accepting supernatural belief and reclaiming traditional knowledge preserved in folkloric beliefs and practices; and that such popular culture constitutes a creative and playful mode of exploration of supernatural beliefs, borne out of – and therefore suitable for – the contexts of Western culture in the 21st century.
Open Access
Jimmying the Locke: On the 1982 Model Provisions for the Protection of Folklore, Decolonizing Intellectual Property Rights, and Forty Years of Stasis
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Travers, Benjamin; Lowthorp, Leah
In this work I chart the past forty years of efforts towards developing international policy for the protection of cultural property. I do so by firstly examining the 1982 Model Provisions on National Laws for the Protection of Expressions of Folklore Against Illicit Exploitation and Other Prejudicial Actions, and then, secondly, I consider the current state of negotiations within the Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). I also give significant attention the Eurocentric disposition of the global intellectual property regime and argue that the international IP regulatory system is a colonial apparatus and a potent modernizing technology of the West. I propose that there has been little meaningful progress in international forums to develop protective mechanisms over the past forty years and that, in light of this failure, resources and collective efforts must be reallocated accordingly towards alternative means of safeguarding cultural production and recognizing non-Western modalities of authorship and property.
Open Access
“Cacao as the Key to the Doors of Perception”: Embodied Spirituality, Transcendence, and Healing through Ritualized Entheogen Consumption
(University of Oregon, 2022-02-18) Burby, Taylor; Wojcik, Daniel
Over the last two decades, cacao has become a sacrament within increasingly popular syncretic religious ceremonies that promote the energetic healing of the sacred self. Cacao is a psychoactive substance that is regarded by members within some new religious communities as a plant medicine; when mixed with water and imbibed, practitioners believe they are ingesting the physical manifestation of a cacao spirit, a fifth-dimensional being known for her transformative “heart-opening” and “grounding” properties. This thesis considers ethnographic data and documentation of cacao ceremonies as presented by Keith’s Cacao’s, Ora Cacao’s, and Embue Cacao, as well as survey data of 118 ceremony participants and the analysis of cacao producers’ websites. This thesis explores the emergence, features, and appeal of these entheogenic ceremonies; cacao’s construction as a product and symbol; the reputed therapeutic benefits of ceremonial participation; and what it means for practitioners to achieve numinous healing experiences with cacao’s guidance.
Open Access
"We Who Wander This Wasteland in Search of Our Better Selves": Survivalism, Community, and Identity Within the Post-Apocalyptic Subculture at Wasteland Weekend
(University of Oregon, 2021-11-23) Pace, Rebecca; Wojcik, Daniel
Initially a Mad Max-themed car show, Wasteland Weekend has become a yearly gathering where wanderers of “The Wastes” convene for a week in the Mojave Desert to escape, barter, and celebrate their survival in a post-apocalyptic alternative realm. Individuals who attend, known as “Wastelanders,” share a fundamental concept of a post-apocalyptic world based on a popular culture film franchise, resulting in the creation of a subculture that champions survivalism through community and self-actualization. Through information gathered from fieldwork research and participant observation, this multi-disciplinary folkloric exploration draws upon the scholarship in the areas of subcultural formation, ritual and festival studies, the carnivalesque, bricolage, post-apocalypticism, and identity transformation. By exploring the personal motivations and communal attributes central to the Wastelander subculture, this thesis analyzes influences on cultural expression shaping the discussion surrounding the Wastelander identity and the underlying motivation behind attending Wasteland Weekend.
Open Access
Monsters, the Feminine, and the Diabolical in Medieval Culture
(University of Oregon, 2021-11-23) Steiner, Rachel; Bayless, Martha
In the Middle Ages, it was believed that women were inferior to men intellectually, spiritually, and physically to the point where they were seen as a dangerous threat to men. Texts such as De Secretis Mulierum, the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, the legend of the fairy bride Mélusine, and the Malleus Maleficarum illustrate this point, showing that women were viewed as potential monsters. Through this study, I will show how these texts illustrate medieval anxieties about women that painted them as monstrous and inhuman, an attitude that helped create the late medieval and Early Modern witchcraft moral panic. By comparing the accusations made in these texts to female monsters of the Middle Ages, I will show how medieval popular culture thought of women as a monstrous group that was threatening to men.
Open Access
Storytelling Through Spices: The Other and The East in Late Medieval Narratives
(University of Oregon, 2021-11-23) Ruzak, Madeline; Blandy, Doug
Previous analyses of late medieval writing produced in Western Europe and its relationship to the East have been largely occupied by studies concerning the monstrous. Said studies dealt with how the West depicted the people of the East as “Other” and grotesque due to religious and cultural prejudice. This thesis instead looks at the othering and exoticization of the East through the use of spices as narrative symbols. By examining English-language texts written in Europe between 1250 and 1500C.E., this thesis determines the effect of spices in a narrative context through two lenses: danger and wealth. In both instances, the economic and cultural environment of Europe—i.e., the demand for exotic spices and their view of the East as Other—contributed to stories of dangerous beasts and valuable spices. These stories exemplified the reciprocal relationship of collective cultural tradition and storytelling as they influenced both each other and the everyday lives of medieval Europeans.
Open Access
Representation of a Controversial Figure (Zwarte Piet) During a Time of Racial Injustice and Unrest
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Teeuwen, Iris; Lowthorp, Leah
This thesis considers the blackface holiday figure of Zwarte Piet, part of the Sinterklaas holiday tradition in the Netherlands, within a context of political unrest and broader questioning of institutional racism. It examines how an annual festival and parade connects to community identity and how the country’s history with colonialism and slavery influences institutional racism. It focuses on how representations of the Zwarte Piet figure is actively changing due to protests inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Research done on YouTube explores how towns and cities in the Netherlands choose to represent this controversial figure in the opening celebrations and arrival parade of the Sinterklaas holiday.
Open Access
Envisioning the Goddess: Modern Pagan Iconography of the Feminine Divine
(University of Oregon, 2021-04-27) Snyder, Christal; Bayless, Martha
This thesis investigates the iconography used by specific groups of modern Pagan women in the contemporary United States to represent the feminine divine, the meanings attributed to them by women and by broader communities, and the values these images and meanings reinforce. Through a collection of goddess iconography, interviews with female practitioners, and participant observations in Neopagan events, the personal and communal values of this spiritual movement are explored. This thesis will follow a multi-disciplinary approach, which combines folklore, anthropology, and gender studies. Subcultural scholarship will help to establish whether or not goddess spirituality falls under such a distinction as well as to illuminate the ways in which the images might be subverting the dominant Western culture.
Open Access
MERRY KRAMPUS: ALTERNATIVE HOLIDAY PRAXIS IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNITED STATES
(University of Oregon, 2019-09-18) Peterson, Kirk; Wojcik, Daniel
Since the early twenty-first century, individuals in the US have discovered the enduring winter tradition from Alpen Austria known as Krampusnacht. These events center around the figure of the Krampus, a beast-like, punishing “devil” that accompanies St. Nicholas on December 5th, the eve of his feast day. By 2010, groups of people in US cities were staging their own Krampusnacht processions in downtown areas, referencing the European enactments while simultaneously innovating their embodiments to meaningfully interact with the Christmas season in the United States. Participation in these events increases annually and the Krampus figure’s presence online and in popular media is on the rise. This thesis explores how Krampus-associated traditional material is being practiced, altered, and transmitted across various fields of public culture in the US as a response to the perceived over-commodification of winter festival opportunity.
Open Access
“Just Because I’m a Fisherman, Don’t Assume You Know Who I Am”: Fisherpoetry and the Construction of Masculinity
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) McMullen, Bradford; Gilman, Lisa
This thesis examines the ways in which masculinity is constructed and performed by commercial fisherman poets. Focusing on the writings of cisgender male poets, this thesis examines the ways in which competence and credibility are developed as the highest standards of masculinity, how discussions of the environment contribute to the development of masculinities, and how the relationships depicted in fisherpoetry mirror real-world relationships and develop standards of multiple masculinities.
Open Access
“I’ll Look into This on My Own”: Knowledge and Resistance in Narratives of Contraception among College-Educated American Women
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Tully, Hillary; Silverman, Carol
For every method, there's a story - the IUD that almost killed her, the male birth control that almost happened, the weight gained and the moods changed. Whether a narrative of personal experience or one heard through the grapevine, stories about contraception illuminate critical issues in reproductive health today. Using ethnographic data deeply colored by ongoing partisan rhetoric around reproductive rights and the body, I discuss the dynamics of power at play in patient experience, the performance of social complaint and institutional critique, and vernacular conceptualizations of health and embodiment in the contraceptive regimen.
Open Access
Folk Networks, Cyberfeminism, and Information Activism in the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Series
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Wyer, Sarah; Gilman, Lisa
This thesis explores how the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon event impacts the people who coordinate and participate in it. I review museum catalogs to determine institutional representation of women artists, and then examine the Edit-a-thon as a vernacular event on two levels: national and local. The founders have a shared vision of combating perceived barriers to participation in editing Wikipedia, but their larger goal is to address the biases in Wikipedia’s content. My interviews with organizers of the local Eugene, Oregon, edit-a-thon revealed that the network connections possible via the Internet platform of the event did not supersede the importance of face-to-face interaction and vernacular expression during the editing process. The results of my fieldwork found a clear ideological connection to the national event through the more localized satellite edit-a-thons. Both events pursue the consciousness-raising goal of information activism and the construction of a community that advocates for women’s visibility online.
Open Access
Folklore and Mythology in Neil Gaiman's American Gods
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Dixon, Sean; Wojcik, Daniel
This thesis provides a critical analysis of the use of folklore and mythology that exists in Neil Gaiman's award-winning novel, American Gods. I focus on the ways in which American Gods is situated within an intertextual corpus of mythological and mythopoeic writing. In particular, this study analyses Gaiman’s writing by drawing upon Mircea Eliade’s ideas about mythology and Northrop Frye’s archetypal criticism to discuss the emergence of secular myth through fantasy fiction.
Open Access
Dear Mr. Hiker Man: Negotiating Gender in a Masculinized American Wilderness
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Cox, Nikki; Silverman, Carol
Nature based spiritual pilgrimage in the form of hiking and backpacking demonstrates a deeply rooted connection between the individual and the environment. However, wilderness as a concept has been constructed through a male lens. Male voices have been championed over their female contemporaries. The rigid gender expectations projected within the binary sex/gender system reinforce the idea that nature is a “boys’ club.” By deconstructing the concept of wilderness, I illuminate a gender bias in outdoor pursuits. I explore the ways women have negotiated their own diverse and intersectional identities within the gendered space of wilderness.
Open Access
Lacing Skates and Unlacing Corsets: Gender Play and Multiple Femininities in Roller Derby and Neo-Burlesque
(University of Oregon, 2017-05-01) Helweg-Larsen, Jules; Gilman, Lisa
Lacing Skates and Unlacing Corsets: Gender Play and Multiple Femininities in Roller Derby and Neo-Burlesque. Contemporary roller derby and neo-burlesque, as an athletic sport and a framed staged performance respectively, each provide a space that encourages gender play through interactions between participants and audience and the role of physical body. In this thesis, I discuss how each activity allows for a multiplicity of feminine identities and commentary by performers on the social and cultural expectations of women. Drawing on performance theory, ritual theory, and gender studies, along with fieldwork, I explore how this commentary comes from participants simultaneously critiquing and embracing those expectations in their performances through costuming, use of the body, and the presence of an audience who interpret the events.