Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore Page: 43
284 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Folklore Fieldwork on the Internet
less than three decades the Internet has quickly become an in-
dispensable tool for people in diverse professions as well as an
invaluable research resource and opinion market for students
and lay persons. Many people now turn to it for answers to ques-
tions they might have, for information to enhance their knowl-
edge, even to build new communities. It is within such
communities that one finds new and innovative possibilities for
doing fieldwork in folklore.
These new communities are only accessible through a key-
board; instead of being approached by a system of paved high-
ways or dirt roads, they are entered via wires and optical fibers.
That does not, however, make them any less real, for these
cyberspace communities are as vibrant as any community found
on the globe. Connected by an ever-growing collection of data-
bases, this web reaches out to areas as remote as Siberia and
Zimbabwe, populated by real people sitting behind their moni-
tors who are defined more by common interests and computer
related purposes than by their ethnicity or geography. Using new
digital media developed expressly for the Net, these people talk,
fall in love, and even get married after meeting in a cyberspace
that transcends national and state boundaries. As the twentieth
century draws to a close, the image of a community gathering
around the cracker barrel in a general store has changed. Sto-
ries, traditions, beliefs--folklore-are still being exchanged, but
the walls of the general store have expanded to encompass hun-
dreds, even thousands of miles.
How has this new technology altered the concept of field-
work in folklore? In two recent folklore classes I have taught: a
Folklore and Gender class and the Myths, Legends, and Folktales
class, I decided to find out. Using archival sources such as sites
on the World Wide Web and Gopherspace, students collected
information on their chosen topics; using Listserv and Usenet
technology, they reached out to identify and interview informants43
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Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore (Book)
Volume of twenty-one essays about folklore in Texas, including essays about police burials, railroads, graffiti, folk music, dance halls, and other folklore. The index begins on page 279.
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Abernethy, Francis Edward. Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore, book, 1997; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38308/m1/57/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.