Western Folklore

Vol. 68, No. 4 – Fall, 2009

Contents

Articles

Vernacular Media, Vernacular Belief: Locating Christian Fundamentalism in the Vernacular Web
Robert Glenn Howard

 
ABSTRACT: New communication technologies allow individuals to express and consume a greater diversity of religious ideas. With the rise of vernacularizing media, religious expression is becoming more vernacular. In this situation, the unique perspective and methods of Folklore Studies help document a vernacular ideology that emerges in a network of websites when individuals express a specific set of conservative evangelical beliefs. KEYWORDS: Internet, Christianity, fundamentalism, End Times, apocalyptic belief

Narratives of Personal Revelation Among Latter-day Saints
Tom Mould

 
ABSTRACT: This study explores the social, functional and aesthetic dimensions of narratives of personal revelation shared among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Structural distinctions within the genre of personal revelation narratives reveal an indigenous interpretive system that is foregrounded in performance. Further, this study provides a model for the analysis of personal experience narratives that addresses the varying demands levied by narrative form, personal experience, and social and cultural norms. KEYWORDS: Mormon, memorate, genre, narrative, revelation

Reviews

Gary Alan Fine, Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction
Reviewed by Anne Pryor and Steven A. Ackerman

Joanne Raetz Stuttgen, Café Indiana: A Guide to Indiana's Down-Home Cafés
Reviewed by Arthur Gordon Van Ness, IV

William Bernard McCarthy, Editor, Cinderella in America: A Book of Folk and Fairy Tales.
Reviewed by Cassandra Chambliss

Simon J. Bronner, Editor, Encyclopedia of American Folklife
Reviewed by Peter Harle

Burt Feintuch and David H. Watters, Editors, The Encyclopedia of New England: The Culture and History of an American Region
Reviewd by Anthony Bak Buccitelli

Pamela L. Geller and Miranda K. Stockett, Editors, Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, Future.
Reviewed by Jeana Jorgensen

Gregory Hansen, A Florida Fiddler: The Life and Times of Richard Seaman
Reviewed by Jan Rosenberg

Samuel G. Armistead, with Israel J. Katz. Collected by Samuel G. Armistead, Joseph H. Silverman, and Israel J. Katz, Editors, Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews, Vol. V: Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition IV. Carolingian Ballads (3): Gaiferos
Reviewed by Judith R. Cohen

Dan Ben Amos, Editor, Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion
Reviewed by Reginetta Haboucha

Anand Prahlad, Editor, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore
Reviewed by Ruth Perry

Kristen Haring, Ham Radio's Technical Culture
Reviewed by Douglas R. Evans

Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas, Editors, Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore
Reviewed by Daniel J. Peretti

Michael A. Lange, The Norwegian Scots: An Anthropological Interpretation of Viking-Scottish Identity in the Orkney Islands.
Reviewed by Claire E. Aubrey

Elizabeth D. Jacobs and William R Seaburg, Pitch Woman and Other Stories: The Oral Traditions of Coquelle Thompson, Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian
Reviewed by Geoffrey Robert Hamilton

Marybeth C. Stalp, Quilting: The Fabric of Everyday Life
Reviewed by Laurel Horton

Niels Teunis and Gilbert Herdt, Editors, Sexual Inequalities and Social Justice
Reviewed by Elaine Lawless

Lee Haring, Stars and Keys: Folktales and Creolization in the Indian Ocean
Reviewed by Willie Smyth

Bruce Jackson, The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of Telling Stories
Reviewed by Robbin Zeff Warner

Jonathan C. David, Together Let Us Sweetly Live: The Singing and Praying Bands
Reviewed by Larry Morrisey

Nicola Masciandaro, The Voice of the Hammer: The Meaning of Work in Middle English Literature
Reviewed by Gerald Porter