Change, Continuity, Fragmentation

In January of this year, Jason Baird Jackson handed me the editorial reins of the Journal of Folklore Research. A common convention after such a handoff is for the new editor to offer a few paragraphs of greetings, and I want to start my own tenure by expressing deep gratitude to my predecessors. Jason served as Interim Editor during JFR’s fiftieth year of publication; he left the journal in such good shape that there is time for me to quietly learn the ropes without interfering with the smooth flow of production. I am inspired not only by Jason’s practical expertise but also by his brilliant grasp of contemporary academic publishing.

In addition, I want to thank Jason’s own predecessor, Moira Marsh, who oversaw the publication of numerous influential articles as well as several special issues that can be read from cover to cover as examples of engaged, coherent research. Only now, as we continue to read the works published during Moira’s years of leadership, can we begin to grasp the lasting ways her patient editorial hand promoted ground-breaking scholarship.

I am also thrilled to inherit a superb editorial staff. Managing Editor Steve Stanzak lives up to both elements of his title. He manages the journal’s production with finesse and a remarkably broad range of skills—when necessary he can even rewrite computer code for our online interface. And he edits with a calm and careful eye. Likewise, Editorial Assistant Miriam J. Woods balances off our small team with impeccable organizational skills and a thorough and thoughtful approach to everything that crosses her desk.

I mention my predecessors and the editorial staff not only out of gratitude but also to give credit for the current issue. It feels odd to have my own name on the masthead of a product I had very little to do with. But just as the editorial traditions of the journal are assumed by each succeeding generation, so too the current set of articles was passed forward to me. With change, there is continuity. But all the credit for this fine issue goes to Jason and Moira, under whose stewardship these articles came together, and to Steve and Miriam, who worked tirelessly to create the final product.

Despite my own lack of influence on the issue, however, I am honored to be associated with it. The articles assembled here exemplify the rich and varied heritage of the journal. Dorothy Noyes’s essay, which was developed from an American Folklore Society (AFS) panel on Aesthetic Ideologies, outlines a theoretically sophisticated typology for thinking about aesthetics by focusing on the role of attention. Through a brilliant elucidation of this typology, Noyes offers folklorists (and others) a new set of analytic tools for understanding folkloric (and other) practices in fresh and productive ways. Katharine Young’s article also grew out of the same AFS panel and is equally thought provoking. With lyrical and evocative prose, Young draws us inside ourselves to investigate embodied and philosophical understandings of aesthetics, encouraging us to “trace the filaments of folklore into the body.” Next, Rebecca Gould’s discussion of the folklore of social banditry and modernity in Chechnya analyzes (and translates) a “lonely hero” ballad within the context of its production and subsequent interpretations. Her politically and historically informed analysis particularly exemplifies JFR’s longstanding commitment to exploring folklore from all regions of the globe. Similarly, our final article in the issue, by Timothy R. Tangherlini and Peter M. Broadwell, also reflects an engagement with folklore on an international scale—in this case the great Danish folklorist Evald Tang Kristensen. This article is part of an ongoing series in JFR that will broadly consider archives from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Here Tangherlini and Broadwell introduce two digital interfaces they designed in order to curate Kristensen’s massive collection. While demonstrating a revolutionary mode of engaging with specific folkloric materials, they also gesture to the potential of computational folkloristics for reshaping the discipline.

As these four articles demonstrate, JFR consistently publishes work that probes theoretical, methodological, and international concerns within folkloristics, and more broadly within humanistic...