Beginning to think about the projects

Beginning to think about the research project

Folks:

As you’ll recall, there is a research project requirement in this class; we spoke about it briefly in first seminar meeting, and there is a more detailed description in the WebCT syllabus. A few supplementary comments, though:

· Although the research project is separate from the “participation” project (e.g., learning a few minutes of song, music, storytelling, dance, poetry or other participatory art-form), it is perfectly permissible to link the research project and the performance element. For example, if your performance piece is going to be a memorized story, it is completely permissible to make your research project a formal academic paper on the background, sources, versions, connotations, and meaning of the story. The same could be true of a song, an instrument or instrumental tune, a poem, or a set of dance-steps. If you would like to link your research project with your performance project, by all means feel free to do so.

· In all cases, I can supply detailed suggestions about sources, directions, specific pieces, authors, time periods, illustrations, etc. But first I need to know what you think you want to focus on. Just to give you an idea, here is a short, very incomplete list of various folk idioms that could be the topic of the research project:

o Genealogy, either formal or (better) the version carried in stories;

o Food folkways: recipes; where raw food comes from; associations of certain foods with seasons, events, or people; etc.;

o Religious traditions: both Catholic and Protestant; both in the Republic (an independent nation) and in Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom);

o Storytelling of all kinds: mysteries, histories, ghost stories, funny stories, love stories; etc;

o Poetry: its hundreds of forms in different time periods; preferred meters and types of imagery; who performed it in what contexts; what the Irish themselves say and believe about poetry’s place in life; etc

o Magic and the supernatural: supernatural beings, places, experiences, objects, behaviors, animals, professions; etc

o Nature lore: place names; sacred places; the lore of trees and plants; “magical”; wise or symbolic animals; seasonal events or festivals; agricultural wisdom, etc

o Pre-Christian Ireland and the stories told about it; how those stories were passed on in the oral tradition; mythical heroes, etc

o Historical events as they have been carried in the oral tradition: wars, rebellion, fame, emigration, heroic figures, etc

o Instrumental music: instruments, players, regional styles, types of music (“laughing, sleeping, and weeping music”); the symbolism and power of instrumental music

o Songs of all types: Irish and English; love songs, narrative songs, lyric or vision songs; singing styles; songs for certain occasions; songs as history

o Storytelling of all types: English and Irish; mythical and historical; comic and sad; war and peace; purposes of storytelling; contexts for storytelling; how storytelling has been retained in the modern world; transformations of storytelling;

o Folk theater: mumming, Wren boys; folk rituals;

o Travel and transformation: songs or stories of physical or spiritual travel and transformative experience; music/folklore as a tool for transformation and identity

· As you can see, the above partial list only scratches the surface of the range of folkloric material available for you to investigate. It is not too soon for you to start thinking about the kind of research topic you might be interested in investigating. Here are a few suggestions to help you narrow the choices:

o This is a topic you will be dealing with for the whole semester. By all means make it a topic that is interesting to you, and/or that has links to other personal interests or studies you may have.

o Try to find ways to personalize and narrow the topic. In other words, don’t decide to write a research paper on “Ghost stories in Ireland,” because it’s such an enormous topic you’ll never reach the end of it. Instead, decide to write a research paper on one particular ghost story (or song, or recipe, or story, or nature tale, or folk play, or dance, and so on), and make the research project as detailed and specific as you can. Greater detail over a narrower focus will make for better and more original work.

o Remember that you can also link the research project to your performance project. So, perhaps you might like to write the research project on one particular folk song in your developing repertoire, detailing where it came from, what if any historical events or folk beliefs it refers to, who has performed it and how those performances have varied, and so on.

· Over the next couple of weeks, I will be setting up short meetings so that we can talk one-on-one about your individual projects, but in the mean time, I’ve placed an assignment on WebCT, opening 1.17.06 and closing 1.24.06. Please look at the above lists, think about topics (perhaps surf the web or our readings for more ideas) and then look at the assignment.