WESTERN STATES FOLKLORE SOCIETY
80TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
April 08-09, 2022
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
(All times listed in Pacific Time)
***REGISTER for In-Person Attendance HERE***
***REGISTER for Virtual Attendance HERE***
Link to Download the PDF Version of the Conference Schedule
Western States Folklore Society 2022 Schedule
Social Media Tagging: #WesternFolklore2022 & #WSFS2022
VIRTUAL NAVIGATION: For virtual sessions, please use the hyperlinks to open the zoom meeting. You will be placed in a waiting room until the session starts. Attendees and presenters follow the same link (except those presenting in person). The hyperlinks will be the name and time of the session. For example, Session 1-B (8 AM-10 AM): “Magic of Popularity” This would indicate a hyperlink to follow to the zoom room.
Thursday, April 07
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Evening Get-Together Lab-Gastropub, USC Campus
Friday, April 08
7:30 am – 3:00 pm Registration SOS B52
Friday, April 08 – In Person and Virtual Sessions
Session 1-A (8:00 AM – 10:00 AM): “The Magic of Storytelling”
Room: SOS B4; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Leah Busby
- 8:00 John Priegnitz: Queer Voices in Deseret: The Intermountain West LGBTQ+ Oral History Project
- 8:30 Julia McKeown: Shaking God’s Throne: Tales of transformation, disobedience, and closeness in a “Queer” Morocco
- 9:00 Heather Joseph-Witham: Political Gnomes and Ice Cream Cones
- 9:30 Leah Busby: Between Inside and Outside: The Poetics of Windows in a Los Angeles Neighborhood
Session 1-B (8:00 AM – 10:00 AM): “Occupational Stories”
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room SOS B45
Chair: Lisa Gabbert, Tech Moderator: Alex Ziegler
- 8:00 Lisa Gabbert: “The Occupational Folklore of Physicians”: A Digital Collection Project.
- 8:30 Lillian Devane: Amazon and Contemporary Occupational Culture
- 9:00 Taylor Wyatt: American Scrimshaw: Occupational Lore, Material Culture, and the American Image
- 9:30 Sadie Rittman: Healing in the “Anthropause”: Reclamation, Resacralization, and Anti-Vaccination in Aotearoa/New Zealand
*BREAK (10:00 AM – 10:15 AM)*
Session 2-A (10:15 AM-12:15 PM): “Meta-Truth”
Room: SOS B4; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Erik Aasland
- 10:15 Erik Aasland: A Discourse Modes Approach to Understanding Post-Truth
- 10:45 Robert Guyker: Another Day in the Simulation.
Session 2-B (10:15 AM-12:15 PM): “Everyday Magic”
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room SOS B45
Chair: Sabina Magliocco, Tech Moderator: TBA
- 10:15 Iryna Stavynska: The Supernatural Folkloresque: Magic as Meaning in The Magicians
- 10:45 Sabina Magliocco: The Sunflower Curse: Magical Responses to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
- 11:15 Byron Arthur Clark: Permanent Pilgrims and Everyday Magic in Avalon
- 11:45 Justin Limoges: Three Sieves in a Trenchcoat: A Vending Diagram
*LUNCH (12:30 PM – 1:30 PM)*
Room SOS B43; also streaming on Zoom
Session 3-A (1:45 PM – 3:45 PM): “Performance of Word”
Room: SOS B4; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Begoña Echeverria
- 1:45 Jose Limon: Where, indeed, Are the Streets of Laredo?
- 2:15 Begoña Echeverria: I am Basque woman: Hear Me Roar
- 2:45 Wolfgang Mieder: “A Friend (not) in Need is a Friend Indeed”: Friendship in Old, New, and Anti-proverbs
- 3:15 Raymond Summerville: “Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty”: The Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings of Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room SOS B45
Chair: Juwen Zhang, Tech Moderator: TBA
- Fariha Khan
- Sojin Kim
- Margaret Magat
- Leigh Wynn
- Nancy Yan
- Juwen Zhang
Archer Taylor Memorial Lecture:
Postnational Folklore; Postnational Folk
Rethinking Communities, Identities, and Politics, in the Age of Global Communications
Prof. Tok Thompson, University of Southern California
Friday April 08: 4:00 – 5:30 PM; Doheny Library (Room DML 240) and via Zoom
In-Person Reception following the talk in the Nazarian Pavilion (ends around 6PM)
Saturday, April 09
7:30 am – 1:00 pm Registration THH 203
Saturday, April 09 – In Person and Virtual Sessions
Session 1-A (8AM – 10AM): Hybrid – “Dress and Material Culture”
Room: THH 205; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Kathryn Brock
- 8:00 Kathryn Brock – In Person: Bridget Cleary and Community After Clonmel: A Folk History of Dressmaking in Rural Ireland
- 8:30 Zahra Abedinezhad – Virtual: The Aesthetics of Self-Repression in Dress and Body Art among Middle-class Urban Iranian Men
- 8:50 Yosser Saidane – Virtual: The Bakhnoug: Female Threads of Lost Meaning
- 9:30 Kiana Nadonza – Virtual: Locating the beauty pageant in everyday practices of the Philippines.
Session 1-A (8AM – 10AM): “Magic of Popularity”
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room THH 207
Chair: Jared Schmidt, Tech Moderator: TBA
- 8:00 Jared Schmidt: Bearing Bela – Bodylore and the Immortalizing of Lugosi’s Portrayal of Count Dracula through Tattoos
- 8:30 Molly McBride: The Folklore of Algorithms.
- 9:00 Alex Ziegler: Making the Old New: The Recontextualization of Tree Spirits in Video Games
- 9:30 Oula Miqbel: “Changelings & Ogbanjes & Silas, Oh My!”: How Hanging Spirits Become Monsters in Your Closet
*BREAK (10:00 AM – 10:15 AM)*
Session 2-A (10:15AM-12:15PM): “Folk Religion and Ritual”
Room: THH 205; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Jesse Valdez
- 10:15 Jesse Valdez: The Myth of Princess Bari and Grief Rituals in Korean Shamanism
- 10:45 Emma Crisp: “A refrische ‘e ll’anime d’o priatorio”: Death and the dead in Neapolitan vernacular religion.
- 11:15 Ysamur Flores-Pena: “What Child is This? Creativity and folk practices in Los Angeles Candlemas Celebration
Session 2-A (10:15AM-12:15PM): “Ritual Relations”
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room THH 207
Chair: Christopher Blythe, Tech Moderator: TBA
- 10:15 Christopher Blythe: “Haunted with the Spirits of the Dead”: Apparitions and Proper Burial in Latter-day Saint Folklore
- 10:45 Chen Jia: From “Locking” to “Unlocking”: The Ritual Process and Transitional Significance of Chinese Tong Guan Ritual
- 11:15 Millie Tullis: Mormon Love Magic: Divination, Dreams, Blessings and Prompts
- 11:45 Wei Liu: Contracts and Contractual Relationships in Huizhou Everyday Life, Eastern China
*LUNCH (12:30 PM – 1:30 PM)*
Session 3-A (1:45PM – 3:45PM): “Ritual and Health”
Room: THH 205; also streaming on Zoom
Chair: Montana Miller
- 1:45 Montana Miller: Unspeakable Transformations: Sharing the Everyday Magic and Misery of Dark Personal Rituals in an Online Addiction Community
- 2:15 Amira Hassnaoui: Presentation on “the Performance Idiom, Banga”
- 2:45 Kristiana Willsey: Covid Illness Narratives and Viral Grief
- 3:15 Nicole Tubman: Shifting: An Internet Phenomenon Through the Lens of Altered States of Consciousness and Healing Modalities
Session 3-A (1:45PM – 3:45PM): “Performance in Everyday Life”
Zoom Meeting; On Display in Room THH 207
Chair: Michael Bell, Tech Moderator: Alex Ziegler
- 1:45 Steven Merrell: They’re not Just Stories, and They’re Certainly not Lies: The Function, Purpose, and Need for Fairytales, Legends, and Myths
- 2:15 Elliot Oring: What Should Be Done with the Dirty Joke?
- 2:45 Michael J. Bell: Maya Wore the Wrong Shoes to Work
*Conference concludes with BUSINESS MEETING at 4:00PM via Zoom*
Location Map
Figure 1. Please refer to this map for building locations. THH is Taper Hall.