FSU Conference Program

November 12th and 13th, 2021

To watch recorded sessions, simply click on the associated links.

Virtual viewership is completely free and open to the public. However, if you would like to donate to the Folklore Society of Utah, please visit https://www.folkloresocietyofutah.org/donate. Or consider becoming a member by visiting https://www.folkloresocietyofutah.org/ and pressing the “Join Now” button.

Friday-November 12, 2021

Virtual Session 1A: International Folklore

        Chair: Jill Rudy, PhD. (Brigham Young University)

Andrew Murphey (Brigham Young University), “Folklore and Tourism of the Hungarian Soviet Era”

Claire Gillett (Indiana University), “The Paracas Textiles: Funerary Objects National Identity, and the Complications of International Repatriation”

Mridula Sharma (University of Delhi), “Reading the Caste System as Folktale: Possibilities of Resistance for Subaltern Women.”

Shailesh Kumar Sahu (Indira Gandhi National Tribal University), “Bundeli Faag”

Virtual Session 1B: Mormon Folklore

        Chair: Eric Eliason, PhD. (Brigham Young University)

Rachel Ross (Pennsylvania State University), “Remembering and Forgetting: The Vernacular Efforts of LDS Women to Rewrite the Narratives and Change Our Collective Memory”

Manuel W. Padro (Independent Scholar), “The Good Witch Must Also Die: Witchcraft Belief, Folk-Christianity and the Persecutions of Joseph Smith

Melanie Kimball (Brigham Young University), “Unto All the World: Latter Saint Missionary Lore”

Jonathan Stapley (Independent Scholar), “Open Yet Closed: Accessing the Latter-day Saint Communion”

University Folklore Program Session

This session is intended to offer a glimpse into major university folklore programs located in the United States and Canada. This presentation is directed towards M.A. or Ph.D. candidates and folklore professionals interested in understanding how programs vary from institution to institution. Panelists will discuss topics such as graduate funding & employment, faculty areas/specialties, course offerings, campus life and much more.  

Saturday-November 13, 2021   

Session 1A: Latter-day Saint Folklore (click to watch)

    Chair: Christopher J. Blythe, Ph.D. (Brigham Young University)

Zackary Gregory (Utah State University), “Satan Among Mormons: Manifestations of the Satanic Panic in the LDS Community”

Millie Tullis (Utah State University), “‘Unearthing Mountain Meadows Massacre Legends”

Katherine Miller (Brigham Young University), “The Latter-day Saint Interactions with Modern Prophets”

Magen Edvalson (Community of Christ), “Divergent Restoration: Contrasting Folklore Among Modern Iterations of the Joseph Smith Restoration Movement”

Session 1B: Religious Narratives & Traditions (click to watch)

Chair: Lori Lee (Love Your Story Podcast)

Jane Tallmadge (Brigham Young University), “Missionary Legends that Cross National and International Borders”

Hannah Seariac, (Brigham Young University), “The Requiem: The Cult that is the Case Study for MTC Folklore”

Dalan Nelson (Brigham Young University), “LGBTQ at BYU”

Emma Crisp (Utah State University), “Flipping through the Bible: Protestant Divinatory Practices”

Session 2A: Documenting, Preserving and Exhibiting Folklore (click to watch)

Chair: Christopher J. Blythe (Utah State University)

Jeannie Thomas (Utah State University), “Lessons in Field Photography: Focusing on Creole-Zydeco Communities”

Lisa Gabbert (Utah State University), “The Medical Carnivalesque”

Terri Jordan (Utah State University), “Learning Local Culture Through Student Folklore: An Exploration of the Utah State University Fieldwork Collections”

Steven Hatcher (Idaho Commission on the Arts), “The Story Quilt Project”

Session 3A: COVID-19 and the Folklore on Love & Death (click to watch)

      Chair: Lauren Matthews (Snow College)

Skylar Russell (Brigham Young University), “The Western Morality of Love in the Examination of Death”

John Edward Priegnitz (Utah State University), “Solidarity in the Time of COVID-19: Salt Lake City, Memorial Culture, and Black Lives Matter”

Geneva Harline (Salt Lake Community College), “Folklore as the Thread that Binds us Together: Applying Trauma and Folklore Studies to Quilt a Path Out of the COVID-19 Societal Tears”

Aphrodite Nounanaki (University of Athens), “Fighting Against the Evil Graft: Greek Conspiracy Theories about the Vaccine Against COVID-19”

Session 3B: Material Lore and Music (click to watch)

Chair: Christine Elyse Blythe (Wilson Folklore Archives, BYU)

Taylor Wyatt (Utah State University), “American Scrimshaw: Material Culture of American Whalers”

Annie Watson (Brigham Young University), "Our Song: Music that Friends, Relatives, and Couples Call Their Own”

Caroline Raines (Brigham Young University), “Lucky Pennies: Symbols of Divine Hope”

Katie Fastabend (Brigham Young University), “Oral Traditions and Modern Renditions”

Session 4A: The Intersections of Pop Culture and Folklore (click to watch)

Chair: Nan McEntire, Ph.D. (Indiana State University)

Anna Allred (Brigham Young University) “Other than the Crown: Stereotyping the Beauty Queen”

Joshua Richardson (Utah Valley University), “Millennial Expressions: A Quick Guide to Millennial Phraseology for our Generational Predecessors”

Alexandria Ziegler (Utah State University), “Making the Old New: Video Games as a Genre for Ancient Deities through Recontextualization”

Brittney Sherwood (Brigham Young University), “The Owen Wilson Renaissance: A Study in How Online Fan Communities Create and Circulate Digital Folklore”

Sessions 4B: Meaning Making: The Fantastic to the Geographic (click to watch)

         Chair: Camille Sleight (Bear River Heritage Center)     

Steven Merrell (Utah State University), “Seeing. The Self a Psychoanalytic Analysis of the Victorian Vampire, Dracula.”

Danny B. Stewart (Utah State University), “Is There a Connection Between the Imaginary Friend and the Metaphysical Phenomena?”

Andi Pitcher Davis (Artist and Storyteller), “Geo-Mythology of the Great Basin”

Jack Daly (Independent Scholar), “Randonauting: A Metric Semulacrum Trip.”

Keynote Lecture

          Introduction: Lynne McNeil Ph.D. (Utah State University)

 Afsane Rezaei, Ph.D. (Utah State University) “Vernacular Islam in Tehrangeles: Women’s Rituals and Ethnographic Dilemmas”

Iranian women's Islamic practices in the US are subject to multiple forms of marginality at the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. In this talk, I draw on examples from my fieldwork in Southern California to discuss the multiple ways women approach the practice of faith in the diasporic context, and how the performative and affective characteristics of religious rituals allow for complex and multi-layered modes of engaging in one’s faith. I also reflect on the challenges of fieldwork, particularly as a "halfie" researcher with ambivalent claims of membership in the group, and how to navigate issues of ethics and trust in the ethnography of religion.