SyndicateMizzou Video Podcast

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: Bea Gallimore - Francophone novelist Jean-Marie Adiaffi

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:52:52 GMT

Gallimore’s early research addressed how African Francophone writers subvert the French canon by drawing from their culture’s oral tradition to create different levels of meaning. In Gallimore’s first book, _L’oeuvre romanesque de Jean-Marie Adiaffi. Le mariage du mythe et de l’histoire: fondement d’un récit pluriel_ (1996), Gallimore examines author Jean-Marie Adiaffi, particularly the novel _La Carte d’Identité_ (1995). The main character in the book, who was a prince before colonization, loses his I.D. card. In the system imposed by the colonial French government, the loss of this I.D. card results in the loss of the man’s name and identity, so it becomes an allegory for the impact of colonization on the identity of the colonized.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: SyndicateMizzou - Cooperative ventures between CSOT and CeR

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:44:27 GMT

John Miles Foley explains how the two centers—the Center for the Studies in Oral Tradition (est. 1986) and the newer Center for eResearch—are cooperative ventures: “All of our activities at both centers have in common the philosophy of sharing intellectual content (knowledge, art, ideas) across barriers…to make it as easy as possible for everyone in the world to participate.”

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - Introduction to Oral Tradition

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:28:23 GMT

The basic idea behind the study of oral traditions, explains John Miles Foley, is that we must approach them differently from how we approach written texts. Foley’s seminal book, How to Read an Oral Poem (2002), now translated into Chinese, offers a methodology for approaching oral tradition while paying attention to such crucial aspects as performance, audience, structure, and specialized language.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - The Pathways Project

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:28:58 GMT

The Pathways Project explores the comparison between OT (oral tradition) and IT (Internet technology), showing the similarities between these two network-based modes of navigation. When it's finished, there will be a paper book, Pathways of the Mind, as well as a website. The two methods of navigating through networks—oral tradition and the web—mimic the very way we think.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - Other Projects

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:29:48 GMT

Foley describes several other ongoing projects. One involves relocating the journal Oral Tradition from a conventional paper format to a new incarnation on the web in 2006. The decision to put the journal online stemmed from his commitment to forge a truly international conversation about this multidisciplinary field. In addition to the online journal, the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition has published three book series, comprising over 27 volumes. Foley is also involved in various collaborative research projects with scholars in Sardinia, Finland, China, Mexico, Indonesia, and the Basque Country.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - Connecting Oral Traditions and Written Traditions

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:30:58 GMT

Since about 1975, field reports have revealed the tremendous size and diversity of oral tradition as a cultural phenomenon. In fact, Foley notes, “written literature is dwarfed by oral traditions.” Despite our “ideological fixation on texts and print, the communications technology we call oral tradition” has been with us for most of homo sapiens’ existence, whereas writing was introduced only relatively recently.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - An Early Interest in Language

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:39:22 GMT

Foley distinctly recalls the roots of his interest in languages and oral tradition. During the third grade, assistant principal Jean Buteau offered to teach French to Foley and two other students as an alternative to study-time. In graduate school, two teachers were especially influential. One of them, Robert Creed, introduced Foley to oral tradition by performing parts of the Old English Beowulf during every seminar meeting, illustrating how -- unlike the written word -- oral traditions live in embodiment. The other, Anne Lebeck, was Foley’s most inspiring teacher of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, which also derive from oral tradition. Seeking a modern analog, Foley later began to study the living oral traditions of the Former Yugoslavia.

SyndicateMizzou Podcast: John Miles Foley - Teaching

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:53:46 GMT

As a Curators’ Professor and Byler Chair in the Humanities, Foley is well known for his teaching, offering a number of courses in the Classical Studies and English departments, and occasionally in Germanic and Slavic. For example, he currently teaches courses on oral tradition, a seminar on Beowulf, and courses in Homer and Greek literature. Foley notes that the Beowulf seminar reads the entire poem—“all 3,182 lines”—in the original language of Old English. In fact, he adds, “we have a feast at the end of the semester, when we perform it aloud so that the students can get a feel of what it’s like in the original.” Regardless of the topic, Foley infuses students with an appreciation for the beauty and complexity of language and verbal art.