Missouri Folklore Society Journal (Vols. 40-41)

Emerging Folklorists showcases outstanding work done by Missouri college students from 2010-19.These projects came primarily from folklore courses and capstones; most were presented at MissouriFolklore Society conferences.These papers represent a range of topics and approaches, from rigorously quantitative analyses tohumanistic studies that ask to be validated by the reader’s recognition of sound insight and empatheticunderstanding. They include oral history, family history, structural linguistics, archival study and a greatdeal of fieldwork. Though the disciplines here range widely, we had in mind something comparable toThe Apprentice Historian, a model which the discipline of history provides to showcaseexceptional learners.So Emerging Folklorists opens with a pre-med student contextualizing lore from her Girl Scout camp.Next, an avid video gamer analyzes gamer language. The volume’s seventeen essays include a linguisticsstudent tackling the linguistic structures of 'Yo Momma' jokes, and a student of A.I. using computeranalysis to explore patterns of sounds and grammar in 'Knock Knock' jokes. Another student uses brain-imaging data to analyze the way subjects processed the humor of memes. An extraordinarily gifted gaystudent collects, categorizes, and offers insight into 'coming out' stories. Another researcher focuses on1990s updates of the Bluebeard motif. A rural student (now a PhD in Literature) explores her county’shistory, including oral accounts of farms and a factory, a Civil War skirmish, the cultural artifacts ofenslaved people. Another from southern Missouri collects stories from people of her grandparents’ generation about racial confrontations in her home town. Many of the essays include appendices--data collected, transcriptions of interviews, etc., valuable in their own right.Some of these inquiries are in spots 'naïve' in the sense art historians use the term--work that shows themarks of the newcomer, or that may not have the range of historical reference of more seniorpractitioners, but work which rides on a freshness and a freedom from the preconceptions which can markprofessionals. These researchers are people still learning how to imagine their audience - they do notalways know what needs to be explained and what does not. But in folklore they have found one of theplaces where an undergraduate can make genuine contributions to knowledge. 3