E. Curtis Alexander (ECA Associates) Kwanzaa Celebration: From a Black Nationalist Holiday to an American Observance . (need abstract)

Daniel Avorgbedor (The Ohio State University) Cultural Display and the Construction of Ethnic Identities in a Contemporary Independent Church: The Apostolic Revelation Society (A.R.S.) of Ghana . This presentation explores the specific strategies and mechanisms employed in the selection and display of cultural and expressive forms (such as costume, music, dance, traditional protocol, and rites of kingship and priesthood) in an independent Christian Church of Ghana, the Apostolic Revelation Society. This presentation highlights contemporary popular culture and national politics of Ghana and how these inform the resources and strategies of the A.R.S., as well as treating the dialectics of negotiating the idea of "one people of Christ" within the shifting realities of multi-ethnic congregations, and the specific ways in which A.R.S. promotes multi-ethnic participation by appealing to culture and tradition. The A.R.S. provides an ideal environment for studying how culture is reinterpreted and reconstituted.

Sondra Bergen (Utah State University) Bakhtin's Theory of the Carnivalesque: A Study of Modern Rave Subculture. In this presentation I discuss Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque as a site of cultural and social resistance and apply it to the modem-day rave, a once illegal youth festival consisting of the consumption of illegal substances while dancing, sometimes for twenty-four hours, to the fast beat of techno-house music. However, as with any festival that exhibits resistance to the dominant ideology, the rave is not a site of resistance for long as it is commodified, encompassed and "controlled" by the dominant. I use the rave as an example of this commodification by examining the history of the festival and its later commercialization with concrete examples.

Timothy G. Borden (Indiana University) Celebrating a New Deal Holiday: Consensus, Consumerism, and Working-Class Rhetoric on Labor Day, Toledo, Ohio, 1929-1948. This paper explores the ways in which the American working class countered the dominant narratives of consumerism and political consensus through holiday celebrations. Observing Labor Day between the Great Depression and Cold War with the rhetoric of class solidarity, social struggle, and working-class pride, Toledo's workers reclaimed and redefined history in a public--and explicitly political, class-based--discourse.

Tom Bremer (Princeton University) Experience, Authenticity, and Authority at Temple Square and Mission San Juan Capistrano . This study explores the implications of tourist attractions that put religion on public display. I construct a heuristic relationship between the Temple Square in Salt Lake City and Mission San Juan Capistran in Southern California that raises questions about the religion/tourism hybridization of space and offers new perspectives for contemplating religious experience in the context of a commodified landscape. In particular, I explore various dimensions of visitors' experiences at these sites and the ongoing efforts to establish and maintain authenticity, as well as struggles and conflicts of authority.

John Cash (Indiana University) Beyond Authenticity: The Believable Performance of History . To most observers, reenactors of the Civil War appear dedicated to the most accurate portrayal of the life, dress, and activities of their historical counterparts. In particular their concern for "authenticity" has fascinated scholars. I maintain that reenacting is a form of popular commemorative performance, and is hence inherently selective. I argue that accurate presentation is less significant than believable performance. Reenacting possesses ritual qualities which allow the authority of historical narratives to be contested or affirmed. This presentation explores those narratives and considers what makes for believable performance in the reenactor community.

Neema Caughran (Ithaca College) Shiva and Parvati: Public and Private Realities in Performance of Women's Ritual in North India . A Vrat Katha is a ritual fast often performed by women in North India for the well-being of their husbands and families. In a community of low caste potters near Banaras a women weaves her private concerns about her marriage into her public performance of the ritual. The mythical relationship of Shiva and Parvati serves as a backdrop for real relationship issues: the discourse of power between men and women, adultery, parenting, and support. Using the rare public space that women create only on such ritual occasions, this storyteller makes statements about her life that she would not be able to make in any other setting.

Cindy Clark (DePaul University) Festive Subversions of Self (The Case of the Diabetic Trick or Treater). (need abstract)

Eugene Cohen (The College of New Jersey) Creating Collefiore: The Social and Political Origins of an Italian Village Festival. Less than two decades ago, in the Italian community of Collefiore, villagers created and implemented a highly successful, and enthusiastically supported, community festival. It is in the changing structure of local inner-village relations that the origins of the festival are to be found. From a position of importance and equality Collefiore, in the last three decades, has become an unimportant and dependent community. In the face of this decline the festival is a means of creating, for the people of Collefiore, a new Collefiore proud of its romanticized history and unique in its attractiveness.

Gene Cooper (University of Southern California) Market Fairs in Rural China: Popular Culture and Political Economy . This paper examines the rural market fairs of Dongyang County, Zhejiang Province where fieldwork was conducted in 1988 and 1989. The paper attempts to convey the energy and fervor with which commercial, but theatrical, ritual, acrobatic, artistic, and musical activities are conducted and performed at the fairs. They are sites which, while promoted in the name of political economy, nonetheless reverberate (Marcel Mauss would have said effervesce) with the expressive products of popular consciousness.

Phyllis M. Correa (Universidad Autonoma. de Queretaro) Otomi Rituals and Celebrations: Crosses, Ancestors, and Resurrection . Popular religion in the area of San Miguel Allende in central Mexico is not conservative or static but adapts in response to changing circumstances, being created and recreated as traditions are orally transmitted to new generations while preserving an essentially Otomi configuration. This presentation examines rituals performed during Holy Week in the family chapel of former residents of a rural community inundated by a dam in the 60s which form part of a religious complex emphasizing the worship of crosses, Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint James, the four cardinal directions and winds, the ancestors, the sun, moon, fire, sacrifice, and military conquest.

Linda Sun Crowder (University of Hawaii, Manoa) Chinese Funeral Processions in San Francisco Chinatown . Chinese funerals with marching band processions in San Francisco Chinatown are expressions of American Chinese ethnicity and a part of the Chinatown public culture and identity. As a spectacle they enhance Chinatown's exotica as a tourist attraction; as a ritual of mourning they reflect Chinese popular traditions which are inclusive of both Chinese and western customs. As an ethnic performance in the United States, these funeral rituals are authentic American Chinese cultural expressions.

Catherine Cutbill (Ramapo College of New Jersey) Making History: The Djibouti-City Centennial. (need abstract)

Andrew Davis (New York University) The L.A. Riots as Festival. A surprising number of participants in the 1992 L.A. riots exhibited feelings we usually label as playful and fun. Indeed, many on the scene--both participants and journalists--described events in festive terms. Yet the celebratory nature of the riots has been ignored in subsequent analyses. What can a festive paradigm reveal about the nature of this civil unrest? This paper argues that we can read the riots as we would other ritual and festival events, and shows how an understanding of social inversion and the carnivalesque allows us to uncover deeper meanings of the mayhem.

Giovanna Del Negro (Indiana University) Public Display and the Dynamics of Seeing in the Italian Passeggiata (Ritual Promenade) . Affectionately called the little Paris of the Abruzzo, the hilltop village of Sasso in central Italy is recognized for its enthusiastic participation in the evening passeggiata (ritual promenade). Sassani often point to the town's attractive thoroughfare and well-known passeggiata as a sign of Sasso's civility and cosmopolitan sensibility. In this presentation I explore the kinesics and proxemics in the event and illustrate how the process of seeing and being seen is achieved in the sphere of social life.

Sarah Diamond (need affiliation) State Patronage and Performers: Negotiating Nationhood, Community Identity, and Cultural Value in South India . Karagattam is a popular performance genre which is typically performed by troupes of professional dancers and musicians in Tamil Nadu and other states of South India. These performances commonly take place in the context of annual Hindu temple festivals. Karagattam is also performed as a traditional Tamil folk dance in government sponsored events throughout India and abroad. Selected as a representation of traditional Tamil culture by the state, Karagattam enters into a politics of cultural representation which extends beyond its localized performance settings. This paper considers the impact of this state patronage and politics of representation on the lives of local Karagattam performers, who primarily belong to lower-status groups in Tamil society. Juxtaposing professional Karagattam performers' views of state patronage with state officials' views of professional Karagattam performers I consider how ideas of nationhood, community identity, and cultural value are negotiated.

Thomas Ewens (Rhode Island School of Design) Celebration and the Aims of Reason . This paper will situate celebration and related notions (festivals, holidays) within a general theory of reason and culture: Gean Gagnepain's theory of mediation. There are four fundamental modes of human rationality whereby we mediate our relations to the world: signs and speech; tools and art; persons and social-historic institutions; norms and regulations of desire. These modes of human rationality together constitute what we call culture. In the exercise of any
one of these modes, we may discern three different aims, two practical, one aesthetic. Celebrations and analogous socio-historic enactments are clearly aesthetic realizations of our rationality although they can also be combined with the practical aims of reason.

Amy Fried (Colgate University) Interest Groups and the Politics of Holiday Creation and Redefinition: Why Environmentalists Love and Hate Earth Day . Although scholars of collective memory contend that the creation and observance of holidays are inherently political, environmental activists--the main originators and practitioners of Earth Day--are not so sure. Drawing from a survey of environmental interest group staff and key texts, this paper shows that the mission of Earth Day has shifted from concerted political action to public education. Although some environmentalists are proud of Earth Day, others consider the holiday's use by businesses and its very popularity to be its undoing. However, Earth Day can be used as a political resource, both in times of political crisis and by reinforcing and developing environmental values.

Kathleen Glenister (Indiana University) Power and Participation: The Samoan Day Festival in Leone, American Samoa . (need abstract)

Cheri Goldner (Bowling Green State University) "Goin' to the Chapel" in Detroit. (need abstract)

Philip A. Grant, Jr. (Pace University) Congress and the Martin Luther King National Holiday Bill. Between 1968 and 1982 numerous attempts were made in Congress in behalf of legislation to designate a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. It was not until late 1983, however, before Congress acted favorably on such a proposal. The Martin Luther King National Holiday Bill was approved by the House of Representatives on August 2, 1983 by a vote of 338-90 and by the United States Senate on October 19, 1983 by a 78-22 tabulation. The measure provided that the Martin Luther King Holiday would be observed on the third Monday of January.

Garth Green (University of Pennsylvania) Marketing the Nation: Carnival and Tourism in Trinidad and Tobago . Public festivals provide not only the occasion to make statements about national identity but also offer opportunities to culture brokers seeking foreign exchange through tourism. Within the matrix of the international culture industries and the hegemonic international order of nation-states, culture is both a commodity and a source of national pride. In this essay I examine efforts at "cultural entrepreneurship" regarding the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. Attempts to market the Carnival and, in a larger sense, Trinidad, reveal profound ambiguities about cultural authenticity, ambivalence regarding international recognition, and contested ideas about national identity in a complex multi-ethnic, multi cultural post-colonial state. How do efforts to distill the Carnival for an international audience affect the Carnival's aesthetics, poetics, and politics?

Brian Gregory (Western Kentucky University) Ritual, Identity, and the Reclaiming of an Invisible Ethnicity in Contemporary Presbyterian "Kirking of the Tartans" Celebrations . The Kirking of the Tartans service culminates in the placement of family tartans on the altar to be blessed. Although of relatively recent invention, the Kirking of the Tartans has spread rapidly among congregations and has come to be seen as traditional. This presentation examines the ceremony's origin and diffusion, and interprets its appeal as the reclaiming of an invisible ethnicity in an era that increasingly values multiculturalism. The noble savage Highland clansman, armed to the teeth and free from the constraints of Anglicized civility, becomes a symbol of this reclamation.

Joe Hancock (The Ohio State University) Cross-Dressers Presentation . (need abstract)

Julie Hartley-Moore (Columbia University) The Active Presence of Absent Things: Festival and Public Display in a Swiss Village . (need abstract)

Catherine Hiebert Kerst (American Folklife Center) "No Fat Women or Men Without Teeth": The Iowa Program at the 1996 Festival of American Folklife . The Festival of American Folklife presents curated public displays of living culture every summer on the national mall in Washington, D.C. In preparation for their sesquicentennial year, Iowa approached the Smithsonian with a proposal for a partnership that would feature Iowa culture at the 1996 Festival. This paper will address issues relating to the complicated and often trying process involved in the cultural brokering of symbolic representation and identity that took place during the evolution of the Iowa Festival Program.

Peter Jowers (University of the West of England) Becoming Festive...: Affective Bodies and Festival Culture in the South West of England . Festivals are notorious for engendering conflicts between respectability and revelry. This paper is part of a more extended analysis of a specific group of festivals which has developed in the last 25 years in S.W England. These have grafted dance culture and protracted drumming sessions onto earlier waves of youth culture. They have been vigorously opposed by state and local elites who cite these features specifically as reasons for their action. An explanation of the threats and pleasures which such bodily effervescence evokes, is sought.

Sirpa Karjalainen (University of Helsinki) Christmas and Santa Claus as Tourist Attractions in Finnish Lapland . The gift-bearing Santa Claus was introduced to Finland at the end of the 19th century. Nowadays practically every Finn from early childhood shares similar beliefs about Santa. He is believed to live among the Sami people on the mountain of Korvatunturi on the northeastern corner of Finnish Lapland. Since the 1960s there have been ambitious attempts to utilize Christmas, Santa Claus, and Lapland for commercial purposes, to create a kind of Artic Disneyland. Many costly projects have failed, but in recent years some Christmas undertakings have also enjoyed success.

Katrina Karkazis (Columbia University) [Rumba in New York City]

Steven M. Kates (University of Northern British Columbia) "From Limp Wrists to Clenched Fists ": Lesbian and Gay Pride Day as an Emergent Holiday and Consumption Ritual . This presentation focuses on the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day festival (LGPD). Lesbian and Gay Pride Day is a virtually neglected focus in most academic literatures, including the mainstream marketing and consumer behavior fields. Yet, rigorous and prolonged study of this "anti-holiday" has potential to enrich our understanding of the relationship among consumption, culture, community, and self-identity. Moreover, study of LGPD offers researchers the important opportunity of exploring the emerging meanings and rituals of a celebration whose origins are fairly recent. The research herein proposes to present the findings of a longitudinal study of Toronto, Canada's, LGPD festival. The method includes participant observation of LGPD spanning three years, interviews with 44 gay male participants, and observation of gay pride celebrations in a number of cities including Vancouver, Montreal, and New York City's 25th anniversary of Stonewall. Findings and the overall theoretical perspective focus specifically on LGPD as a rite of passage into gay subculture, the commercialized aspects of the festival, and LGPD as a unique ritual of conflict which mediates relationships among gays and lesbians and between the "queer" community (or "space") and the heterosexual, dominant culture.

Sharon Kemp (University of Minnesota--Duluth) Sled Dog Racing: The Celebration of Cooperation in Competitive Sport . Distance sled racing is a highly competitive sport. To prepare themselves, mushers embody mainstream American values of individualism and competition, yet the race, as ritually constituted, subordinates that competitiveness to cooperation. In this presentation, based on original research, I use Turner's idea of c o m m u n i to s to examine the way the sled dog community is constituted. I argue the race is constructed as a liminal experience; outside roles and statuses are leveled, the race becomes a rite of passage for participants, and an alternative moral order emerges. The dynamic between traditional mushers and mushers who hold mainstream competitive values is explored.

Susan Applegate Krouse (Nazareth College) Powwow, Performance, and Status Reversal. This paper examines the contemporary American Indian powwows as a public performance, presenting positive and •non-controversial aspects of American Indian cultures. Indian peoples and cultures are often marginalized in the larger United States society, yet within the powwow framework they dominate, in a reversal of the usual social order. In this sense, powwow is similar to other festivals that celebrate a reversal of everyday life, such as Carnival. Focusing on performance places powwow in the context of other community and ethnic festivals and adds to our understanding of its widespread appeal to Indians and non-Indians alike.

Kerry Lamare (New Orleans) From Public to Private and Back Again: St. Joseph's Day Altars in New Orleans . For some New Orleanians of Sicilian descent, the traditional celebration of St. Joseph's day involves creating an altar laden with food and religious images. Although the tradition is considered by many to be a dying one, there are still ardent practitioners. The adaptive nature of this event involves food, legend and folk art. Rich in meaning to both the individual and the community, this tradition has moved from public space to private space and back again in order to meet changing needs while retaining a sense of time honored tradition.

Maurea Landies (Columbia University) Cruzado in New York: Crossing Palo and Espiritismo. (need abstract)

Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence (Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine) The Wren Hunt: Man, Nature, and Symbol in a Winter Ritual. The wren was once the object of an annual ritual carried out in certain areas in Britain and Europe in which the bird was hunted and killed, generally around the time of the winter solstice. The seasonal hostility directed toward this tiny song bird represents a startling paradox, for the wren is traditionally beloved and protected throughout its range. Analysis of the elements of the wren hunt in conjunction with consideration of the bird's particular attributes and people's reactions to those attitudes sheds light on the process whereby a living creature in the natural world was transformed into
a cultural construct that made it the object of beliefs that were expressed in an elaborate ritual, vestiges of which persist today.

Ellen Litwicki (SUNY at Fredonia) Fostering "The Correct Spirit of Patriotism ": Holiday Celebrations in American Schools, 1889-1920. Between 1889 and 1920 the elementary school emerged as a new arena for the celebration of patriotic holidays. The origins of this phenomenon lay in the efforts of civic leaders, patriotic societies, and educators to address class conflict by educating the working class in "proper" patriotism. Although schools were not the only setting for such instruction, their growing and malleable "audience" made them a uniquely efficient venue for it. Holidays such as Washington's Birthday became the centerpiece of this program because their rituals provided children with sensory stimuli to national loyalty, as well as patriotic models to emulate.

Julie T. Longo (Wayne State University) Creating the Bicentennial Community: Commemoration and Celebration of an Imaginary Place . In 1976, the United States of America celebrated its two hundredth birthday. The official, public record of the Bicentennial, the Bicentennial Times, represented the national experience as a "grassroots" celebration held in "Bicentennial Communities." What was the bicentennial community? What cultural and political purposes did the bicentennial community serve? This paper explores these questions in an effort to understand the construction of national memory.

Harriet McBride (The Ohio State University) Commodification of Women and Dress: My Daughter, the Debutante . The Debutante's Ball was created in the late 19th century as a means of matching women to men in order to secure and consolidate wealth, property and social position. Women were groomed to be as attractive as possible to a potential mate. The debutante of American high society was perceived by her ambitious parents as a commodity, providing families access to a higher social and economic strata. The social upheavals of the 1960's rendered this means of commodifying women obsolete.

John McGuigan (Indiana University) Who Was That Masked Man?: Negotiating Ideology and Identity in a Community Festival. (need abstract)

Felicia McMahon (Syracuse University) "Playing Female": Carnival and Gender in Reunified Germany . Fasching or Karnival reaches its zenith during the pre-Lenten season throughout Germany and now takes place in the former communist East Germany. A similarity between east and west German carnivals is the popularity of males masking as animals or females. Playing the female means that during carnival men can disassociate themselves from being males and become ridiculous, erotic, infantile females. When men mask as women from cultures other than their own, they are equating the "other" with the "less desirable qualities" of being female. The emphasis on males masking as females in the east German festival signals the threatening shift of an economic system in which men and women must now compete in a region that at one time knew no unemployment.

Thomas A. McMullin (University of Massachusetts--Boston). Immigrants on Parade: The Search for Male Respectability in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1865-1900. This presentation explores the uses of labor demonstrations and parades by male immigrant textile workers to project images of respectability. Particular attention is given to demonstrations by English and Irish workers during strikes which followed a similar gendered pattern over the entire period. Male and female roles were carefully defined to enhance male respectability. The organization of French-Canadian and Portuguese workers' fraternal societies along military lines and the messages these groups conveyed when they marched in parades are also considered.

Paqui Mendez and Alfonso Latorre. Ritual Fire: A Video Documentary "Ritual Fire" is a documentary where we try to show some of the festivals and rituals typical of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Fire has been venerated for since ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean Sea and it is common element in all of these cultures. Also with it we celebrate the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring.

Eileen and Seamus Metress (University of Toledo) Irish Republican Funeral Ritual. This study examines the social dynamics and structure of the Irish Republican Army funeral. The funerals of the IRA volunteers have been significant public expressions of nationalist solidarity throughout the ongoing guerrilla war in Northeast Ireland. A proper wake and funeral are meaningful events for the individual's family, the Republican Movement, and the local nationalist community. It is hoped that this study will frame an important public ritual in its sociohistorical context.

Pamela A. Moro (Willamette University) "Experience the Magic of the Lanna Kingdom ": Temple Performance, Tourism, and Emerging Identity in Northern Thailand . This paper explores transformations in performance traditions associated with temple festivals in Chiangmai providence, Thailand. I briefly describe the original context of the performances, but nestle this within broader consideration of Northern Thai regional identity as negotiated, in part, through the tourism industry. At a time when explicit awareness of Northern identity appears at a height, food-and-entertainment displays in Chiangmai allow foreign and domestic tourists to witness a safe, controlled presentation of the region's culture.

Mary Lynn Murphy (University of Albany, SUNY). True to Tradition: New York City's Saint Patrick's Day Parade . (need abstract)

John Murphy (University of Wisconsin, Madison) The Survival of Rogationtide Processions in Puritan England . (need abstract)

Wing Chung Ng (University of Texas, San Antonio) Business as Ritual: Negotiating Modernity in Traditional Organizations in Vancouver Chinatown, 1945-1970. This paper seeks to explain the resilience of the traditional organizations in Vancouver's Chinatown by addressing the efficacy of public ritual performance. It focuses on a ritualistic fund-raising strategy, known locally as "baizi hui," that enabled many associations to make very profitable investment in real estate after 1945. It further discerns in this and other ritual performances a cultural strategy to engender intense feelings of community and mobilize membership resources--both financial and more symbolic ones--for the sustenance of these organizations.

Elisabeth Nixon (Bowling Green State University) When Heaven Meets Hell: The Role of Haunted Houses in the Religious Community . (need abstract)

Margaret O'Rourke-Kelly (Spring Arbor College) American Agrarian Pageantry: The Writings of Eudora Hall-Stockman for the Patrons of Husbandry . In an effort to preserve the family farm, the Patrons of Husbandry was formed shortly after the Civil War. The secret, ritualistic examines the success of these efforts and suggests that the nazification of Christmas was a joint project, undertaken by ordinary Germans as well as party propagandists.

Letitia W. Peterson (George Washington University) Oh, That Alsatia Mummers' Parade: Hagerstown's Enduring Halloween Tradition . Rapid growth in the city and its population after the turn of the century stimulated the birth of Alsatia Mummers' Parade in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1921. For an agricultural center quickly transformed into an industrial hub, this Halloween tradition represented an opportunity for the community to grapple with new circumstances in a representational way to create a sense of common identity, and still provides continuity in a town pulled by centrifugal forces. Oral histories and primary sources are the basis for this discussion of change in a small town environment.

Jennifer Lee Pretzen (Indiana University) Alevi Festivals in Turkey . (need abstract)

Sirkka-Liisa Ranta (University of Helsinki) Local Summer Festivals in Kuhmoinen: A Case Study on Revival of Market Tradition in Rural Finland . In the 1960s and 1970s Finland experienced a rapid socioeconomic change. Hundreds of thousands of Finns migrated from countryside to urban industrial communities to look for a better living. The new urban lifestyle, however, did not mean breaking up with rural roots. Many new city dwellers returned regularly to the countryside. Local summer festivals provided an excellent opportunity to meet old friends and relatives. This presentation focuses on two annual summer festivals in a small rural town called Kuhmoinen in Central Finland.

Susan Rasmussen (University of Houston) Grief at Seeing a Daughter Leave Home: Weeping and Conflict in the Tuareg Techawait Postmarital Residence Ritual. This essay examines the meaning of emotional expression of grief in rituals called techawait, held among the Tuareg of Niger, West Africa, when a married couple moves away from the wife's parents after approximately two years of marriage, to bring the wife into the home of the husband's family. Although officially defined as a celebration, this event has undertones suggesting grief and conflict in weeping of the female relatives of the wife. This presentation analyzes ritual as not solely social control, but expression of emotions, in relation to gender, marriage, and property issues in a stratified, semi-nomadic, Islamic society undergoing socioeconomic change.

Victoria M. Razak (State University of New York at Buffalo) Issues of Identity in Aruba's Music and Festival. This paper discusses how issues of identity are played out through music and festival on the Caribbean Island of Aruba. These include the carnival (introduced to Trinidadian immigrants to the island in the 1940s), which today incorporates local customs and folklore; the dande native folkloric music and song); and the tumba. Competitive events and entertainments (for example, the English calypso and Papiamento tumba) polarize in clusters around the politics of culture, language, heritage, and regional community. The dandes (travelling musicians) and "tipico" carnival groups deploy themes heuristically as part of the discourse on the constitution of "nativeness."

Anjeanette C. Rose (College of William and Mary) The Perpetual Script: The Ohio State University Marching Band and the Making of Meaning . This presentation explores how marching band performances at a large state university create a unified community. The spectacle and pageantry of football Saturday at The Ohio State University establish a sense of unity that follows Buckeyes back into the classroom, throughout the state of Ohio, and across the country. Feelings of belonging are not the result of a small community but a vibrant and inclusive one. By evaluating how The Ohio State University Marching Band's tradition both makes meaning and sustains that meaning over time, I argue that the band's popularity represents a reaffirmation and validation of a common group identity.

Nancy Ann Rudd (The Ohio State University) Beauty Pageants and Contestants . (need abstract)

J. Rhett Rushing (Indiana University) Una Tamalada: Holiday Food and Foodways as Symbol in Constructed Identity . (need abstract)

Cristina Sanchez-Carretero (Bowling Green State University) The Days of the Dead: Dying Days in Toledo? . This presentation is about death and life: life and death of loved ones as celebrated by Mexican-Americans in two festivals in Toledo, Ohio, and the life and death of the festivals themselves. I analyze the presence of Mexican elements as identity symbols, and the purposes that the participants and organizers pursue. I came to the conclusion that both festivals try to change an almost disappearing survival in this area into an emergent tradition. In 1996, the process of having the celebration of Dia de los Muertos has to do with search and crisis, with life and death of the community itself.

Jack Santino (Bowling Green State University) Public Protest and Popular Festive Style . (need abstract)

Amy Shuman (The Ohio State University) Food as Gifts: Where Exchange Theory Meets Feminist Theory . I examine the exchange of food gifts during the Jewish festival of Purim and identify several ways in which the exchange involves excesses, from social relationships to the food itself. Gift exchanges are not only ways of confirming societal norms; examining what is held back and what is excessive in gift exchanges can provide an important corrective to theories of exchange. Withheld property is in many cultures a means for women to assert power and claim control of goods. One question is whether this provides symbolic control or effective power.

Yoganand Sinha (need affiliation) Shree Durga Puja . (need abstract)

Kathleen N. Skoczen (Ithaca College) Rewriting History: Ritual, Spirit Possession and Public Display in the Dominican Republic . Dominican identity is constructed out of the narrow experience of the dominate-elite minority, and supported by discrimination against people displaying African or Haitian ancestry. Healers in the northeast region use ritualized spirit possession to challenge this dominate reading of history. Stick dances are public ceremonies attended by spirits bearing ethnicities disparaged by the dominate class. These spirits are embraced and transformed into powerful spirits. This transformation from the weakest to the strongest serves participants on many levels and also carries important messages back to the dominant culture. This paper explores this process and the affects of these rituals.

Chris Smith (Indiana University) Iberian Garden: Imaging the Music of Multicultural Medieval Spain . An exploration of the academic, musical, and semiotic considerations in a program by Altramar medieval music ensemble. Drawing on Goffman, Turner, and participant observation techniques, this paper examines a) the preparations which move from
limited manuscript sources to a staged concert program, and b) the process through which an early-music ensemble and audience conceive performance. Explores the philosophical presumptions which underlie historical performance, and connects these to wider arenas of performance and of modern culture.

Miriam B. Stamps (University of South Florida) The Florida Classic: Performing African American Community (need abstract)

Hilary Standish (Texas A&M University) Adapting Tradition: The Day of the Dead North of the Border . The Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead has been undergoing continuous change since at least the time of the Conquest. In recent years, the holiday has been promoted as a tourist attraction, resulting in an increased awareness of the holiday both in Mexico and abroad. In the United States, Day of the Dead exhibits are becoming increasingly common in art galleries. While purists may consider such exhibits crass commercialization, one could argue that they allow Mexican-Americans to reaffirm their Hispanic identity.

Cathy Stanton (Vermont College, Montpelier) Sacred Ground and Silver Screen: Civil War Reenactment, Film, and Social Drama . Through their "hobby," Civil War reenactors express strongly-felt, personal visions of history, society, and nationality. Their images of both their real-life and reenacted roles have been shaped, in part, by popular culture, including mass-market Hollywood productions. Yet as movie producers rely increasingly on reenactors to provide expertise and authenticity in their films, the vernacular vision begins to affect the commercial one in turn. Using the film "Gettysburg" as a case study, this presentation traces the instances of symmetry and contestation in the exchange between two symbolically related but very different dramatic forms.

Rodney Stephens (St. Louis University) Chinua Achebe's Mirror of Gifts in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. (need abstract)

Benjamin Stewart (New York University) The Performative as Ritual. J. L. Austin's concept of the performative shows us the ritual mechanism through which language serves as a support for the social order. In my own field of Performance Studies, any discussion of the performative as such inevitably ends up referencing Jacques Derrida's reading of Austin in the paper "Signature Event Context." I propose that, by relying so heavily on Derrida's reading, we miss something of Austin's original argument. This paper is an attempt to recuperate Austin from Derrida's reading through an analysis of the performative as it is expressed in the African art-form orature.

Beverly J. Stoeltje (Indiana University) Playing the Past: The Observer as Participant (need abstract)

Chris-Anne Stumpf (Memorial University of Newfoundland) Teasing Meaning from the Documentary Process: Filming Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula's Community Days Celebrations . We will be examining the change in emphasis from producing customary events as times for community interaction to producing events where the wholesale production of provincial history is for economic gain. This focal change needs to be documented for historical reasons, but also because such change necessarily invokes answers to questions of import to folklorists and folklore students. Such questions concern the presentation of ethnicity, the use and definition of folk culture popularly, the definition of community, the use and creation of stereotypes, and the portrayal of such definitions in popular formats.

Peter Tokofsky (University of California, Los Angeles) The Poetics of Esoteric Knowledge: Ballad Performances in the Carnival of Elzach (Germany) . Each year on the evening of carnival Monday, several troupes of young men visit each of the taverns in the small town of Elzach to perform Moritaten , original ballads depicting the escapades of local personalities. Common views of carnival might read these performed texts as a form of ridicule which transgresses the bounds of social propriety, or as a form of social control which aims at preventing future violations of the norms. In contrast, I argue that through their use of dialect and local knowledge, the texts strengthen the sense of local belonging which other carnival events strain.

Ashton Trice (Mary Baldwin College) Social Class, Religion, Children, and Outdoor Christmas Displays . An analysis of outdoor Christmas displays was conducted annually for three years in six neighborhoods in two Virginia cities. The analysis was guided by postmodern architectural theory, particularly its emphasis on the sign and invented tradition. The notion of social class was expanded in accordance with new theory to included lifestyle. Social class, as measured traditionally or by lifestyle, was the best predictor of imagery and color. Presence or absence of children predicted size of display.

Alex Urbiel (Ramapo College of New Jersey) From Solemnity to Spectacle: The Transformation of Memorial Day in Indianapolis, 1900-1930. This presentation examines the struggle between veterans and commercial interests in defining the celebration of Memorial Day in Indianapolis during the early 20th century. Veterans defined the solemnity of the day in a losing battle against the growing prosperity of the Indianapolis 500 automobile race. This presentation highlights the rise of commercialized leisure time, the fascination with technology, and the increasingly problematic definition of citizenship in a modernizing nation.

Robert E. Walls (Lafayette College) Of Log Drives and Saturnalia: The 19th Century Logger as Public Spectacle . (need abstract)

Daniel Franklin Ward (Cultural Resources Council) The Festival of Nations in Syracuse, New York: A Critical Examination . (need abstract)

Melissa Weinbrenner (Texas A & M University) Public Days in the Seventeenth and Twentieth Centuries . (need abstract)

Jason L. Winslade (Northwestern University) When the Veils are Thin: Performance Genealogies and Situational Tactics in a Chicago Samhain Ritual. According to Celtic folklore, the festival of Samhain, the end of harvest and the beginning of the New Year (Oct. 31-Nov. 2) is the time when the "veils between the worlds" are thinnest. These veils are located in the chronotopic space of the communal ritual, which enacts the performance of the boundary as thin and porous. I will be exploring these veils as meeting points not only between imagined ancestry and Joseph Rach's idea of performance genealogies, but also as practices taking place both inside and outside the institution, where urban neo-pagan ritual is the locus for de-Certeauian tactics which open a space for performative resistance.

Alejandro Zima (Columbia University) Dialogue on Healing and Power in an East Harlem JS'N Botanica: Preserving, Adapting, and Performing Healing Traditions. (need abstract)