Archer Taylor Lectures

The Western States Folklore Society (formerly California Folklore Society) holds Annual Meetings to encourage professional and amateur folklorists to meet each other, present papers, and engage in discussions of all aspects of folklore and folklife. The Meetings, usually held on a weekend in April and extending from Friday through Sunday morning, are hosted by different colleges or universities throughout the western states from the Rockies to the Pacific. Information about the next Annual Meeting will appear on this page as plans develop.

One important event in the Society’s Meetings is the invitational Archer Taylor Lecture Series, given by a folklorist of note. The lectures are subsequently published in the Society’s journal, Western Folklore.

To learn more about the Western States Folklore Society, visit its site at http://westernfolklore.org/.

Some of the lectures are collected here. For some personal details of Archer Taylor, read the 1999 lecture.

1978	“Theurgic Medicine: A Challenge to the Folklorist,” Wayland Hand, San Jose State University, San Jose, California.
1979	“Let’s Make It a Tradition,” Bertrand H. Bronson, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
1980	“California Legendry and the Reverberant Joaquin Murieta,” Hector Lee, California State University, Sonoma, Rohnert Park, California.
1981	“Perhaps Too Much to Chew,” William Bascom, University of California, Los Angeles.
1982	“Oracles, Delphic and Non-Delphic,” Joseph Fontenrose, University of California, Davis, California.
1983	“Chinese Symbolism,” Wolfram Eberhard, California Polytechnic University, Pomona.
1984	“The Aisling and the Cowboy: Some Unnoticed Influences of Irish Vision Poetry on Anglo-American Ballads,” D. K. Wilgus, Fort Mason, San Francisco.
1985	“The Folklorist as Comparatist,” Robert A. Georges, University of California, Irvine, California.
1986	“Carnival as Folklore,” Dan Crowley, Modesto Junior College, Modesto, California.
1987	“In the Stope, at the Hall: Who Treasures Tales of Work?” Archie Green, University of California, Los Angeles.
1988	“From Proverb to Belief and Superstition: An Encyclopedic Vision,” Frances Cattermole-Tally, Berkeley, California (with the Association for the Study of Play).
1989	“On the Importance of Rotting Fish: A Proverb and Its Audience,” Shirley L. Arora, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California.
1990	“Personal Narratives: The Family Novel,” William A. Wilson, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California.
1991	“The Apple Shot: Interpreting the Legend of William Tell,” Alan Dundes, University of California, Los Angeles, California.
1992	“The German Connection: The Brothers Grimm and the Study of ‘Oral’ Literature,” Donald Ward, Sacramento, California.
1993	“Humor and the Suppression of Sentiment,” Elliott Oring, San Diego, California (with Southwestern Anthropological Association).
1994	“The ‘M’ Word,” Norine Dresser, University of California, Davis.
1995	“Why Make (Folk) Art?” Michael Owen Jones, Pasadena, California.
1996	“Let it Go to the Garlic! Evil Eye and the Fertility of Women among the Sephardim,” Rosemary Levy Zumwalt, Berkeley, California.
1997	“Folklore and the Civil Sphere,” Jay Mechling, University of California, Santa Barbara, California.
1998	“The End of Folklore,” Barre Toelken, Sacramento, California.
1999	“My Summer with Archer, and Some Unfinished Business,” California State University, Fullerton, California (with Southwestern Anthropological Association).
2000	“In lingua veritas: Proverbial Rhetoric in Victor Klemperer’s Diaries of the Nazi Years,” Wolfgang Mieder, University of California, Berkeley, California.
2001	“Pots, Kettles, and Interpretations of Blackness in the Use of Proverbs,” Patricia A. Tuner, Otis College of Art and Design, California.
2002	“Back to the Hearth: The Politics of Reflexivity and Representation in Context,” Margaret K. Brady, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.
2003	No title. Roger Abrahams, Sacramento, California (with the California American Studies Association).
2004	“Film and Video: Fieldwork Tools for Surviving the 21st Century,” Sharon R. Sherman, California State University, Northridge, California.
2005	“Reinventing Ritual: Folklore and Public Display,” Jack Santino, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
2006	“Is the Pope Still Catholic? Some Unfinished Business about Proverbs,” Charles Doyle, University of California, Berkeley.
2007	“Cats and Dogs, Trolls and Devils: At Home in Some Migratory Legend Types.” John Lindow, University of California, Los Angeles.
2008	“Rethinking Folklorization in Ecuador: Multivocality in the Expressive Contact Zone.” John McDowell. University of California, Davis.
2009	“The Rise and Fall–and Return–of the Class Rush: A Study in Contested Tradition.” Simon Bronner. Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles.
2011	The 2011 lecture will be given by Joe Hickerson, with an introduction by USC Prof. Ed Cray, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.