The Folklore Fellows is slowly reaching its intended structure. Let me briefly list most recent developments and give a blueprint for future:
FF membership categories contain at present the following numbers of scholars: Honorary members 29, Full members 78, Associate members 361. The processing of members continues. Nominations may be made by writing to one of the members of the FF Advisory Committee.
FF Advisory Committee will take a review of the present membership and propose new members in early 1994. In the fall there will be a Committee meeting per capsulam and the personal meeting will take place in January 1995 in conjunction with the XIth Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research to be held on January 6-12, 1995, in Mysore, Karnataka, India.
FF Communications has just published its 253rd issue. Among the forthcoming volumes are The World of the Plough Woman: Fairytale and Reality in the Matriarchal Northwest Spain by Marisa Rey-Henningsen (Copenhagen), Los tipos del cuento folklorico. Una classificacion by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson (translated by Fernando Peñalosa, Palos Verdes, CA), Narrative in Society by Linda Dégh (Bloomington) and The Narrative World of the Finnish Wondertale by Satu Apo (Helsinki). Discount for FF members is available through Bookstore Tiedekirja in Helsinki.
FF Summer School was organized for the second time in Turku last August. The next course will be in Joensuu, east Finland, in summer 1995, near the locations where the Kalevala poetry once abounded. The announcement will be made in the next issue of FF Network in March 1994. Deadline for applications will be October 1994.
FF in Oral Epics, a network for scholars in comparative research on epics, will constitute itself during 1994. About 50 invitations to epic scholars will be mailed soon. Interested persons should write to me (Folklore Fellows, P.O.Box 14, 20501 Turku, Finland) or send a fax (+358 21 244 2505) or e-mail. A recent workshop compared the Silk-Road epics. Next small workshop will be in Turku in June 1994. For epic scholars participating in the ISFNR Congress in Mysore January 6-12, 1995, I will organize a panel on “Oral and Semiliterary Epics”. Those who wish to participate should write to me for more details and send their preliminary registration to the Congress President, Dr. Jawaharlal Handoo, Folklore Unit, CIIL, Manasagangothri, Mysore 570 006, India.
FF in Gender Studies, a network for folklorists interested in women’s studies and related research, is on the launching pad. If other thematically oriented groups feel the need to intensify their international contacts and flow of information through the FF, a network proposal may be sent to the FF Advisory Committee.
Lauri Honko
(FFN 7, November 1993: 1)