Folklore Studies Alumni Present at Conference in Romania
The Transylvania University of Braşov, Faculty of Letters, hosted the Appalachians/Carpathians International Conference on Oct. 6-9. The conference, a biennial event, brought more than 24 U.S. scholars, including two Fairmont State University graduates, to the city Braşov over a three-day period. An equal number of Romanian and European scholars are expected to present their research at the conference, which is officially titled: “Appalachians/Carpathians: Researching, Documenting and Preserving Highland Traditions.”
“The conference will allow participants to share their expertise on life and culture in two very separate but similar mountain regions,” said Dr. Georgeta Moarcas, one of the conference organizers who also teaches in the Faculty of Letters. “By comparing histories, literature and community development in the Appalachians and Carpathians, we hope to find common ground between our two regions as well as promote collaborative strategies for protecting and preserving highland traditions.”
Fairmont State University graduate student Tiffany D. Martin was one of the scholars chosen to be a U.S. delegate for the conference. Martin is currently in the Master of Education, Digital Media, New Literacies and Learning program at FSU. She received her bachelor’s degree in history with minors in folklore studies and museum studies from FSU and has worked at the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center since February 2012. It was her work there with the Dr. Ruth Ann Musick Witchlore collection that inspired the presentation she made in Romania on Appalachian Witchlore.
Martin is co-authoring this presentation with another alumnus of the Folklore Studies minor program, J. Tyler Chadwell, who went on to get a master’s degree in folklore from George Mason University.
The pair presented “Mountain Mystics: Magic from the Carpathians to the Appalachians” for the first time at the 2015 Appalachian Studies Association Conference. After this presentation, they were approached to apply for the international conference.
Martin and Chadwell also participated in the travel abroad program offered through the Folklife Center in which students spend a semester researching a set of root cultures and then travel in the summer for two weeks to the countries they researched in an attempt to gain firsthand cultural knowledge of those root cultures. In summer of 2011, they traveled for two weeks to Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Belgium as part of this program.
“As students at the Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center, we learned from our professors to be students of the world. Our studies of Appalachian root cultures had firsthand contextualization through our experiences in Europe. It also gave us the confidence as scholars to pursue opportunities like this,” Chadwell said.
Chadwell said the Folklife Center focuses primarily on the study of regional folklore. West Virginia is the heart of Appalachia and is the only state that is considered to be entirely Appalachian geographically.
“There is something centering about learning the breadth and depth of history and culture of the people you come from that propels you into a deeper understanding of people as a whole,” Chadwell said.
Martin spent much of her time at the Folklife Center learning about museum design, exhibit and education. She has been responsible for multiple exhibits in the Great Room of Cultures at the Folklife Center, including contributions to the FSU Sesquicentennial exhibit currently on exhibit at the center.
“The basic concepts I learned at the Folklife Center were enhanced by my experience of museums and historic sites that I have encountered in my travels in the U.S. and in Europe. Writers are always told if you want to write, well, you should spend most of your time reading. The same applies with museum exhibits; the more you expose yourself to, the more things you see, the greater understanding you have of producing fantastic exhibits,” Martin said.
The keynote speaker for the event in Romania was author Dr. John Akeroyd, who works with the Adept Foundation based in Saschiz, Mures, Romania. His keynote address: “Transylvania: Biodiversity, Living Tradition and Future Prosperity,” linked cultural preservation in the Carpathians to landscape protection, an idea that has also been promoted in the Appalachians. Also attending the conference was film-maker Agota Juhasz, who presented the film “Mountain Hay Meadows: Hotspots of Biodiversity and Traditional Culture.” The documentary was followed with a roundtable discussion by Juhasz and Barbara Knowles of the Barbara Knowles Fund, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania.
Program committee Co-chair, Dr. Cristian Pralea, who holds a doctorate in American Studies from Bowling Green State University, stated there were several reasons Transylvania University was selected as the location for the 2015 conference.
“Since 2013, the Faculty of Letters at Transylvania University has organized a lecture series entitled ‘Transatlantic Mountain Cultures,’” said Pralea. “The event brings Appalachian and Carpathian scholars together via Skype. The university’s close proximity to the filming locations of ‘Cold Mountain’ and the TV mini-series ‘Hatfields and McCoys’ was also a factor in the selection process. The mountains near Braşov are remarkably similar to those found in Appalachia.”
Dr. Donald E. Davis, one of the American organizers of the event, said that the conference in Braşov was modeled after Appalachian Studies Conferences held annually in the United States.
“At those meetings, individuals from the humanities, natural and social sciences come together to discuss mountain life and culture as well as the environmental problems that sometimes threaten local communities,” Davis said. “In America, a different university in the Appalachians is chosen to host the annual event, a pattern that ensures representation across the entire region.”
folkloreFolklife CenterTiffany MartinTyler Chadwell
