Folklore and the Internet: A Sourcebook
Edited by Trevor J. Blank
Utah State University Press

The Internet has and continues to shape and reshape our lives, and folklore scholars are in a position to comment upon these cultural processes. However, folklorists have been surprisingly timid in lending their voice to scholarly debates on cyberethnography, Internet folk culture, social networking, and many other related topics. The 2007 American Folklore Society joint-conference in Quebec, Canada program reflects an ever-increasing focus on Internet folklore themes by the discipline; folkloristics is beginning to see some attention paid to these topics, but not in hordes of data as with anthropology and sociology.

This book will be the first effort by folklorists and allied scholars to produce a collaborative publication on the topic of Internet folklore—a vastly important, ever-present genre that has been greatly neglected in folkloristics. Its purpose is to serve as a compilatory text that reflects intelligent and thought-provoking scholarship on the budding genre, and to bring much-needed attention to the importance of its study by folklorists and allied humanities scholars. It is intended that the book will be utilized as a text for college courses or scholars interested in familiarizing themselves with current discussions and practical arguments for the importance Internet folklore scholarship.

Scholars from all fields are welcomed to contribute. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

- cyberethnography/ Internet fieldwork
- contemporary legends/ email hoaxes
- social networking (facebook, myspace, etc.)
- folk speech/ jargon/ verbal play in an online context
- music on the Internet (distribution, creation, interplay)
- identity (authenticity, aliases, construction of the digital self, etc.)
- material culture aspects of the internet
- folk art and the internet
- juxtaposition of Internet and “real world” folklore
- legitimacy of Internet folklore scholarship
- folk belief and religion on the Internet
- community and the Internet
- fan culture
- food/ recipe sharing
- commemoration on the Internet
- blogging culture
- multimedia (YouTube, etc.)
- e-Commerce
- diffusion of folklore in an electronic format
- historical approaches (computer and xerox-lore to Internet folklore)

The best essays submitted will be included in the book, which is tentatively scheduled for a publication date of Spring 2009 in partnership with Utah State University Press. Prospective contributors are encouraged to contact the book’s editor, Trevor J. Blank (tjblank@indiana.edu) for additional information on the project or suggestions of potential essay topics.

Deadline for contributor submissions is February 1, 2008 (special arrangements can be made to allot for more time, if needed).

Contributors should review the Utah State University Press author guidelines (http://www.usu.edu/usupress/publish/) for information on style requirements.

Trevor J. Blank
Indiana University
tjblank@indiana.edu