The Hoosier Folklore Society will hold its Annual Meeting on Friday, November 21, 2008, in the Hulman Memorial Student Union, Dede III, on the campus of Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The theme of this year’s conference is Scotland, Burns, and the Scottish-American Experience. The conference committee invites proposals that consider Scottish folklore, Robert Burns, folksong scholarship, and Scottish settlement in North America, as well as related topics of immigration, border crossings, and cross-cultural connections in contexts outside of the Scottish-American experience . As always, topics outside of this theme are also welcome.

Each proposal should include the title and a 100-word abstract of the paper, as well as the full name and hometown or institutional affiliation of the presenter.

Most papers presented at Hoosier Folklore Society meetings are 30–45 minutes in length, but shorter presentations are also accommodated. Presenters at the meeting must be members in good standing of the Hoosier Folklore Society.

Submit your proposal via e-mail by October 15, 2008, to The Conference Committee: Jodine Perkins and Suzanne Ingalsbe E-mail address: HoosierFolklore@gmail.com

More on the conference:
Next year the world will honor the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796). His humble origins, his deep knowledge of and affection for the rural, agrarian way of life, and his remarkable use of Scottish dialect and folkways in his poetry have made him popular throughout the world. Burns was a great songwriter as well as poet, and songs like “Auld Lang Syne” and “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose” are widely sung today, often without the singers’ knowledge of the composer’s identity. One of his best-known poems describes the humble mouse—that “wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie”—whose nest is disturbed during the mowing of hay. The same poem contains one of Burns’s most famous expressions: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley” (Go often askew).

The Hoosier Folklore Society welcomes three experts on Scottish folklore to the conference:
Emily Lyle of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Ian Russell of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland; and Mary Ellen Brown of Indiana University, Bloomington. Lectures from international scholars, delicious food, music sessions, a performance of Wilderness Plots*, and workshops will enliven this year’s gathering.