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Indiana University Press

As an academic press, our mandate is to serve the world of scholarship and culture as a professional, not-for-profit publisher. Founded in 1950, we are recognized internationally as a leading academic publisher specializing in the humanities and social sciences. We produce more than 120 new books annually, in addition to 40 journals, and maintain a backlist of some 3,500 titles. The Press emphasizes scholarship but also publishes text, trade, and reference titles.

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Cover of Bedouin Tales from the North of Israel, by Yoel Shalom Perez and Judith Rosenhouse. Artwork depicts Bedouins riding horses

Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel

Yoel Shalom Perez and Judith Rosenhouse

Galilee has been a crossroads of cultures, religions, and languages for centuries, as illustrated in these fascinating Bedouin folktales, which offer excellent examples of the Arabic narrative tradition of the Middle East.

Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel collects nearly 60 traditional folktales, told mostly by women, that have been carefully translated in the same colloquial style in which they were told. These stories are grouped into themes of love and devotion, ghouls and demons, and animal stories. The work also includes phonetic transcription and linguistic annotation. Accompanying each folktale is a comprehensive ethnographic, folkloristic, and linguistic commentary, placing the tales in context with details on Galilee Bedouin dialects and the tribes themselves.

A rich, multifaceted collection, Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel is an invaluable resource for linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, and any reader interested in a tradition of storytelling handed down through the centuries.

Cover of Conamara Chronicles: Tales from Iorras Aithneach, Compiled by Seán Mac Giollarnáth, Translated by Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson

Conamara Chronicles

Tales from Iorras Aithneach

Compiled by Seán Mac Giollarnáth

Translated by Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson

“I find him to be a kindred spirit, a sympathetic but shrewd enquirer, a companionable stroller, and a lover of anecdotes gathered by the wayside.”  

So Tim Robinson described folklorist, revolutionary, and district justice Seán Mac Giollarnáth, whose 1941 book Annála Beaga ó Iorras Aithneach revealed his sheer delight in the rich language and stories of the people he encountered in Conamara, the Irish-speaking region in the south of Connemara. From tales of smugglers, saints, and scholars to memories of food, work, and family, the stories gathered here provide invaluable insights into the lives and culture of the community. This faithful and lovingly crafted translation, complete with annotations, a biography, and thoughtful chapters that explore the importance of the language and region, is the final work of both Robinson and his collaborator, the renowned writer and Irish language expert Liam Mac Con Iomaire.

Translated into English for the first time, Conamara Chronicles: Tales from Iorras Aithneach preserves the art of storytellers in the West of Ireland and honors the inspiration they kindle even still. 

Cover of We are All Surviviors: Verbal, Ritual, and Material Ways of Narrating Disaster and Recovery, Edited by Carl Lindahl, Michael Dylan Foster and Kate Parker Horigan, with a drawing of people lined up to receive water

We Are All Survivors

Verbal, Ritual, and Material Ways of Narrating Disaster and Recovery

Edited by Carl Lindahl, Michael Dylan Foster and Kate Parker Horigan

What is the role of folklore in the discussion of catastrophe and trauma? How do disaster survivors use language, ritual, and the material world to articulate their experiences? What insights and tools can the field of folkloristics offer survivors for navigating and narrating disaster and its aftermath? Can folklorists contribute to broader understandings of empathy and the roles of listening in ethnographic work?

We Are All Survivors is a collection of essays exploring the role of folklore in the wake of disaster. Contributors include scholars from the United States and Japan who have long worked with disaster-stricken communities or are disaster survivors themselves; individual chapters address Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, and two earthquakes in Japan, including the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster of 2011. Adapted from a 2017 special issue of Fabula (from the International Society for Folk Narrative Research), the book includes a revised introduction, an additional chapter with original illustrations, and a new conclusion considering how folklorists are documenting the COVID-19 pandemic.

We Are All Survivors bears witness to survivors’ expressions of remembrance, grieving, and healing.

Journal of Folklore Research

The Journal of Folklore Research provides an international forum for current theory and research among scholars of traditional cultures. Each issue includes articles of theoretical interest to folklore and ethnomusicology as international disciplines, as well as essays that address the fieldwork experience and the intellectual history of folklore. Contributors include scholars and professionals in such additional fields as anthropology, area studies, communication, cultural studies, history, linguistics, literature, performance studies, religion, and semiotics.

Address:
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library
1320 E 10th Street
Bloomington Indiana 47405-9307