James I. Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496805980
- eISBN:
- 9781496806024
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496805980.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
The author addresses the benefits and liabilities of presenting domestic government agencies as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, making evident that the negotiations involved can be as ...
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The author addresses the benefits and liabilities of presenting domestic government agencies as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, making evident that the negotiations involved can be as complicated for curators as those in the international arena. The chapter poses the questions of whether the Smithsonian “sold out” to Forest Service, NASA, and Peace Corps agencies, as some critics have charged? Or whether the presentation of tree pathologists and wildlife biologists in 2005; astronauts and astrophysicists in 2008, and volunteers and their partners from fifteen different countries in 2011 support the goals and mission of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival?Less
The author addresses the benefits and liabilities of presenting domestic government agencies as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, making evident that the negotiations involved can be as complicated for curators as those in the international arena. The chapter poses the questions of whether the Smithsonian “sold out” to Forest Service, NASA, and Peace Corps agencies, as some critics have charged? Or whether the presentation of tree pathologists and wildlife biologists in 2005; astronauts and astrophysicists in 2008, and volunteers and their partners from fifteen different countries in 2011 support the goals and mission of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival?
Jack Santino
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496805980
- eISBN:
- 9781496806024
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496805980.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter describes the visionary role of Ralph Rinzler, who is considered the primary impresario of the Festival of American Folklife and the individual who orchestrated its establishment as a ...
More
This chapter describes the visionary role of Ralph Rinzler, who is considered the primary impresario of the Festival of American Folklife and the individual who orchestrated its establishment as a presence on the National Mall. Although Rinzler never curated a program himself, he modelled the Festival curator’s sensibilities and shaped the Festival’s occupational culture. The author examines how Rinzler would become the personification of the intersections of academic and applied folkloristics, of idealism and pragmatism, of traditional and groundbreaking conceptions of what folklore and folklife were and how–and why–they should be represented in the national museum and presented to the public. It delineates the principles put into presentational practice; his concepts of the “folk,” of democratic populism, and of social justice in the context of the Folklife Programs, 1975–1983.Less
This chapter describes the visionary role of Ralph Rinzler, who is considered the primary impresario of the Festival of American Folklife and the individual who orchestrated its establishment as a presence on the National Mall. Although Rinzler never curated a program himself, he modelled the Festival curator’s sensibilities and shaped the Festival’s occupational culture. The author examines how Rinzler would become the personification of the intersections of academic and applied folkloristics, of idealism and pragmatism, of traditional and groundbreaking conceptions of what folklore and folklife were and how–and why–they should be represented in the national museum and presented to the public. It delineates the principles put into presentational practice; his concepts of the “folk,” of democratic populism, and of social justice in the context of the Folklife Programs, 1975–1983.
