Exploring a rich array of folk traditions that developed in the Ukrainian diaspora and in Ukraine during the twentieth century, Ukrainian Otherlands is an innovative exploration of modern ethnic identity and the deeply felt (but sometimes deeply different) understandings of ethnicity in homeland and diaspora.

Ukrainian epic, or dumy, were first recorded from blind mendicant minstrels in the nineteenth century, yet they reflect events dating back to as early as the 1300s. Ukrainian Epic and Historical Song provides new translations in contemporary English of these songs of family strife, war, and human dignity. It also explains the historical events celebrated in epic and other historical songs: fierce battles, rebellion against tyranny, the struggles of captivity, the joys of escape from slavery. Natalie Kononenko's expert translation and analysis of Ukrainian epics provides a sweeping social history of folklore that is vital to Ukrainian identity. A translation of at least one variant of every known epic is included. Whereas earlier trends in folklore scholarship emphasized genre purity and compartmentalization, Kononenko critically examines the events about which songs were sung. Her emphasis on the lives of ordinary people rather than on leaders reshapes our understanding of how epics were composed and performed. Kononenko's ground-breaking analysis also illuminates Ukrainian self-understanding and explains how songs preserve and perpetuate historical memory. Scholars interested in epic song, history, and general folklore will benefit from this work. Members of the Ukrainian diaspora will find new appreciation of Ukrainian folklore.

While Canada is home to one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world, little is known about the life and culture of Ukrainians living in the country’s rural areas and their impact on Canadian traditions. Drawing on more than ten years of interviews and fieldwork, Ukrainian Ritual on the Prairies describes the culture of Ukrainian Canadians living in the prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Despite powerful pressure to assimilate, these Ukrainians have managed both to preserve their sense of themselves as Ukrainian and to develop a culture sensitive to the realities of prairie life, creating their own uniquely Ukrainian Canadian traditions. The Ukrainian church, an iconic though now rapidly disappearing feature of the prairie landscape, takes centre stage as an instrument for the retention of Ukrainian identity and the development of a new culture. Natalie Kononenko explores the cultural elements of Ukrainian Canadian ritual practice, with an emphasis on family traditions surrounding marriage, birth, death, and religious holidays. Ukrainian Ritual on the Prairies gives voice to a group of everyday people who are too often overlooked, highlighting their accomplishments and their contributions to Canadian life.

Advocating for a more welcoming world involves respecting the human dignity and fundamental rights of all individuals, regardless of their place of origin or immigration status. This perspective offers a powerful insight into the dynamics of social justice across borders.

This book examines the relationship between post-Soviet societies in transition and the increasingly important role of their diaspora. It analyses processes of identity transformation in post-Soviet space and beyond, using macro- and micro-level perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches combining field-based and ethnographic research. The authors demonstrate that post-Soviet diaspora are just at the beginning of the process of identity formation and formalization. They do this by examining the challenges, encounters and practices of Ukrainians and Russians living abroad in Western and Southern Europe, Canada and Turkey, as well as those of migrants, expellees and returnees living in the conflict zones of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. Key questions on how diaspora can be better engaged to support development, foreign policy and economic policies in post-Soviet societies are both raised and answered. Russia’s transformative and important role in shaping post-Soviet diaspora interests and engagement is also considered. This edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of diaspora, post-Soviet politics and migration, and economic and political development.

The first twenty-five years of life in post-socialist Europe have seen vast political, economic, and cultural changes, as societies that lived under communist rule struggle with the traumas of the past and the challenges of the future. In this context, oral history has acquired a unique role in understanding the politics of memory and the practice of history. Drawing on research conducted in Belarus, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, Reclaiming the Personal introduces theory and practice in this vital and distinctive area to a global audience. Focusing on issues such as repressed memories of the Second World War, the economic challenges of late socialism, and the experience of the early post-socialist transition, the essays underscore the political implications of oral history research in post-socialist Europe and highlight how oral history research in the region differs from that being conducted elsewhere.

Banjo music possesses a unique power to evoke a bucolic, simpler past. The artisans who build banjos for old-time music stand at an unusual crossroads ”asked to meet the modern musician's needs while retaining the nostalgic qualities so fundamental to the banjo's sound and mystique. Richard Jones-Bamman ventures into workshops and old-time music communities to explore how banjo builders practice their art. His interviews and long-time personal immersion in the musical culture shed light on long-overlooked aspects of banjo making. What is the banjo builder's role in the creation of a specific musical community? What techniques go into the styles of instruments they create? Jones-Bamman explores these questions and many others while sharing the ways an inescapable sense of the past undergirds the performance and enjoyment of old-time music. Along the way he reveals how antimodernism remains integral to the music's appeal and its making.

What is the role of performance in faith practices? How is performance understood in and across a range of faith settings? How are performance and faith conceptualised through different academic disciplines? This collection of essays addresses these questions, and others, as it explores the complex relationship present in the nexus between faith and performance. A naturally inter-disciplinary work, this book contains contributions from a diverse group of scholars representing a wide range of methodologies and theoretical perspectives. As sociolinguists explore how language performance shapes and is shaped by faith, social anthropologists and psychologists examine how identity performance is crucial in negotiating faith identities, and scholars from theatre and performance studies engage with ways material settings are performatively transfigured to create sacred spaces (to mention but a few approaches covered in this book), the reader is taken on a journey of the world’s faiths and their diverse practices.

Collector of sexual folklore. Cataloger of erotica. Tireless social critic. Gershon Legman's singular, disreputable resume made him a counter-cultural touchstone during his forty-year exile in France. Despite his obscurity today, Legman’s prescient work and passion for the prurient laid the groundwork for our contemporary study of the forbidden.Susan G. Davis follows the life and times of the figure driven to share what he found in civilization's secret libraries. Self-taught and fiercely unaffiliated, Legman collected the risqué on street corners and in theaters and dug it out of little-known archives. If the sexual humor he uncovered often used laughter to disguise hostility and fear, he still believed it indispensable to the human experience. Davis reveals Legman in all his prickly, provocative complexity as an outrageous nonconformist thundering at a wrong-headed world while reveling in conflict, violating laws and boundaries with equal abandon, and pursuing love and improbable adventures. Through it all, he maintained a kaleidoscopic network of friends, fellow intellectuals, celebrity admirers, and like-minded obsessives.

Introduces readers to prison workers as they share stories, debate the role of corrections in American racial politics and social justice, and talk about the important function of humor in their jobs.