In his address at Los Angeles, Bert Wilson offers a grand message of hope. The style is plain and direct, the spirit soars. If folklorists would take as their goal the discovery of our common humanity, topical interests would coalesce, academic disciplines would unify, invidious distinctions among people would fade away. Within a universal humanity, cultural differences would seem trivial, the past and the present would mesh. Folklorists would assume a leading role in an advanced cultural program.

His call for unity clarified and perfected old tendencies in folkloristic thought. He locates two essential aspects of human action: the godlike...

In an effort to address the perennial questions of where a person with a PhD in folklore could find an academic position and how to succeed in the profession, I proposed that the Folklore Institute at Indiana University host a symposium in 1995 entitled, “Folklore in the Academy: The Relevance of Folklore to Language and Literature Departments.” It was my intention to feature Bert Wilson as the role model because he had been an inspiration to me since I encountered him at my first meeting of the American Folklore Society in Austin, Texas, where we had a memorable discussion about...

Early in his career, Bert Wilson questioned the value of public folklore, which in America is mostly situated in the nonprofit arts sector. He then, and still today, worried about the political purposes to which folklore could be put. When I interviewed Bert in May 2003, I learned that it did not take long for him to accept the idea that helping people appreciate their own heritage through public programs like festivals and exhibits is a valuable endeavor (Thatcher 2003, tape 1, page 4 of transcript). Soon after this realization, which he says started when he participated in the 1976...

When Bert Wilson in 1991 delivered this talk, “‘Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall,’” the Folklore Society of Utah was holding its annual meeting in conjunction with that of the Utah State Historical Society, an arrangement that had then continued for twenty years. Bert had been the driving force behind this supportive agreement. At that time, the Folklore Society had a tiny membership and few resources, but the quality and interest of the folklore session made it annually one of the most popular and best attended at the meeting. The hospitality of historical society director Charles Peterson and...

One of my first introductions to folklore studies was attending the Fife Folklore Conference at Utah State University (USU) as an impressionable undergraduate student. I had been told by one of my professors at Brigham Young University (BYU) that I needed to introduce myself to Bert Wilson, who at that time was director of the folklore program at USU. I made the introduction, and during lunch, Bert sat down with me and talked about folklore and the fact that he was going to move to Provo to become chair of the English department at BYU. I became excited to know...

A series of serendipitous events led me to Bert Wilson’s Introduction to Folklore class in fall semester 1977, and by the end of the semester I wanted to be a folklorist. I succeeded and became the first permanent archivist in the BYU Folklore Archives, since renamed the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives. Like so many others, I owe my profession to Bert’s influence. Bert once told me that he sometimes thought he should have been a full-time archivist rather than the myriad of roles he played throughout his career. I’m glad that wasn’t the path Bert chose. For despite his...

When I studied folklore at Indiana University in the early 1960s, Johann Gottfried Herder did not figure at all in the curriculum on the intellectual history of folklore. Constrained by the ideologies of disciplinarity, my teachers dated the history of the field to the nineteenth-century founders of the systematic, “scientific” folklore (the Brothers Grimm, William John Thoms, Julius and Kaarle Krohn, Sven Grundtvig, Francis James Child, E. B. Tylor), with a predisposition toward the Nordic and German scholars who systematized the philological method or to the British scholars who had the good taste to write in English. Earlier works that...

In this engaging article, William Wilson provides an overview of the social and artistic movement of late nineteenth-century Finland known as Karelianism. The term Karelia (Finnish Karjala) designates both a portion of eastern Finland and abroad expanse of territory east of the border. The eastern region was never part of the Swedish empire, an entity that molded the culture of Finland proper for six centuries. Predominantly Orthodox in faith and possessing a language distinct from (although very closely related to) Finnish, it would seem an unlikely candidate for national epitome. Yet through the epic song collecting efforts of Elias Lönnrot...

Whether on Finnish nationalism or Mormon popular expressions, William A. “Bert” Wilson has moved as gracefully as any folklorist between the romantic and the critical motivational poles of folklore study. On the one hand, folklorists participate in a celebration of disempowered voices, marginalized peoples, and the everyday. On the other hand, folklorists engage in critiques of power, confronting hegemonic discourses and dominant representations. Bert challenges us to think about the role of folklore in the creation of power while also asking us to remain hopeful in the human condition as we celebrate diversity. If anything, Bert remains honest—honest in...

Rephrased as a question, the title of this address could easily have been announced as “How do Americans form identities?” While Wilson is dealing in this paper particularly with the contemporary situation of Americans of Finnish ancestry, his analysis of the connection of cultural expressions to feelings of ethnic belonging could be applied to other groups. As with his other studies, however, he is careful to ground issues of identity in the distinctive historical and cultural experience of specific groups and recognize that differences often emerge.

The question might be begged as to why ethnicity often takes priority as an...

Throughout Bert Wilson’s essays, articles, and talks, there runs a constant emphasis on the importance of the individual regardless of geography or religion. This clearly reveals a deep understanding of his own religious ethos and the universal nature of religion as a cultural force, regardless of where it is situated. In “The Concept of the West,” Wilson argues that to understand the folklore of expressive religious behavior, “We must begin with the religious individual, with homo religiosus.” As folklorists or others who may be interested in religious behavior, he suggests that “our aim should be to discover what it means...

Although my associations with Bert Wilson have a timeless quality, I know that our friendship was greatly deepened by the opportunity for long talks as we participated in the Fife Folklore Conference at Utah State University in 1979. Bert, his scholarly work, and our long conversations that summer are a part of who I am and how I try to think about folklore, especially the religious and spiritual dimensions of the topic that so interest both of us.

This article, “The Study of Mormon Folklore: An Uncertain Mirror for Truth,” became part of a fascinating, and, to some extent, troubling...

Only a week before I received the invitation to write this introduction, two faculty members who are team-teaching an introductory class about world arts and cultures queried me. Their course concerns concepts and perspectives in the intercultural, interdisciplinary study of art, aesthetics, and performance. Among other matters, it examines the performative representation of cultural identity. The instructors sought articles outside their own fields that students should read. Immediately I recommended William A. (Bert) Wilson’s “On Being Human: The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries.” It deals as much with behavior, performance, and culture as it does with the lore of a particular...

My first foray into humor studies occurred when I tried to make sense of the humorous repertoire of a particular group that—not unlike the Mormons—was shaped by dramatic historical events and possessed a distinct ideology. In that and subsequent studies, I came to understand that while humor served to entertain and to lubricate social interaction, it was also a significant form of expression. Important messages were conveyed through jokes, wisecracks, and anecdotes. Humorous expressions offered insights into the concepts, concerns, and values of individuals and groups. For more than three decades now, I have heeded Bert Wilson’s admonition...

Part of Bert Wilson’s appeal as a human being, scholar, and friend lies in his character as a no-nonsense homo religiosus; Bert is down-to-earth, objective, and not given to unbridled fantasy. It is his very reasonableness in writing about religious folklore that makes him trustworthy for the outsider and a fair representative of the insider. His voice has opened not only Mormon religious folklore but religious folklore in general to many readers and suggested research possibilities and fresh kinds of knowledge to new generations of scholars.

“Freeways, Parking Lots, and Ice Cream Stands” offers both a permanent contribution to humanistic...

I first discovered “‘Teach Me All That I Must Do’” not at the 1998 AFS meeting in Portland where it was initially presented, but rather sitting in Bert Wilson’s home office.¹ As a folklore graduate student at Brigham Young University, I was writing my thesis on reflexivity and the insider voice in Mormon folklore scholarship. Although Bert was retired and had no obligation to participate in yet another MA thesis, he generously agreed to help me with a chapter on his contribution to the field and shared with me several of his unpublished works, including this article.

After reading “‘Teach...

The first time I ever heard Bert Wilson tell one of his mother’s stories about growing up in Riddyville, Idaho, was around a campfire up Logan Canyon at the beginning of an early Fife Folklore Conference. As the flames illuminated his face in the chill June twilight, Bert’s voice carried us back to another time and place where young girls rode horses to school every day and the sweet smell of baking bread frequently filled the log cabin she called home. What I remember most about that night was the way all of us were enraptured by the power of...