DELAINEY BOWERS
FOLKLORIST + ARCHIVIST + LIBRARIAN
CONFERENCES
IU/OSU STUDENT CONFERENCE
Indiana University, Spring 2019
Further examining the fieldwork for a Folk Art and Technology course, "Go Stuff Yourself: Tradition, Preservation, and the Art of Taxidermy" focused on the artistic abilities of local taxidermist Jim McIntosh and the inherent ties to folk culture manifested in his displays. The presentation also examined the step-by-step process of creating a taxidermied mount. To view the slides for this presentation, click here.
(Warning: This presentation contains graphic images.)
American Folklore Society Annual Meeting
Buffalo, New York, Fall 2018
As a continuation of the fieldwork I conducted in the spring of 2018, "Big Bad Wrassler: Community and Occupational Folklore in Independent Wrestling Promotions" addressed themes of storytelling, identity creation, and the process of traditionalization within the realm of professional wrestling. Following the strict parameters of an image-driven "Diamond Presentation" where the slides advance automatically every 20 seconds, "Big Bad Wrassler" gave conference attendees a brief, but visually stimulating, introduction into the high-impact, extremely complex world of indie wrestling. To view the slides for this presentation, click here.
WKU Student Research Conference
Western Kentucky University, Spring 2018
Titled "Tick-Tack, Flutter-Mill, and Rozum: Gordon Wilson's Linguistic Atlas of the Mammoth Cave Region," this conference presentation was an expansion of a mock Kentucky Oral History Commission grant I completed for a course in the fall of 2017. Focusing on Wilson's fieldwork, analysis, and use of materials collected from interview participants, this presentation explored the various ways in which more concerted preservation and digitization efforts could benefit Western Kentucky University's Folklife Archives. To view the slides for this presentation, click here.