On Thursday, September 18, Dr. Alexander D. King (University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK) will give a lecture, titled "Explorations in Ethnopoetics", at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu. The lecture will be dedicated to the analysis of Koryak folklore texts and it will take place in von Bock's Building (Ülikooli 16) room no. 215 at 12.15.
Alexander King (PhD. 2000, University of Virginia) was born and educated in the United States. He is a linguistic anthropologist and has been working with Koryak people in Kamchatka, Russia since 1995. Teaching at the University of Aberdeen since 2003, he is currently senior lecturer and head of department. His book, Living with Koryak Traditions: Playing with Culture in Siberia (2011, Nebraska) is an ethnography of speaking, analyzing the ways in which Koryak people talk about and use their traditions and culture in everyday life.
Abstract of the lecture:
I represent the narratives on the page using an ethnopoetic framework with an ear for pause, intonation, and voice quality, as well. Oral narratives are best represented on the page as verses organized into larger unites of stanzas and scenes. An ethnopoetic framework takes into account qualities of the text, “paralinguistic” features of the recording, and additional insights provided by modern audiences of native speakers. My Koryak translators and commentators found one story recorded by Bogoras in 1901 particularly funny. I use these insights to discuss aspects of Koryak humor and comedic performance.
Alexander D. King will come to Estonia as a guest of Tallinn University where he will deliver a lecture on September 17th in the series of Inimkond Seminars.
All are welcome!
