Oral Tradition Volume 7, Number 1March 1992
Editor's Column
With the present issue Oral Tradition embarks upon its new editorial program of two per volume and year, each to be approximately fi fty percent larger than the standard triquarterly number. This format is intended to make possible certain changes in the journal: in addition to bringing costs more under control and providing the same annual page allotment, it is designed to make for greater heterogeneity in each issue. The increased space will of course mean that more different traditions can be examined in a given number, and it will also make room for “clusters” of essays on a particular subject or in a particular field, groups of articles that will constitute a focus amid the natural diversity of OT’s responsibilities. We will also maintain the possibility of devoting an entire number to a single area, so special issues such as those that have appeared in the past will remain part of the editorial program. Since the journal was established in order to facilitate communication among scholars sharing an interest in oral tradition but segregated by the disciplinary structure of modern academia, this enhancement of diversity in OT’s contents seems appropriate.
The first “augmented” number exemplifi es the new format. Eight essays, two review articles, and a symposium contribution range over a wide selection of areas: Scottish songs, ancient Greek orality and literacy, the Finnish Kalevala, Latin charms, Irish myth, Old English narrative, an archive of Turkish oral traditions, the modern American storytelling movement, the use of acoustic media for medieval works with roots in oral tradition, and James Joyce studies. Future issues will feature scholarship on Russian charms, Arab women’s songs, Serbo-Croatian women’s songs, the Old English Beowulf, the ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey, Hispanic balladry, Japanese folklore, Old French epic, and African American rap music, as well as the third and fi nal section of Mark Edwards’ bibliographical survey of oral traditional studies on Homeric epic and an update of my omnibus annotated bibliography on the Parry-Lord approach (Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research, 1985; previously updated in OT 1 [1986]: 767-808 and 3 [1988]: 191-228). Also in preparation is a special collection on Native American and another on African American traditions.
We continue to be grateful to our readership and ask you for two kinds of assistance as Oral Tradition enters its seventh year. First, in respect to our ongoing subscription drive, please alert two colleagues to the rewards of receiving a personal copy of the journal for the nearly nominal charge of $18 per year; of course, your own early renewal will also help in that regard. Second, urge specialists in various fields to submit their manuscripts to OT. For our part we will continue to encourage conversation across disciplinary boundaries, in the hope of fostering the growth of studies in oral tradition as the complex and international fi eld it has proven to be.
John Miles Foley, Editor
