Listening For A Life : A Dialogic Ethnography of Bessie Eldreth Through Her Songs and Stories

In one sense a folklorist's portrayal of a notable folk artist's life and art, Listening for a Life is equally a rethinking of the processes involved in such work, not only in how the folklorist conveys her subject but in how her subject constitutes and performs herself into being through dialogue with others: those present, those once present, those imagined and anticipated. Drawing on Bahktinian and feminist theory, Sawin pushes forward our understanding of the interactive roles of ethnographer and subject and in the process gives us a deeper understanding of folk singer and storyteller Bessie Eldreth and her greatest art, herself. Frontmatter Preface (page ix) Transcription Conversions (page xiii) 1. Introduction: Dialogism and Subjectivity (page 1) 2. "That was before I ever left home": Complex Accounts of a Simple Childhood (page 28) 3. "If you had to work as hard as I did, it would kill you": Work, Narrative, and Self-Definition (page 49) 4. "I said, 'Don't you do it'": Tracing Development as an Empowered Speaker through Reported Speech in Narrative (page 68) 5. "He never did say anything about my dreams that would worry me after that": Negotiating Gender and Power in Ghost Stories (page 98) 6. "I'm a bad one to go pulling jokes on people": Practical Joking as a Problematic Vehicle for Oppositional Self-Definition (page 135) 7. "My singing is my life": Repertoire and Performance (page 156) 8. Epilogue (page 211) Notes (page 214) Works Cited (page 229) Index (page 241) "In one sense a folklorist's portrayal of a folk artist's life and art, Listening for a Life is equally a rethinking of the processes involved in such work, not only in how the folklorist conveys her subject but in how her subject constitutes and performs herself into being through dialogue with others: those present, those once present, those imagined and anticipated. Drawing on Bahktinian and feminist theory, Sawin pushes forward our understanding of the interactive roles of ethnographer and subject and in the process gives us a deeper understanding of folk singer and storyteller Bessie Eldreth and her greatest art, herself."--BOOK JACKET.

Sawin (anthropology, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) applies Bahktinian and feminist theory to the work of traditional North Carolina singer and storyteller Eldreth (b. 1913). Her topics include dialogism and subjectivity, complex accounts of a simple childhood, development as an empowered speaker, negotiating gender and power in ghost stories, and practical joking as a problematic vehicle for oppositional self-definition. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Bessie Eldreth and I have been talking, on and off, for the past fifteen years.