Folklore Program
Logan Hall (3rd floor)
249 South 36th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
853 Seventh Ave. (Apt. 12-B)
New York, NY 10019 USA
212-247-6096
IMMEDIATE ACADEMIC OBJECTIVES
To continue doctoral fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, India, through
October 2004.
LONGTERM ACADEMIC OBJECTIVE
To help develop the New York City and International Storytelling
Institute.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Face-to-face storytelling (oral narrative): in conversation,
performance, ritual, and other contexts.
Storytellers' visual accompaniments.
Narrative as presented through various communication
technologies.
The history and nature of communication technologies (oral,
literary, and electronic).
Videoconferencing (video-mediated communication): sociological,
regulatory, and design issues.
Educational uses of technology.
Language instruction methodology.
Tamil Nadu, south India.
PROFESSIONAL OBJECTIVES
To, as designer, consultant, and writer, help develop
videoconferencing and interactive TV. To provide people at cafes,
nightclubs, and elsewhere with videoconferenced performance and
instruction by traditional storytellers from their home locales.
EDUCATION
Currently a Ph.D. candidate, Graduate Program in Folklore and
Folklife, University of Pennsylvania. My dissertation will compare how
various types of South Indian storytelling are performed:
1) face-to-face (in wilderness, villages, and cities),
2) on state radio and TV, and
3) via videoconferencing.
M.A., ’96. Gallatin School, New York University.
Self-designed program: “Face-to-Face Storytelling and Electronic
Communication.” My thesis, “Storytelling Accompanied by Visuals: Then
and Now,” surveyed types of visual accompaniments used by face-to-face
storytellers and argued that this family can include electronic visual
imagery on a large screen.
B.A., ’84. Gallatin School, New York University.
(Swarthmore College, ’75 - ’77; Oberlin College, ’78 - ’80.) Area of
Concentration: Cultural History of Western Civilization.
Stuyvesant High School, NYC. ’71 - ’75.
COURSE OF STUDY
Ph.D. candidate, Folklore, University of Pennsylvania.
Relevant courses include: Ways of Speaking, Performance of Epic
(directed reading), Festival/Pageant/Parade, African Folklore, Chinese
Folk Performance, Korean Shamanism, Communicating Memory, Media Ritual,
Pubic Space, Fieldwork.
M.A., Gallatin School, NYU
Relevant courses include: Ethnographic and Historical Approaches to
Storytelling and Training in Storytelling (independent studies) with
Laura Simms and Diane Wolkstein; The Social Movement as Performance
(Dept. of Performance Studies); Social Issues in Telecommunications
(Interactive Telecommunication Program).
M. A. fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, south India (7/88 - 7/89, 1/90 -
11/90): Studied traditional storytelling techniques in folk and orthodox
genres; videotaped performances. Conducted a cross-media study of the
Epic of the Anklet,a central epic of the Tamil people; collected data in
the course of a 220-mile walk in the footsteps of Kannagi, the heroine
of the story, and visited Muthuvan tribal people in Nilgiri Mountain
wilderness (Muthuvans believe that their tribe was founded by Kannagi
approx. 1600 years ago). Rudimentary Tamil language conversational
and literary ability.
B.A., Gallatin School, NYU (and Swarthmore and Oberlin Colleges):
Relevant courses include: Torah, Hebrew Scripture, New Testament,
History of Greece, History of Rome, Ancient Philosophy, Greek Tragedy
(in translation), [Shakespeare 1590-1600], The Tempest, Play and Games
in Shakespeare’s Plays (independent study), [Folk Tale, Myth, and
Legend], Theories of the Image, Images of the Family, Russian Novels (in
translation), James Joyce’ Ulysses, Community and Social Life,
Introduction to Teaching, Introduction to Linguistics, and Renaissance
to Postmodern Art.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
New York University, School of Continuing and Professional
Studies.
Instructor. Spring ’02. Course: Storytelling.
Fordham University, English Dept., Lincoln Center campus.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall ’01 - Spring '02. Courses: Basic
Writing, Composition and Rhetoric, Introduction to Literature.
St. John's University, Division of Humanities, Staten Island
campus.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall ’96 - Summer ’98. Courses: Expository
Writing (twice), Writing About Literature (twice), The Modern Short
Story (twice), American Drama, The Folk Tale (independent study),
Introduction to Speech Communication.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia:
Spring ’99: WATU (Writing Across the University) teaching assistant, for
Prof. Roger Abrahams, Folklore of the African Diaspora.
Fall ’98: WATU teaching assistant, for Prof. Franklin Southworth,
Male-Female Communication, East and West.
WORK EXPERIENCE IN ACADEMIA
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia:
Fall ’99 - Spring ’01: Research assistant to Prof. Roger Abrahams,
director,
Center for Folklore and Ethnography.
Fall ’98 - Spring ’01: Assistant to Jay Treat, director, Instructional
Computing, School of Arts and Sciences.
OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE
Co-president/founder, Eric & Co. Video. ’83 - present.
Documentation of performances and production of multimedia events.
Offering video projection and videoconferencing, with multiple
electronic painting and typing devices, and fonts in various languages.
Clients include the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rod Rogers Dance Co.,
NY Theatre of the Deaf, and the Pan-Asian Repertory Theatre (NYC). One
service offered by Eric & Co. is the “Video-Projection Dance Party” --
as people dance, they can see their video images and computer-generated
imagery on a large screen. (I am very interested in developing ways of
using technology in the teaching process.)
Assistant to Laura Simms. ’85 - ’88, ’95 - ’96.
Ms. Simms, an internationally acclaimed storyteller and educator, is a
leader of the modern revival of storytelling. My duties included
managing mailing lists; assisting with publicity, advertisements, and
grant applications; and giving feedback regarding manuscripts and
performances. I acted as liaison for the “1995 Month of International
Storytelling in New York,” assisting storytellers from England, France,
Iran, Africa, and the USA.
Writer for Lydia Joel. ’87 - ’88.
Ms. Joel, formerly editor-in-chief of Dance Magazineand chair of the
Dance Dept. of NYC’s Performing Arts High School, hired me to write a
screenplay based on her research. Project title: “Catherine de Medici,
Italian Queen of France, and the Beginnings of Ballet.”
ASSOCIATIONS
American Folklore Society.
Conference on Religion in South Asia.
National Storytelling Association, Jonesborough, TN.
Interactive Performance Group, New York University.
NY New Media Association.
PUBLICATIONS
“The Public Sphere, Folklore, and Interactive
Telecommunication in Rural India,” in Folklore, the Public Sphere,
and Civil Society, M.D. Muthukumaraswamy, ed., New Delhi and
Chennai: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and National
Folklore Support Centre, in press (2004).
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/symposium_article.html
“Child’s Play, Language Teaching and Learning, and
Videoconferencing,” Madhyam: Issues in Culture,
Communication, and Development, Vol. 18, No. 2
(October 2003): 13-19.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/play_article.html
“New Millennium Telling,” Storytelling Magazine,7/96.
A report on the Storytelling for the New Millennium Conference held in
Kauai, Hawaii, which concerned applications of new media, including two
for face-to-face storytellers: the use of electronic images/sounds in
accompaniment of storytelling performances, and storytelling through
videoconferencing.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Kauai_article.html
“Amiga Multimedia Computers in South India.”
Newsletter of the NY Amiga Users Group,1/96 (Part I), 3/96 (Part II).
Regarding my use of a computer in south India for electronic painting at
multimedia events, and Tamils' uses of similar computers.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Amiga_article.html
“The Performance Tradition of Villupattu in Rural and Urban
Contexts.” 8/16/00.
Dept. of Tamil Literature, University of Madras (Tamil Nadu, south
India).
“Storytelling in Different Cultures.” 8/10/00.
Dept. of Indian Music, School of Fine and Performing Arts, University of
Madras.
“The In-Performance Identification Process.” 10/27/00.
American Folklore Society, Columbus, Ohio (annual meeting).
“Videoconferencing for Folklorists.” 10/21/99.
American Folklore Society, Memphis, Tennessee (annual meeting).
This paper discussed videoconferencing as a means of study
(“ethnographic videoconferencing”), and as an object of study. A
colleague in NY attended by videoconference.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/for_folklorists.html
VIDEOCONFERENCES
“Videoconferencing with Indigenous Peoples.”
Penn Folklore Graduate-Student Sponsored Videoconference Series, 2001-2.
Please see
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/videoconference/series/2.html . Technology: Tamberg, over ISDN lines; with simultaneous
Realplayer audio-video webcast.
Penn Folklore Graduate-Student Sponsored Videoconference Series,
2000-1.
Please see
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/videoconference/series . Technology: Tamberg, over ISDN lines; with simultaneous
Realplayer audio-video webcast.
“Nine Songs, a Story, and a Little Talk.” 4/20/99, 4/21/99,
4/26/99
Between myself at Penn in Philadelphia and a colleague in NYC (I was at
a different location on the Penn campus for each of the three events).
We demonstrated and discussed video-mediated singing and storytelling.
Technology: “Videophones” (made by 8x8, inc.), over a regular
telephone line.
“A Reading of and Discussion about Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday
Use.’” 6/14/98.
I was teaching a course, The Modern Short Story,on St. John’s U.’s
Staten Island campus: a guest scholar in Manhattan co-led one session.
Technology: “Videophones,” over a regular telephone line.
“Two Suriname Tales.” 4/29/98.
Between myself at Penn’s Folklore Dept. in Philadelphia and a colleague
in NYC. We demonstrated and discussed video-mediated storytelling. Technology: “Videophones,” over a regular telephone line.
“YouthCaN (Youth in Communications and Networking) ’98.” 4/23/98.
Sponsored by NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, NYU’s School of
Education, etc. 800 junior and senior high school students at the AMNH
conversed with students in Troy, Alabama. A skit was performed
(regarding environmental concerns) with actors in both locations; the
scene painter was in Alabama. I served as a technology and drama
coordinator. Technology: “Videophones,” over a regular telephone line.
“YouthCaN ’97.” 5/15/97.
The distant students were in Austin, Texas. Technology: PictureTel, over ISDN lines.
“Use of Electronic Technology in the Theatre Classroom.” 4/14/97.
Guest lecture/demonstration by Dr. Stephen Schrum, Dept. of Educational
Theatre, Penn. State U. (Hazleton). Dr. Schrum was on St. John's U.’s
Staten Island campus; acting as his assistant, I conversed with him from
St. John's U.’s Queens campus. Technology: Sony, over ISDN lines.
“A Videoconference about Cassandra.” 11/23/96.
Between NYU's Interactive Performance Group and students at York U.,
Canada. Technology: PictureTel, over ISDN lines.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
I was born in midtown Manhattan, NYC, where I was raised by my
parents: Lydia Joel (editor-in-chief, Dance Magazine,’56 - ’70; chair of
the Dance Dept., Performing Arts High School, ’72 - ’84), and Edwin
Miller (entertainment editor, Seventeen Magazine,’46 - ’88).
