John Miles Foley (January 22, 1947 – May 3, 2012) was a scholar of comparative

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...

, particularly

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and

Old English literature Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmo ...

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

and Serbian epic. He was the founder of the academic journal ''Oral Tradition'' and the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

, where he was Curators' Professor of Classical Studies and English and W. H. Byler Endowed Chair in the Humanities.

Education

Foley was born January 22, 1947, in

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an a ...

. He received his bachelor's degree at

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theolog ...

in 1969, with majors in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

. He completed his Masters in

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst in 1971 before completing the Ph.D. there in English and

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

(1974).

Career

Following his doctoral studies, Foley undertook

fieldwork Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

, confirming and extending prior research on living oral traditions by

Milman Parry Milman Parry (June 23, 1902 – December 3, 1935) was an American Classicist whose theories on the origin of Homer's works have revolutionized Homeric studies to such a fundamental degree that he has been described as the " Darwin of Homeric ...

and

Albert Lord Albert Bates Lord (15 September 1912 – 29 July 1991) was a professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Harvard University who, after the death of his mentor Milman Parry, carried on Parry's research on epic poetry. Early life Lord was bor ...

. Based on this fieldwork, he continued the work of Francis P. Magoun in applying findings to other

ethnolinguistic Ethnolinguistics (sometimes called cultural linguistics) is an area of anthropological linguistics that studies the relationship between a language and the nonlinguistic cultural behavior of the people who speak that language. __NOTOC__ Examples ...

areas, as well as refining the theory of

Oral-Formulaic Composition Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues: # the process by which oral poets improvise poetry # ...

. After receiving his doctorate, Foley was assistant professor of English at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

until 1979, when he became associate professor at the

, where he became regular professor in 1983 and stayed for the remainder of his career.John Miles Foley Resume. (n.d.). http://johnmilesfoley.org/portal/Curriculum_vitae.html Stints at other universities included an appointment as visiting professor at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-ba ...

(1980) and visiting fellow at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

(1976–1977, 1980–1981). He directed summer institutes for teachers for the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

in 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992 and 1994. He gave more than 250 invited lectures throughout the United States as well as in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, throughout

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Foley was awarded grants and fellowships from the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

, the Guggenheim Foundation, the

, the

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Program, the

Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pit ...

, and other institutions, and was a fellow of the Finnish Folklore Society and the

American Folklore Society The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote the responsible ...

. In addition to providing the infrastructure for the comparatively new academic discipline of oral tradition by means of organizing conferences, producing the first bibliography, history and methodological guide and classroom textbook on the subject, his principal contributions involved the study of oral traditional performance in the field, and the application of those observations both to ancient texts and to the emerging secondary orality of the Internet. He taught in the departments of Classical Studies (of which he was chair from 1996–1999), including both literature and language, English ( Anglo-Saxon language and Beowulf), and German and Russian Studies (Slavic languages and literature). Additionally, he had been an adjunct professor of anthropology since 1992. Foley founded the academic journal ''Oral Tradition'' in 1986, converting it to an

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

publishing model in 2006. He also founded and directed two academic centers, the Center for the Studies in Oral Tradition (launched in 1986) and the Center for eResearch (launched in 2005), which fosters cross-disciplinary internet-related research. He wrote or edited twenty books, and authored more than 160 scholarly articles. Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries did a retrospective of his work in 2001. Additionally, he edited three series of books (''Lord Studies in Oral Tradition'', published by Garland, ''Voices in Performance and Text'', by the University of Illinois Press, and ''Poetics of Orality and Literacy'', with the University of Notre Dame Press). Foley was most recently the Academic Director for the Oral Traditions program at the Graduate Institute. Foley retired from the University of Missouri in 2011, and died May 3, 2012 at the age of 65.

Select bibliography

*''Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography''. New York, 1985. *''Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian Return Song''. Berkeley, 1990 Rpt. 1993. *''Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic''. Bloomington, 1991. *''The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology''. Bloomington, 1988. Rpt. 1992. *''The Singer of Tales in Performance''. Bloomington, 1995. *''Teaching Oral Traditions'' (ed.). New York, 1998. *''Homer’s Traditional Art''. Penn State UP, 1999. *''How To Read an Oral Poem''. Illinois UP, 2002. *''A Companion to Ancient Epic''. Blackwell, 2005 *''Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind''. University of Illinois Press, 2012.

References

External links

*
Center for Studies in Oral TraditionCenter for eResearchProfile at University of Missouri Dept of Classics
* * Annotated Bibliography of Works by John Miles Foley: http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/26ii/garner2 {{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, John Miles 2012 deaths Epic poetry collectors American humanists American literary critics Postmodernism North American cultural studies Writers from Missouri 1947 births American classical scholars American anthropologists American folklorists Harvard Fellows University of Belgrade faculty American medievalists University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Colgate University alumni Writers from Northampton, Massachusetts University of Missouri faculty Historians from Massachusetts Historians from Missouri Scholars of epic poetry Historians from New York (state) Fulbright alumni