Professor John Miles Foley, the Curators’ Professor and William H. Byler Distinguished Professor of English and Classical Studies at the University of Missouri (Columbia), passed away on May 3, 2012, at the age of 65. He was also the Chief Academic Advisor of the Institute of Ethnic Literature (IEL), CASS, and had been to IEL for several times to share academic perspectives and to promote academic exchanges. Last year, he came to attend The 3rd IEL International Seminar on Epic Studies and Oral Tradition Research of IEL (3rd IEL-ISSESOTR), gave several inspirational lectures and conducted profound academic exchanges with Chinese graduate students and young scholars. Unfortunately, it was the last opportunity for us to meet this wonderful man and listen to his inspirational speeches and insightful ideas in person. Professor Chao Gejin, Director of IEL, CASS, published on Fabula an obituary in memory of Professor John Miles Foley to mourn the loss of the wonderful mentor and friend and to commemorate his various accomplishments and contributions in humanistic fields.
As is introduced in the obituary, “John Miles Foley was born on January 22, 1947, in Massachusetts. He received his A.B. from Colgate University, and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. As the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Oral Tradition (1986), as well as through his roles as the founding director of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition (1986), the Center for eResearch (2006), and the International Society for Studies in Oral Tradition (2011), Foley personified the mission of establishing the “new discipline” of Oral Tradition through both his research and his teaching in the context of interdisciplinary discourse”.
Professor John Miles Foley not only made remarkable academic accomplishments in various humanistic studies, but also contributed profoundly to the promotion of humanistic studies and the dissemination of knowledge throughout the world. In his obituary, Chao Gejin gave following accounts to Foley’s academic achievements and life-long contributions in various fields of human sciences:
“Throughout his career of more than 30 years as a humanistic scholar, Foley published nearly 200 articles and wrote or edited twenty books, including A Companion to Ancient Epic (Blackwell, 2005), an edition-translation of The Wedding of Mustajbey’s Son Bećirbey as performed by HalilBajgorić (Helsinki, 2004; eEdition available at oraltradition.org), How to Read an Oral Poem (Illinois, 2002; Chinese version, 2013), Homer"s Traditional Art (Penn State, 1999), Teaching Oral Traditions (Modern Language Association, 1998), The Singer of Tales in Performance (Indiana, 1995), Immanent Art (Indiana, 1991), Traditional Oral Epic (California, 1990), The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology(Indiana, 1988; Chinese version, 2000), and the forthcoming Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind (2012). He was also the General Editor of three series of research works, namely, A.B.Lord Studies in Oral Tradition (1987-98, 17 volumes), Voices in Performance and Text (1994-99, 5 volumes), and Poetics of Orality and Literacy (2004-, 4 volumes). Two of his books, How to Read an Oral Poem and Homer"s Traditional Art, won Choice’s Outstanding Academic Title. Through these publications, Foley contributed enormously to the exploration into the roots of expressive culture, consequently earning himself an international reputation and high prestige in many translingual communities.
As a polyglot, Foley mastered French, South Slavic, Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Old English, and Middle English, and he interacted energetically with various scholars and institutions around the world. More than simply a classicist, or even an epic researcher, he proved himself a very successful educationist and an extraordinary scholar; he was an academic giant for students and teachers from many countries. For example, Foley travelled extensively in many Asian countries, conducting presentations and lectures on a wide range of topics, with his insightful perspectives and creative approaches influencing the outlook and the future direction of international folkloristics in many ways. As early as 1997, he paid his first visit to China and conducted fieldwork on Mongolian epic singers in Inner Mongolia with my companion; subsequently he promoted further comparative study between the west and the east in order to “make these rare and precious insights into sometimes little-known oral traditions as clear and understandable as possible for an external audience.”One of the fruits of such study was a monograph “Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic” composed by the two of us, utilizing comparisons among ancient Greek, Old English, South Slavic, and Mongolian epic traditions in conjunction with our belief that “these four witnesses represent considerable diversity and collectively offer a chance to forge a suitably nuanced model for oral epic.” It is no surprise, then, that he was invited by several institutions to act as an interdisciplinary instructor, partner, advisor, and to serve in any number of other positions as well; for instance, in 2009 he was appointed to become the Chief Academic Advisor for the Institute of Ethnic Literature of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Over the many years Foley made significant contributions to humanities in the fields of classical studies, oral tradition research, folkloristics, cultural studies, communication technology, and internet education. Many of his books and papers have been translated into different languages, with his profound learning and innovative ideas thus becoming accessible to non-English readers and acting as stimuli for the international community more broadly. His research drew inspiration partially from the legacies of Parry and Lord, but gradually took on a new shape of its own. Foley will be remembered as one who toiled over new concepts and new methodologies, as one who regarded oral tradition as an integral part of human existence and a means of promoting human values and cultural diversity. To explain the tremendous diversity of such oral traditions, Foley proposed a four-part model involving oral performances, voiced texts, voices from the past, and written oral traditions—all of which he illustrated by means of extensive examples from various times and places, including Xhosa imbongi, Albanian oral law, North American slam poetry, Ancient Greek bards, Sardinian mutetu, Basque bertsolaritza, Old English poetry, Tibetan paper-singers, Mongolian epic performers, and several different genres from the South Slavic ecology of oral traditions. Furthermore, his terminological initiative was itself ground breaking and has far-reaching implications for the future study of oral tradition. We are left with terms such as “immanent art,” “performance arena,” “traditional referentiality,” “large word,” “an almanac of *proverbs*,” “oral-derived text,” and “voiced text.” Especially in his “Pathways Project,” Foley developed three terms—oAgora, eAgora, and tAgora—to probe into the profound relations between oral tradition and internet technology.
In every respect, Foley emerged as a foremost authority on oral tradition and may even be said to be the person who initiated conceptualizing oral tradition as a particularized “discipline” with an emphasis on traditional culture and modern society through philosophical reflection, theoretical thinking, and humanistic concern. The journal Oral Tradition has long been the “flagship” for international oral tradition studies, and it has played a vital role in the organization of international academic resources, motivating broader and further research at large. The very diversified volumes of the journal’s special issues are a special testament to how such internationalization can indeed benefit all. More and more scholars now agree that the scholarship in oral tradition has a promising future, as we are driven to broaden our perspectives on other cultural universes and to strengthen our endeavor for recapturing the rules of verbal art.
Foley once said: “I am vitally interested in the oldest and the newest of humankind"s communicative technologies, Oral Tradition and the Internet, and especially in their unexpected similarities.” His productive attainments highlight the new technologies’ enormous potential for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, documenting “fluid texts,” and enhancing scholarship more generally. In recent years, Foley had been tirelessly devoting himself to the development of enabling resources such as the online eOT journal, the eResearch Center, and the Pathways Project, all of which have helped establish a far-reaching network for international enterprise through their imaginative programmes and well-prepared content management, and have further helped to produce a multi-media “classroom” by planting and growing a “tree of knowledge” not only for the international community of humanists, but also for all the lovers of oral tradition. As the very anchor for revitalizing the legacies of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, Foley then proceeded to develop, reinforce, and expand their cause toward both more internationalization and more interdisciplinarity.”
As is stated at the end of the obituary, “in addition to intelligence and perseverance, Foley was also a really nice person to work with. He was open-minded, amiable, and people-focused.
He will be missed internationally…. ”
(summarized by Yulan)