Dear colleagues and friends,
The two homage to John Miles Foley in the magazine he founded, Oral Tradition, were published in 2011 and 2012 as Festschrift on the occasion of his retirement, but his death in May 2012 paid tribute In memoriam (see
http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/list?id=55#55
Yet it seems to us that all the contributions found there do not exhaust the richness of his work.
John Foley came in Grenoble repeatedly (roundtable Homerica, Milman Parry conference, symposium Mythology and Odyssey) and his very engaging personality in addition to the quality of its researcher works have won him the hearts and minds . We would like to testify to his lasting influence with the publication of a delivery of the Epopée Project’s open collection, which will reveal the originality of his contribution to the theory of the epic and its extensions.
Since 2015, the Epic Project (http://ouvroir-litt-arts.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/revues/projet-epopee/) provides researchers with comparative tools for the study of the ancient or modern epic envisaged not as a series of particular texts or traditions, but as a genre that endures and renews itself. Next to a bibliography of six hundred titles in six languages, the Open Source is thus a publishing platform where successive volumes gradually constitute five separate books. Innovative theories, state of the art research places in the world, presentations of theses and current projects are close to the exploration of margins and problems of definition of gender. A delivery centered on the pioneering and constantly original Foley’s work would have its place alongside the already processed records or future ( « Extension of epic thought », »Epics and colonial wars: stories connected »; « Aurality: change the audience, change the epic « …).
We envisage a publication in 2021, and thus a discount of the articles at the end of December 2020. We would like to receive the proposals before September 2020.
The recently held Orality & Literacy Symposium at the University of Austin, Texas, put us in touch with potentially interested researchers to whom we are pleased to present the Epic Project and the Open Source Recueil:
http://ouvroir-litt-arts.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/revues/projet-epopee/