Simon J. Bronner, Distinguished University Professor of American Studies and Folklore and director of the American Studies doctoral program at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, is the author of more than a dozen books, including Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society in America and Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. He lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
" Explaining Traditions opens our eyes to why we reject some
aspects of tradition, why we choose to keep the lore we keep, and
the ways in which we are haunted by collective memory even as we
seek to slough off its vestiges." -- Homestead.org
" Explaining Traditions provides deep insight into the nuances and
purposes of living traditions in relation to modernity." -- SIEF
News
"A thought-provoking book about what constitutes tradition, why we
continue to care about traditions, and how we forge new ones." --
Bookreporter
"An indefatigable researcher and writer, Bronner exhibits his best
skills in this book. Always having sought to define and refine the
concept of tradition, the author evocatively recapitulates and
expands the thrust of his interests and development over the last
35-plus years with this work." -- Choice
"As one of the foremost thinkers in current folkloristic
scholarship, Simon Bronner addresses a key issue in his new book,
Explaining Traditions. His work is a very necessary and most
welcome publication. Though quite clearly and outspokenly a strong
advocate for a reflective understanding of the positive role of
tradition in the making of historical and modern culture, Bronner
also succeeds in drawing a detailed picture of the opposite points
of view of traditional values in our society without blurring his
basic vision." -- W.F.H. Nicolaisen, Distinguished Professor
emeritus of English and Folklore, University of Aberdeen,
Scotland
"Bronner's book is an important contribution to folklore studies.
The book's breadth and depth exemplify Bronner's points as he draws
upon such a diversity of instances that will persuade readers that
tradition remains a pervasive element in modern American life." --
Journal of American Folklore
"Janus-like, contemporary life looks insistently forward, just as
it is wedded to the past. How to explain the contradiciton? This is
Simon Bronner's conundrum in his new collection of essays,
Exlplaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture. The answer
is to understand how tradition serves modernity in smoothing the
rough edges of change. Tradition becomes a form of practice --
praxis -- rather than a set of objects or texts. Bronner reaches
back to the Roman distinction between traditum (the object itself)
and tradition (the process of transmission)." -- Folklore 123.2
"No American folklorist is better qualified than Simon Bronner to
review and update our ideas about what 'tradition' means...He pulls
off a masterful job in this important new book." -- Journal of
Folklore Research
"Simon Bronner's Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern
Culture offers a fresh, rich understanding of how tradition shapes
our life each day. In his thoughtful essays on Yiddish stories,
blues tales, football, vernacular architecture, crafts, the
Internet, and children's games, Bronner shows how tradition defines
each of these diverse worlds. The book is a landmark study that is
distinguished by both its thorough scholarship and its breadth of
vision." -- William Ferris, author of Give My Poor Heart Ease:
Voices of the Mississippi Blues
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