About Bruce Buckley
Bruce R. Buckley was a young folklorist, musician and movie producer who, along with Louis C. Jones, developed the Cooperstown Graduate Program. Bruce was a brilliant and inspiring teacher. His courses sent students out into the communities of central New York to gather music, measure buildings, sample local foodways, and document regional traditions. Bruce's approach to learning and his methods continue to inspire those who studied with him. Over six hundred former CGP students filling significant leadership positions in museums and on university campuses across the country are one of his greatest legacies.
The Bruce Buckley Lectureship
As a fitting tribute to Bruce, the Cooperstown Graduate Program established the Bruce Buckley Lectureship. This special endowment continues to spark the excitement that Bruce brought to the community more than 35 years ago. The Buckley Lectureship brings a significant folklorist to Cooperstown each year to lecture on their current research for students and members of the local community.
2009 Buckley Scholar - Varick Chittenden
Varick Chittenden graduated with an M.A. in American Folk Culture from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in 1976. He taught at SUNY Canton for 36 years and now holds the title of Professor Emeritus of English and Folklore. During his career, Varick curated a number of important folk art exhibitions and authored several scholarly works, including Danes of Yates County (1985) and Vietnam Remembered: The Folk Art of Marine Combat Veteran Michael D. Cousino, Sr. (1995). His interests include upstate regional culture, folk art, traditional crafts, foodways, and oral storytelling traditions. Varick is the founder of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY). He currently serves as Heritage Center Project Director at TAUNY and is responsible for the Register of Very Special Places Project.
Th2 2009 Buckley Lecture will be held on Thursday, May 7th at 7:00pm in the Auditorium of the Fenimore Art Museum.
Please call 607-547-2586 for more information.
Past Buckley Scholars
2008 - Amanda Dargan and Steven Zeitlin of City Lore
City Lore was founded in 1986 to produce programs and publications that convey the richness of New York City's cultural heritage. Its projects include: The People's Poetry Gathering, Place Matters, People's Hall of Fame, Culture Catalog, music and dance workshops, etc.
As the Education Director for City Lore, Amanda Dargan directs and develops education components for all City Lore public programs and publications. She also directs curriculum development and teacher and teaching artist training.
Steven Zeitlin is the Executive Director of City Lore. He is a commentator on nationally syndicated radio shows, Crossroads and Artbeat, and develops segments on "The Poetry of Everyday Life" for The Next Big Thing, heard on National Public Radio.
2007 - Susan G. Davis, Ph.D.
Susan Davis is the author of Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (1986) and Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience (1997). She has also written on public and corporate space and culture and the history of leisure and tourism landscapes.
2006 - Joe Hickerson
For more than 50 years, Joe Hickerson has performed more than a thousand times throughout the USA and in Canada, Finland and Ukraine. His repertoire includes a vast array of folksongs. Pete Seeger has called him "a great songleader." Joe calls himself a "vintage pre-plugged peleo-acoustic folk-singer." In 1960 he wrote the 4th and 5th verses of Where Have All the Flowers Gone. Joe also has a career as a folklorist, ethnomusicologist, archivist, and librarian. For 35 years he was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song/Culture at the Library of Congress.
2005 - Susan Eleuterio
Susan Eleuterio is a professional folklorist specializing in ethnic group material culture. She is the author of Irish American Material Culture: A Directory of Collections, Sites and Festivals in the United States and Canada (1988). She has conducted fieldwork and developed public programs including exhibits, performances, folk arts and oral history workshops and residencies in museums and schools. She formerly served as the Director of Ethnic and Folk Arts, Literature and Presenters Programs for the Illinois Arts Council. She is co-creating a non-profit to research, preserve, and present traditional and folk culture of the Chicago metropolitan area.
2004 - William K. McNeil, Ph.D.
For almost half of his sixty-four years of life, William McNeil served as folklorist for the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Arkansas and helped build its Ozark Cultural Resource Center into a major research facility. At home in the library, as well as in the field, Bill was a major resource of masses of folklore information.
2003 - Nicholas Vrooman
Nicholas Vrooman is the author of numerous articles and books, including Iron Spirits (1982), Turtle Mountain Music (1984), "Land of Vision: Folklore/Folklife and History on the Northern Plains" in North Dakota History (1989), Plains Chippewa/Metis Music from the Turtle Mountains (1992), and Songs for Asking (1997). He currently teaches at the University of Montana while completing his doctorate, and serves as Indian Education Specialist to the Montana Office of Public Instruction on issues of the "Indian Education for All" constitutional mandate.
2002 - Elaine Eff, Ph.D.
Elaine Eff authored the book, You Should Have Been Here Yesterday: A Guide to Cultural Documentation in Maryland (1995), that has served as a handbook for those who want to learn how to use oral history and other methods to record the history of their communities. She contributed oral histories of a now-vanished generation of lighthouse keepers to Ross Holland’s Maryland Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay. She serves as co-Director of Maryland Traditions, a partnership of the Maryland Historical Trust and the Maryland State Arts Council that discovers and sustains traditional arts and culture.
