John Miles Foley

John Miles Foley, who died on May 3rd at the age of 65, was for much

of his working life an outstanding contradiction to the often widely-

voiced view that cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research

inevitably leads to a dilution in quality.  John Foley's work was widely-

respected across the many fields into which his underlying passion - the

ways in which oral knowledge is transmitted - led him.  His fascination

for all forms of oral communication embraced the apparent extremes of

the ancient epic poem - he was an expert on Beowulf and the Homeric

epics - and the internet, in his work as Director of the Centre for

eResearch.  Among his many achievements were his oral formulaic theory,

first published in 1985 and How To Read An Oral Poem (2002).  But his

profound underlying commitment to oral literature and the principle of

free and open access to scholarly work was perhaps best demonstrated by

his journal Oral Tradition  which has been an inspiration and example to

both scholars and publishers.

His life, as more than one commentator has observed, was dedicated to

bringing people together - across centuries and languages, as well as

across continents.  It's poignant that the most recent issue of Oral

Tradition  was a festschrift, consisting of articles written by John

Foley's past students.  It now stands as a fitting tribute to an

inspiring and generous teacher and a courageous and exemplary scholar.

We cannot say that we knew John well, but we had the pleasure of getting

to know him when he was invited to give the keynote at the World Oral

Literature Project 2010 Workshop, on the theme of Archiving Orality and

Connecting with Communities <http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1327/>.

John gave a compelling presentation entitled 'Oral Tradition and the

Internet', arguing that humankind's oldest and newest technologies of

communication are fundamentally homologous. We were fortunate enough to

record his presentation on video so those who could not make it to

Cambridge could still benefit from his insights <http://sms.cam.ac.uk/

media/1092059> and we have also archived the material to the

institutional repository at the University of Cambridge <http://

www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/229725>. They have already been 

viewed and downloaded almost 500 times, proving his point: an oral lecture

delivered through the Internet.

John's intellectual vision combined with his gentleness and generosity 

to younger researchers were noted by all at the workshop. He has 

continued to inspire and educate through Oral Tradition,  <http://

oraltradition.org/>, and through the Center for eResearch which fosters

interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange via digital and internet-

based media <http://e-researchcenter.org/>. A longer appreciation of

John's scholarly contributions  can be found on the Missourian online

<http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/05/08/mu-professor-

dedicated-education-knowledge/>. 

Mark Turin 

Mick Gowar