Winter Carnival in a Western Town
Identity, Change, and the Good of the Community
Ritual, Festival, and Celebration Series
“The collection of voices that have been brought in throughout this book offer a beautiful contribution to cultural analysis that is inclusive of diverse communities and creates a shared space to see how these diverse communities intersect through practice. It’s a gem that I look forward to teaching with.”
—Rachel V. González-Martin, University of Texas at Austin
“If folklore is to be valued as evidence not available in other forms in the present of a pivotal, and threatened, institution of American life, and looking to the future, of the society inhabited and shaped by graduates, then indeed a priority of research should be the kind of scholarship pursued by Sheila Bock. . . . Claiming Space can serve as an exemplary case study in folklore courses to show students the meaningfulness of their own traditions—and designs.”
Claiming Space examines the growing tradition of decorating mortarboards at college graduations, offering a performance-centered approach to these material sites of display. Taking mortarboard displays seriously as public performances of the personal, this book highlights the creative, playful, and powerful ways graduates use their caps to fashion their personal engagement with notions of self, community, education, and the unknown future.
Claiming the space of these graduation caps is a popular and widespread way that individuals make their voices heard, or rather seen, in the visual landscape of commencement ceremonies. The forms and meanings of these material displays take shape in relation to broader, ongoing conversations about higher education in the United States, conversations grounded in discourses of belonging, citizenship, and the promises of the American Dream. Integrating observational fieldwork with extensive interviews and surveys, author Sheila Bock highlights the interpretations of individuals participating in this tradition. She also attends to the public framings of this tradition, including how images of mortarboards have grounded online enactments of community through hashtags such as #LatinxGradCaps and #LetTheFeathersFly, as well as what rhetorical framings are employed in news coverage and legal documents in cases where the value of the practice is both called into question and justified.
As university administrators and cultural commentators seek to make sense of the current state of higher education, these forms of material expression offer insight into how students themselves are grappling with higher ed's promises and shortcomings. Claiming Space is a meaningful contribution to folklore, cultural studies, media studies, and education.
