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Bridging Appalachia - Folklore Graduate Study in Ireland

Jess Erin Sellner Start Date: Jul 31, 2023 - End Date: Jul 30, 2024
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Study/Degree Abroad
  • Ireland
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Donegal, Ireland

My Travel Story

by: Jess Erin Sellner Start Date: Jul 31, 2023 - End Date: Jul 30, 2024
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Study/Degree Abroad
In Western cultures, a drive for individualism and accumulation has frequently led to severance of familial and cultural ties, which leaves individuals with a sense of alienation and societies with limited solutions to systemic inequities in healthcare access.  Ancestral narratives and lifeways, which emphasize community resilience and stewardship of nature can provide supplements or alternatives to contemporary ideas and promote societal change.  Ireland’s strong history of oral narrative captures the legacy of Irish heritage and ancestral knowledge, which can inform these approaches.  The Irish National Folklore Commission has developed methodologies for archiving and evaluating folkways, which can be utilized in varied regions to determine how societies have been shaped by their cultural values, how values have evolved over time and how shared or complementary values can be drawn upon to encourage global cooperation in addressing social inequities.

As an herbalist, I am particularly interested in the preservation of traditional healing modalities in folklore and the use of story, itself, as medicine.  Irish folklore has been used to caution, teach, recollect and entertain.  In what ways has it also been used to heal?  In order to pursue this question and its implications for contemporary problems, I have enrolled in the Irish Folklore & Ethnology Graduate Taught Master’s Program at University College Dublin.  University College Dublin promotes cultural exchange and hosts students from 152 countries, welcoming a union of diverse stories and perspectives.  Their unique MA program provides a comprehensive exploration of Irish oral tradition and folklore through advanced research methodologies and includes modules in storytelling and folk medicine, which are specific to my research inquiries. 

The program’s distinctive courses complement my research interests, while providing a strong methodology for further study.  The program also emphasizes individual research, including a dissertation at the end of the Spring trimester and either a Master’s thesis or archival internship to be completed during the summer trimester.  The most exceptional aspect of the program is student access to the National Folklore Collection, one of the largest and most celebrated bodies of traditional knowledge in the world.  A UNESCO Memory of the World Registry site, the collection is a repository of written manuscripts, audio and video recordings, photographs, art pieces and digitized interviews, collected from 1927 until present day with the purpose of preserving Irish cultural heritage, including a large body of folk medicine and narrative traditions. 

During my time at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), I focused on coursework that elevates social and environmental justice by incorporating diverse perspectives and emphasizing systemic change.  I have also been a practicing community and clinical herbalist since 2016.  My current knowledge of cultural ecology and plant medicine provides a strong background and entry point for exploring Irish folk medicine and provides opportunities for cultural engagement and community reciprocity in Ireland. 

My future academic goals include multi-regional folkloric study both at home and abroad, leading to a PhD in Folklore and an internship in archival research, which contributes to the budding U.S. National Folklore Archive Initiative.  I hope to begin my career in a museum or research setting with a strong advocacy component, helping individuals and communities link with resources that foster identity formation or reclamation and access to ancestral healing modalities.  I also intend to continue practicing community herbalism with a research-developed story medicine component.  The MA program in Irish Folklore & Ethnology is unlike any program available in the United States and offers a strong root system of concepts and methodologies, which support a comprehensive understanding of cultural folkways and narratives, beginning with those so carefully preserved by the Irish National Folklore Commission.  I hope you will help me succeed in this journey by supporting my campaign.

           

  • Ireland
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Donegal, Ireland

Updates

2

  • Registration Achieved

    Registration Achieved
    So looking forward to these courses!

  • Last Day Of Work

    Last day of work
    Tonight was the final shift of my 17 year
    "career" as a histotechnician. Histology is a challenging and fascinating field that I will still engage with through instruction and occasional part-time work, but I will no longer breathe xylene daily and subject my hyper-mobile joints to repetitive motion 8-10 hours per day. In exchange for this freedom, I am sacrificing the relative security that comes with receiving benefits and a regular paycheck. I'm having all the feels from joy to sadness to terror, but no matter what happens l'm excited to prioritize my health and my passions.

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