Journal Articles and Impact

My journal articles don’t seem to be as widely cited as my books are. I’m not sure this is exactly a reflection of their quality (for example Blaxploitation Films is widely cited and a rubbish book!), although it may be. When Sharon Sherman and I were editing Folklore/Cinema, I have to admit I was a little confused as to why Sharon was being cited, even when the citation wasn’t entirely relevant to the author’s argument, but my work – specifically the JAF piece – wasn’t. I deduced, perhaps erroneously, that many academics – both professional and students alike – were using Amazon as a research database, rather than Web of Science or MLA. At the time the papers in the book were being written (~2005-6), my only published book was Blaxploitation Films, and this wasn’t entirely relevant to that scholarship. Is this why books have a greater ‘impact’ than journal articles?

This raises another interesting conundrum regarding the proposed bibliometrics of the REF: under the RAE guidelines, peer-reviewed journal articles are highly rated, but they seem to have considerably less ‘impact’ than single authored books. I understand that both peer-review of research outputs (articles, books, etc) will be evaluated on their intrinsic quality in addition to the bibliometrics, however I’m becoming increasingly dubious (as I put this blog together) of the value of ‘impact’ statements. I can understand that government agencies want to see such ‘impact’, as they’re non-specialists in our field, but, as with the case of Blaxploitation Films, just because a research-output is discussed publically, doesn’t mean that output is of much research value.

So here is a list of my journal articles, and, as you’ll see, there has been very little discussion of these out-puts:

• ‘My Brother, My Lover, Myself: The Hong Kong Action Cinema of John Woo as Masculine Deep Play.’ Canadian Folklore canadien 19.1 (1997): 55-68

I’ve not found any discussion or citation of this article (thankfully, as it was my first published piece), but it is included in the bibliographies for the journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, “East Asian Cinema” section of the UC Berkeley Library, and Michael Flood ed. (2008) The Men's Bibliography: A comprehensive bibliography of writing on men, masculinities, gender, and sexualities. http://mensbiblio.xyonline.net/

• ‘Voices from the Periphery: Videodrome and the (pre)Postmodern Vision of Marshall McLuhan’ Postscript 4.4 (1997): 25-37.

• ‘Schindler's List as Jewish Rite: The Esoteric-Exoteric Factor of Cinema-Going’. Culture & Tradition 20 (1998): 5-17.

No immediate ‘impact’ from this paper, however it is included in UC Berkeley Library’s bibliography on “Steven Spielberg”.

• ‘”You Don’t Have to be Filmish”: The Toronto Jewish Film Festival’. Ethnologies 21.1 (1999): 115-132.

Oddly enough, the “Filmish” article is cited in Daphna Birenbaum Carmelli (2004). Prevalence of Jews as subjects in genetic research: Figures, explanation, and potential implications. American Journal of Medical Genetics 130A.1: 76-83.

And, the paper is required reading on Prof. Jeffrey Schandler’s “American Jews and the Media” undergraduate course at Rutger’s University (2007).

• ‘Feminist Folkloristics and Women’s Cinema: Towards a Methodology’. Literature Film Quarterly 27.4 (1999): 292-300.

No immediate ‘impact’ from this paper, however it is included in UC Berkeley Library’s bibliography on “Representations of Asians in Film and Television” (which is odd, as that has little to do with the article’s content).

• ‘Candyman Can: Film and ostension.’ Contemporary Legend N.S. 2 (1999): 137-154.

The Candyman paper is cited by Elizabeth Tucker (2005). Ghosts in Mirrors: Reflections of the Self. Journal of American Folklore 118: 186-203 as well as her book (2005) Campus Legends: A Handbook. Greenwood.

• ‘”Have I Got a Monster for You!”: Some Thoughts on the Golem, The X-Files and the Jewish Horror Movie’ Folklore 111.2(2000): 217-230

I’ve found this paper cited by Bobby Kuechenmeister (2008) in his review of The Epic in Film: From Myth to Blockbuster (by Constantine Santas) Journal of Popular Culture 41.6: 1088-1090

The “Golem” paper seems to have also been useful to a few students who have cited it in their dissertations:

• Aynur Akpinar Peter Svensson & Martin Wennerström (2006). Emotional Ownership and the Fan Fiction Community. MA (Business Administration). Lund University School of Economics and Management.
• Francis Wilke Tytell (2005) The Golem Speaks: The Study of Four Modern Jewish American Novels. MA (Liberal Studies) Dissertation. Wake Forest University
• ‘"Buzz Off!": The Killer Bee Movie as Modern Belief Narrative.’ Contemporary Legend N.S.4 (2001): 1-19.
• “Filming Legends: A Revised Typology” in Contemporary Legend n.s. 5 (2002): 114-135.
• “Folklore Studies and Popular Film and Television: A Necessary Critical Survey”. Journal of American Folklore 116.2 (2003): 176-195.

This article is probably my most cited of any, due, in no small part, to two related conscious decisions on my part in publishing it in the first place: a) as a survey article, it was designed to be the base line for future discussions in folklore/film debates and b) I chose to publish it in a highly available and visible journal (JAF).

Holly Blackford (2007). PC Pinocchios: Parents, Children and the Metamorphosis Tradition in Science Fiction. In Sharon Sherman and Mikel J. Koven eds., Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture. Utah State UP: 74-92.

Ray B. Browne (2004). Popular Culture Studies Across the Curriculum: Essays for Educators. McFarland.

Carol E. Henderson (2007). Allegories of the Undead: Rites and Rituals in Tales from the Hood. In Sharon Sherman and Mikel J. Koven eds., Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture. Utah State UP: 166-178.

Robert Glenn Howard (2008). Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web. Journal of American Folklore 121: 192-218.

Kiri Miller (2008). Grove Street Grimm: Grand Theft Auto and Digital Folklore. Journal of American Folklore 121: 255-285.

Stijn Reijnders (2007). Media Rituals and Festive Culture: Imagining the Nation in Dutch Television Entertainment. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10.2: 225-242.

The article was also cited in a doctoral thesis:

Lydia K. Brauer (2006). Contemporary Constructions of English Texts: A Departmental Case Study of Secondary English Domains. PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University.

• “Superstition & Pseudoscience: The Ambivalence of Belief in the Giallo Film” Midwestern Folklore. 30.2 (2004): 21-29.

• “Most Haunted and the convergence of traditional belief and popular television”. Folklore 118 (August, 2007): 183-202.

• “The Folklore Fallacy: A Folkloristic/Filmic Perspective on The Wicker Man” Fabula 48.3-4 (2007)

Perhaps these last articles are just too recent for any ‘impact’ to be had yet. Time will tell. Although, seeing as the Midwestern Folklore paper was also published in La Dolce Morte and both the Folklore and Fabula papers make up chapters in my Film, Folklore and Urban Legends perhaps the ‘impact’ of these papers will be more manifest in the discussions about those books.

If anyone out there is using any of these articles for teaching, please let me know and I’ll include it here.