Joy Fraser (1977–2023)

Dr. Joy Fraser was a Scottish folklorist whose contributions to research and teaching have left an indelible mark on many students, scholars, and the broader public on several continents. She passed away suddenly in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, on December 17, 2023, at the age of 46.A gifted teacher and scholar, Joy is fondly remembered by her colleagues and friends for her sense of humor, her passion for research and gardening, her keen intellect, and her kind spirit. Her dedication to family was profound, and those of us “across the pond” looked forward to her sharing the latest news from Edinburgh, especially her delight in anything related to her beloved role as “Auntie Joy.”Born in Edinburgh on September 26, 1977, Joy completed her bachelor's degree, with honors, in Scottish Ethnology and Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh in 1999. She came to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1999 as a Commonwealth Scholar, graduating with an MA degree in Folklore at Memorial University in 2005. Her MA thesis “Never Give Up the Ghost: An Analysis of Three Edinburgh Ghost Tour Companies” earned the Memorial University Medal for Excellence in a Thesis-Based Master's Program. With her PhD dissertation, “A Taste of Scotland? Representing and Contesting Scottishness in Expressive Culture about Haggis,” she again turned to Scotland. In 2011, Joy defended her PhD thesis and was awarded the Graduate Students’ Union Award for Excellence in Research. After graduation, Joy was appointed Assistant Professor of Folklore in the Department of English at George Mason University, where she worked until 2018.Joy's research centered on two subjects: Christmas mumming traditions in Newfoundland and haggis as a contested emblem of Scottish identity. Joy's deep attachment to her home country was evident in her research, as was the depth of her intellectual engagement with its culture. As a master's student, she wrote “‘Gie Her a Haggis!’: Haggis as Food, Legend and Popular Culture,” the winner of Dr. David Buchan Student Essay Prize for Contemporary Legend Research in 2001. This essay was later published in the journal Contemporary Legend (Fraser 2003). Joy's thorough detailing and analysis of survey data, originally elicited for a term paper, was a foreshadowing of work to come. Joy would return to the topic of haggis for her doctoral dissertation, which she passed with distinction in 2011. That same year, she won the William John Thoms Folklore Prize of the British Folk Studies section of the American Folklore Society for her essay “Sawney's Kitchen Nightmares.” Haggis was also the focus of her book manuscript, tentatively titled “Addressing the Haggis: Culture and Contestation in the Making of Scotland's National Dish,” unfinished at the time of her passing, that was to be published as part of the Folklore Studies in a Multicultural World series with the University of Wisconsin Press.Her continuing research on haggis resulted in numerous presentations, ranging from speaking at Scottish festivals to the annual meetings of the American Folklore Society (AFS). I fondly remember Joy's presentation at the AFS meeting in Miami, Florida, in 2016, “‘Lean, Fit, and Very Tasty’: Sex, Health, and Nation in Quality Meat Scotland's Scotch Beef Marketing Campaign.” Her examination of haggis and its cultural uses knew no bounds. The same was true for her investigation into the history of mumming in her adopted home of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.Long a subject for scholarly research in and beyond Newfoundland, Joy's long-term interest centered on the murder of Isaac Mercer in December 1860, not long after which mumming was banned in the then-colony. While a doctoral student at Memorial University, Joy conducted research on the 1862 ban in the court records collection of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. As she wrote in the article that would result, “Mummers on Trial: Mumming, Violence and the Law in Conception Bay and St. John's, Newfoundland, 1831–1863,” she came across the proceedings of a number of criminal trials connected to mumming, in addition to the locally known trials of Mercer's attackers. In contrast to the quaint and often celebratory aspects of mumming lauded in popular culture, particularly in the realm of tourism, her research showed that “the Mercer case can more accurately be interpreted as the culmination of a well-established relationship between mumming, violence and the law in Conception Bay and St. John's that began at least thirty years earlier” (Fraser 2009:76). She discussed her findings, frequently cast as the “dark side” of mumming, in numerous radio appearances on CBC Radio 1 as well as on the podcast Mi'kmaq Matters. In 2017, Joy was awarded the Polly Grimshaw Prize by the AFS Archives and Libraries section for her work on mumming. Joy was also awarded multiple research grants for this ongoing project, which she generously used to train and support graduate students in folklore and ethnomusicology.In addition to her contributions to research, Joy was a dedicated teacher. She endeared herself to undergraduate and graduate students alike with her charming accent, quick wit, and obvious passion for folklore. Joy taught a wide range of courses at both Memorial University and George Mason University. She mentored and advised countless students, both formally and informally, nurturing the next generation of folklorists with kindness, encouragement, and an infectious enthusiasm for whatever subject was being discussed.Joy's impact extended beyond the classroom as she engaged with community organizations and museums to promote the understanding of culture and traditions, and she enthusiastically lent her expertise to many projects. The exhibit “Mummers on Trial,” co-curated by Joy and The Rooms’ Museum Curator Maureen Peters, was on display at the Provincial Archives from mid-December 2023 to mid-January 2024, following Joy's well-attended public lecture “Mummering on Trial: Custom and Controversy” at The Rooms on December 7, 2023. Joy was also deeply involved in the Folklore Studies Association of Canada (FSAC), serving as president from 2019 to 2021.From 2019 to 2022, Joy worked as the Project Coordinator at the Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place (MMaP) at Memorial University. Her work at MMaP brought together several strands of her career: her love of people and traditions, her meticulous research and note-taking, her dedication to students, and her keen eye for detail. She made substantial contributions to many academic and public-facing projects, including CDs, traditional music archiving projects, the journal Music Research Annual, the “Good as a Concert” performance series, and MMaP's scholar-in-residence program, among others. She co-produced the second edition of the digital archive Folk Songs of Atlantic Canada from the Collections of MacEdward Leach (Forsyth and Fraser 2022), for which she undertook and oversaw new research and writing by a team of researchers, as well as the technical development of the site. It will not surprise those who knew Joy that she loved a good challenge, and she even taught herself how to build databases. She inspired our team to dig further into the research, to build and nurture connections and relationships, and to not underestimate the value of having a cup of tea. Perhaps her biggest legacy at MMaP, however, is her mentorship of junior colleagues, many of whom remember Joy's encouragement, kindness, and generous advice.

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