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John Miles Foley


John Miles Foley (January 22, 1947 – May 3. 2012) was a scholar of comparative oral tradition, particularly medieval and Old English literature, Homer and Serbian epic. He was the founder of the academic journal Oral Tradition and the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri, where he was Curators' Professor of Classical Studies and English and W. H. Byler Endowed Chair in the Humanities.

Foley was born January 22, 1947, in Northampton, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor's degree at Colgate University in 1969, with majors in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry. He completed his Masters in English Literature at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst in 1971 before completing the Ph.D. there in English and Comparative Literature (1974).

Following his doctoral studies, Foley undertook fieldwork in Yugoslavia, confirming and extending prior research on living oral traditions by Milman Parry and Albert Lord. Based on this fieldwork, he continued the work of Francis P. Magoun in applying findings to other ethnolinguistic areas, as well as refining the theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition.

After receiving his doctorate, Foley was assistant professor of English at Emory University until 1979, when he became associate professor at the University of Missouri, where he became regular professor in 1983 and stayed for the remainder of his career. Stints at other universities included an appointment as visiting professor at the University of Belgrade (1980) and visiting fellow at Harvard University (1976–1977, 1980–1981). He directed summer institutes for teachers for the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992 and 1994.


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