ICS 401C – Folklore and Oral Culture

Fall 2002

Dr. Phillip McArthur

Office: McKay 103 F

Phone:  293-3907

 

Course Description

 

Folklore is often viewed as trite, lies, pure fantasy, inconsequential, without academic significance, or at best, just mere entertainment.  The study of folklore itself emerged in the 19th century when Europeans viewed Enlightenment and industrial man as removed from his illiterate past.  We still live with the great dichotomies proposed by the thinkers of that age:  modern vs. traditional, civilized vs. primitive, literate vs. illiterate, oral vs. written, agrarian vs. industrial, science vs. belief.  Folklore and oral culture was that “stuff” and a study of what contemporary man had left behind through capitalist modernization.  And, whether viewed positively or negatively, folklore, if not salvaged, would disappear with the inevitable progress of man.  Now, in an age of expanded technologies and communications one would hardly think that folklore has much of a future.  In this course, however, we will explore the foundational place of oral culture in the past, today, and across cultures.  We will attend specifically how the study of folklore addresses critical issues in cultural studies.  I hope you will find that folkloristics provides a salient vantage point to address how historical, cultural, and individual meanings are constituted, and that it explains much about the nature of knowledge, social relations, and communication itself.

 

Required Texts

 

Alan Dundes                  Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore

Jack Zipes                     Fairy Tale as Myth, Myth as Fairy tale

Jan H. Brunvand             The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings

William Wilson              On Being Human:  The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries

McArthur                       Several Articles are placed on a Blackboard Courseinfo

 

Course Requirements

 

 

1.       Two Exams

I will give one mid term and a final.  Actually, they are more like two unit exams, however on the second I may give one more comprehensive question.  These exams will be placed in the testing center.  They will primarily be in the form of short essays.  The questions will come from both classroom discussions and the readings.  The materials I am providing you this semester are interesting enough to encourage you to read them, but just to make sure you take it seriously, questions will be found on the exams that were not covered in class.

 

2.       Term Paper

Your are required to produce a 8-10 page term paper that presents a body of folklore materials and applies principles we discuss to interpret it.  This means you will be working with primary sources (folklore materials) and utilize secondary sources to interpret and explain the primary sources.

 

 

**If you have need for accommodations for special learning needs or physical impairments, please see me ASAP.
“Introduction:  Basic Concepts of Folkloristics” (George Schoemaker)

 

Structures and Processes

·         “The Dissemination of Tales Among the Natives of North America” (Franz Boas)

·         “Structural Typologies in North American Folktales” (Alan Dundes)

·         “The Story of Asdiwal” (Claude Levi-Strauss)

·         Selections from “The Folklore Process”  (Barre Toelken)

Texts and Histories

·         Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore (Alan Dundes)

·         “The Origins of the Fairytale” (Jack Zipes) in Fairy Tale as Myth…..

·         “Folklore and History: Fact Amid the Legend” (William Wilson)

·         “Pioneers and Recapitulation in Mormon Popular Historical Expression” (Eric Eliason)

·         “Cosmogonic Myth and ‘Sacred History’” (Mircea Eliade)

 Psyches and Culture

·         “Sympathetic Magic” (Sir James Frazer)

·         “Transformations:  The Fantasy of the Wicked Stepmother” (Bruno Bettelheim)

·         “The Earth Diver: Creation of the Mythopoeic Male (Alan Dundes)

·         “The Role of Myth in Life” (Bronislaw Malinowski)

·         “Four Functions of Folklore” (William Bascom)

·         The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (Jan H. Brunvand)

·         “The Study of Mormon Folklore: An Uncertain Mirror on Truth” (William Wilson)

Group and Personal Identities

·         “Defining Identity Through Folklore” (Alan Dundes)

·         “Differential Identity and The Social Base of Folklore” (Richard Bauman)

·         “The Problem of Identity in a Changing Culture: Popular Expression of  Culture Conflict along the Lower Rio Grande Border” (Americo Paredes)

·         “Tourist Folklore of Pele: Encounters with the Other”  (Joyce Hammond)

·         “Narrating to the Center of Power in the Marshall Islands” (Phillip McArthur)

·         “Family Misfortune Stories in American Folklore” (Stanley Brandes)

·         On Being Human: The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries (William Wilson)

 

Gender

·         “Feminism and Fairytales” (Karen Rowe)

·         “Rumpelstiltskin and the Decline of Female Productivity” (Jack Zipes) in Fairy Tale as Myth…

·         “Beauty, Wealth, and Power: Career Choices for Women in Folktales, Fairytales, and Modern Media” (Linda Degh)

·         “Spreading Myths about Iron John” (Jack Zipes) in Fairy Tale as Myth….

·         “Any man who keeps more’n one hound’ll lie to you’: A Contextual Study of Expressive Lying” (Richard Bauman)

The Politics of Culture

·         “Herder, Folklore, and Romantic Nationalism” (William Wilson)

·         “The Making of the Frontier Myth:  Folklore Process in a Modern Nation” (Beverly Stoeltje)

·         “The Fabrication of Fakelore” (Alan Dundes)

·         “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious”  (Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin)

·         “The Portal Case: Authenticity, Tourism, Traditions and the Law” (Deidre Evans-Pritchard)

Media and Popular Culture

·         “Magic for Sale:  Marchen and Legend in TV Advertising” (Linda Degh)

·         “You are What You Eat:  Religious Aspects of the Health Food Movement” (Jill Dubisch)

·         “Breaking the Disney Spell” (Jack Zipes) in Fairy Tale as Myth….

·         “Oz as American Myth” (Jack Zipes) in Fairy Tale as Myth….

·        “Baseball Magic” (George Gmelch)

·        “Rock and Roll, Process, and Tradition” (Bruce Harrah-Conforth)