folklore

9/8

  • folktales: prose narratives which are regarded as fiction

    • often unknown origins

    • can be allegorical, humorous, teach moral lessons, etc. many functions

  • core cliches: the central piece that holds the folktale together

    • ex: the combination pizza hut and taco bell song

    • learned informally

9/10

pre-class

  • folktale: fiction

    • told as fiction, set in a fictional world, and which are only symbolically true, if presented or perceived as true at all

  • legend: true (though not necessarily believed)

    • told as literally true (though not necessarily believed), and set in the real world

  • myth: sacred truth

    • told as a sacred truth, and which are set in a sort of prototype of our world.

  • folklore printed in books is certainly still folklore, but since folklore is so largely defined by its process, they can’t really be considered living folk- lore—they’re more like a record of once-living folklore

in-class

  • folklore: things we do, say, make, and believe (informally and in dynamic variation)

  • types of folklore:

  • things we say:

    • oral narratives

    • oral poetry and songs

    • folk-speech genre

  • things we do:

    • rituals, rites of passage, celebrations, festivals, attending sporting events, playing pranks

  • things we make:

    • handmade goods, crafts, food, materials turned into folk objects through patterns of use/patterns of transmission (heirlooms, laptop stickers)

    • a pattern of use, a pattern of creation, and a pattern of passing on

  • things we believe:

supernatural and occult stories, conspiracy theories, political narratives, informal spiritual beliefs, sacred myths

  • folklore-adjacent cultural forms

    • ex: vampire movies

  • vernacular hybridity

    • blends between pop culture, folk culture, and elite culture

9/15

  • Johannes Gottfried Herder: German ethnocentric guy who wanted to preserved German culture exclusively

    • largely contributed to the Grimm fairytales

    • eventually connected to Nazism

  • folklore is a great measure of group consensus, or folklore can be used to form a new consensus

  • folklore is “Janus faced” meaning two faced

    • life-giving and death-dealing, creative and destructive, etc.

  • Alan Dundes said the mark of a folk group is traditions

  • folk group: any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor

9/17

  • folk groups:

    • at least 2 people

    • informal modes of expression and connection

    • shared traditions and experiences

    • one or more things in common

    • a close and continuing relationship (proximity)

    • slang

    • sense of identification with each other

  • the internet enables formation of many folklore groups by providing a space of anonymity

9/22

  • fakelore: institutionally manufactured stuff that poses itself as a folklore in order to advertise/ tailored for mass edification

    • the manipulation of folklore for political purposes by both authoritarian and democratic regimes

    • possible tool of propaganda

    • typically created with malicious intent

    • ex: Paul Bunyan was created by a lumber company in California

  • folkloresque: pop/institutional culture’s attempt to appropriate aspects of folklore, to douse itself in “ odor of folklore” in order to associate itself with authenticity as a means of branding itself, tapping into the communal spirit of folklore, conferring vernacular authority

  • vernacular authority: successful institutional appropriations of vernacular culture are ones that gain attention, even if it’s bad attention

  • Euegene Shepard used folklore, fakelore, and folkloresque hoaxes based on the hodag to attract people to Rhinelander

9/24

  • good fieldwork leads to amplification and illumination of community perspectuies and individual voices via documenting, presenting, compiling, archiving, curating, analyzing, and sharing vernacular knowledge

  • how do folklorists analyze:

    • definition: what folklore is

    • classification: genres of folklore

    • source: who the “folk” are

    • origin: who created the folklore

    • transmission: how, how far, how fast

    • variation: how it changes and why

    • structure: relationship of form to content

    • function: what it communicates and how it works

    • purpose: intent and effect

    • meaning: what does it symbolize or represent

    • use/application: what the study can do for other areas

  • text: what is being transmitted

    • narrative, object, or practice itself

  • context: who what where when why

    • the overall situation in which the story was told

  • texture: how it is being transmitted

    • performance details, specific language used, how the storyteller told the story, how the audience reacted

  • big preliminary question

    • which group to study

    • which traditions to study

    • why does this group/tradition interest you

    • what is the most exciting/confusing/enthralling about this tradition

    • what methods will offer insight into these questions

    • how do you plan to go about doing the fieldwork necessary to represent the traditions of this group

    • what is your relationship to the group, and who will you position yourself

9/29

  • folk humor helps people come together and connect in times of unease

  • folklore provides psychologically healthy forms of catharsis in the face of unease

  • memes are seeds that can bloom into a political issue

  • the Ukraine twitter account utilizes memes to comment on the issues with Russia

  • looking at memes has been shown to increase peoples’ abilities to deal with stressful situations

10/1

  • folklore is a barometer for what’s important to a group

  • gossip: unrestrained talk about people usually about one’s own social group

  • rumor: unverified information that come from unverified sources, just something you heard, tend to deal with bigger events and social groups

  • contemporary legend: complex narratives that have to do with belief, then tend to involve contemporary events and people, they’re generally anonymous, they seem correct in a lot of ways

  • legend: told as true (or at least plausible)

    • usually secular but can be sacred

    • take place in the real world

    • take a variety of forms: historical, local, migratory, contemporary/urban, supernatural

    • reflect contemporary anxieties

    • show us what folk groups think is believable

    • allow people to get at experiential truths that aren’t necessarily verifiable facts

    • they illicit ostensive reactions

  • ostension: the enactment, rather than the telling, of a folk narrative (turning something we say, into something you do)

  • questions to ask about legends, rumors, and belief genres

    • what can this verbal folklore tell us able the community that transmits it

    • why is this narrative relevant/important/believable to the people who tell it

    • what does this narrative tell us about what people believe, what they fear, and what they remember