Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Human imagination has conjured two enduring mythic characters that create habitable worlds for people in stories from cultures all over the world. Sometimes branded Hero, sometimes Trickster, these two share traits and antics, yet they seem to endorse fundamentally different values. This seminar examines both hero and trickster in several cultural contexts, comparing them with each other and with their correlates worldwide, primarily in oral traditions, but also where each has migrated to other media.

We will begin with tales from African cultures, investigating them as repositories of local knowledge, then turn to African-American tales, with stories ranging from tales about animals and tricksters to tales about origins, about magic and transformation, and about survival.

Instruction and direction of reading on material not treated in regular courses of instruction; special work on topics in folklore, mythology, and oral literature. Normally available only to concentrators in Folklore and Mythology.

Introduces concentrators to the study of traditions - their performance, collection, representation and interpretation. Both ethnographic and theoretical readings serve as the material for class discussion and the foundation for experimental fieldwork projects.

Examines the development of folklore and mythology as fields of study, with particular attention to the methodological approaches suited to their areas of enquiry. Considers the study of folklore and mythology in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but focuses especially on theoretical contributions to the study of folklore, mythology, and oral literature in recent decades.

This course examines witchcraft (and the "magical world view") from cross-cultural, historical, and literary perspectives. Although witches and witchcraft are considered in their non-Western settings, the course focuses on the melding of Christian and pagan views of witchcraft and magic in the European Middle Ages, and the evolving construction of witchcraft ideologies through the witch crazes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the rise of modern paganism.

An examination of the ways in which the dancing body internalizes and communicates cultural knowledge to both dancer and observer. By participating in dance workshops, watching dance performances (live and on film), and reading ethnographic and theoretical texts, we attempt to understand the emergent meaning of dance performances from multiple perspectives.

Traces the migration of traditional tales from communal storytelling circles into the literary culture of childhood and into new media. How are powerful cultural myths about innocence and seduction, monstrosity and compassion, or hospitality and hostility recycled in fairy-tale fashion? How do fantasy worlds - both utopian and dystopic - provide children with portals for exploring counterfactuals and worst-case scenarios? Authors include the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Lewis Carroll, J.M. Barrie, and J.K. Rowling.

This courses addresses folklore's increasing inclusion on the international agenda by organizations such as UNESCO and WIPO. It examines what kind of claims to culture, and to associated economic and political rights, are being staked in a liberalizing world. Exploring the dynamics surrounding the global circulation of expressive culture and traditional knowledge, it considers how this circulation is being harnessed both politically and economically. Topics will include heritage practices, debates of tangible versus intangible heritage, intellectual property regimes, discourses of diversity and democracy, and notions of tradition and individual versus community authorship.

This course exposes students to key issues and theoretical concerns in the study of South Asian folklore, both of the subcontinent and the South Asian diaspora. We will examine multiple genres of South Asian folklore through a variety of themes and modes of expression. The course will be divided into seven modules: an introduction to folklore and folklore studies; folklore and nationalism; oral epics; folktales; narrative and gender; folk songs and ballads; belief; and folk drama, dance and puppetry. By exploring this diverse array of South Asian expressive traditions, students will gain a greater understanding of both the fields of Folklore and South Asian Studies.

This course engages critical gender studies in exploring the role of expressive culture in women and men's lives. Taking a cross-cultural perspective, it examines how folklore is implicated in the cultural construction of gender by embodying gender stereotypes, politics, and subversions. Topics will include diverse modes of expression such as verbal art (jokes, folktales), material culture (folk crafts, food, dress), festival, belief (magic, superstition, urban legends) and music (rap, ballads, protest music).

Folk art is a world-wide phenomenon, with a lasting importance to modern culture and to national identities. But what are the commonalities and variations in how folk art is defined, what types are prized, and how is it studied, perpetuated, and preserved?

The colorful woodcut prints now commonly known as New Year pictures or nianhua are one of China's best known folk arts, thriving into the 20th c. We will look at how these prints were made and distributed, the roles they played in everyday life, and what they can tell us about the interactions of high and low, rural and urban, and tradition and modernity within Chinese culture and art.

Are quilts the great American (folk) art? From intricately stitched whole-cloth quilts, to the improvisational patchworks of Gee's Bend; from the graphic simplicity of Amish quilts to the cozy pastels of depression-era quilts; from the Aids Quilt to art quilts; quilts have taken on extraordinary significance in American culture. This class surveys the evolution of quilt-making as a social practice, considering the role of quilts in articulations of gender, ethnic, class and religious identities, and their positions within discourses of domesticity, technology, consumerism, and cultural hierarchy.

This course will introduce several types of Chinese (visual) folk art. We will consider them comparatively, and pay special attention to the position of folk art in contemporary Chinese society.

Advanced reading in topics not covered in regular courses.