folk cultures: Recent Episodes
UBC Asian Folklore
we conclude our crash course in folklore studies, by talking about where we've been and where to go next, now that you're a folklorist!
we explore how today's folklorists are investigating the complex relationships between folk cultures and pop culture / mass media, focusing on michael foster's theory of the folkloresque.
what goes on in the grey zone where folklore and pop culture overlap? in this segment we look at two ways in which this hybrid folk-pop culture has been negatively valued: fakelore (fabricated folklore) and folklorism (secondhand folklore).
we discuss how items of folklore are brought to life through an act of performance, and examine issues of authenticity in folklore studies.
we talk about Alan Dundes's 1965 definition of a folk group as "any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor," and the advantages of this dynamic definition over the static notion of "the folk" as "the illiterate in a literate society."
this segment through various ways in which folklorists think about the aspects of folklore that are beyond the text itself - the stylistic features or "texture", and the "context" in which it is performed.
we look at various ways in which verbal, performance, material, and belief-based genres of folklore are classified, and talk about emic vs. etic genre labels.
we talk about various ways that you can analyze folklore, by focusing on "the AIR method" to analyze how folklore helps groups and individuals to express [A]nxieties, assert [Identity], and establish meaningful [R]elationships.
what are the four aims of folklorists? what are the four ways that we can study folklore? and what are jan brunvand's 11 questions that we can ask about folklore? let's find out!
we talk about the litmus test for folklore (multiple existence and variation) and the differences between folklore, pop culture, and elite culture.
we continue our intro to folklore by talking about how folklore spreads from person to person, and across time and space through tradition and resonance.
we start off our explorations of folklore studies by 'unlearning' older received ideas of what folklore is, and build up a definition of folklore as a process - as informal, unofficial, and noncommercial culture.
we begin our explorations into what folklore is, how to appreciate it, and how it helps ordinary people make sense of their lives.