ENG 3613: Introduction to Folklore CRN: 61981

Fall 2011

TR 11-12:15 P.M., Wilson 302

 

Instructor: Dr. Richard Burns                                     Email: rburns@astate.edu

Web-site: http://myweb.astate.edu/rburns                    Office: Wilson 408

Office phone: 972-2164                                              Office hours: 9:30-10:30 A.M., 2-3 P.M.,

                                                                                    Tuesdays and Thursdays, or by appointment

 

 

Course Description and Objectives:

 

This course introduces students to the materials and study of folklore.  Students will read various folkloric texts and folklore scholarship to learn how folklore is documented, classified, analyzed, and presented.  Throughout the course, students will explore how the study of folklore can yield insight into history, culture, and artistic expression.  

 

Objectives:       Upon this course's completion, students will be able to:

*          recognize major genres of folklore

*          use folklore research materials to classify and compare folk expression

            *          develop interpretive commentary and analysis of folklore

*          employ research techniques for studying folklore

 

Required Texts:

 

Jan Harold Brunvand , The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003 [1981]. (=Vanishing Hitchhiker)

W. K. McNeil and William M. Clements, An Arkansas Folklore Sourcebook. Fayetteville:

            The University of Arkansas Press, 1992. (=Arkansas Folklore)

Martha C. Sims and Martine Stephens, Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005. (=Living Folklore)

Elizabeth Tucker, Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. (=Haunted Halls)

 

Course Outline:

 

Aug 23: Course Introduction

25:       Read the definitions of folklore that appear in the following: Living Folklore, xi-29; read online, ÒWhat is Folklore?Ó at http://www.afsnet.org/aboutfolklore/historyFLstudy.cfm

30:       What is the lore and who are the folk? (Arkansas Folklore, 1-30; Living Folklore, 30-63).

Sept. 1: Discussion of Family Folklore Paper (paper #1), due Sept. 29th.

            Customs and Beliefs (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 155-171).

6:         Folk Narratives (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 87-105).

8:         Studying Folklore and Urban Legends (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. xi-17; Living Folklore, 127-173).

13:       Automobile Legends and ÒThe HookÓ (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 19-73)

15:       Contamination Legends  (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 75-101).

20:       Fear of the Dead and Campus Ghostlore (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 103-123; Haunted Halls, pp. 3-42).

22:       Nudity and Nightmares  (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 125-152).

27:       Discussion of Urban Legend Paper and Legend Quests (Paper due Nov. 8th).  (Living Folklore, 202-224; Haunted Halls, pp. 182-210). Handout, ÒThe Four Functions of Folklore,Ó by William Bascom.

29:       Family Folklore Paper due. Collecting and Analyzing Urban Legends, and More on Folklore Functions (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 193-202; Living Folklore, pp. 174-201

Oct. 4: Business Ripoffs and Emerging Legends (Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 153-185).

6:         Midterm Exam

11:       Campus Ghostlore: Evidence, and Warnings (Haunted Halls, pp. 43-93)—progress on legend collection.

13:       No class. Your instructor will be out of town but will announce an online reading assignment.

18:       Campus Ghostlore: Troubling Encounters and Desperate Lovers, and Spectral Indians (Haunted Halls, pp. 94-133).

20:       Campus Ghostlore: Wailing Women and Spectral Indians (Haunted Halls, pp. 134-181)

25:       Arkansas Folklore Studies and Folklore Genres (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 31-56).

27:       Ballads (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 57-71).

Nov. 1: Ragtime, Blues, Gospel, and other Old Time Music (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 72-86).

3:         Folk Architecture (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 107-154). Shotgun Houses

8:         Legend Paper due: student presentations of research.

10:       Foodways (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 173-211). 

15:       Festival, Ritual, and Celebration (Arkansas Folklore, pp. 213-231; Living Folklore, 64-93). 

17:       Festival, Ritual,  and Celebration. Living Folklore, 94-126, also familiarize yourself with the following two websites: http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/feature/daydeadindex.html and  http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/8813/list.html

            Discussion of Paper #3: Presentation of a joke performance (due Dec. 1st).

21-26:  Fall Break/Thanksgiving

29:       Material Folk Culture. (Living Folklore, pp. 266-272).

Dec. 1: Paper #3 due.  Class presentation and joke-telling.

8:         Final Exam (Thursday, 12:30-2:30 P.M.).

 

Course Requirements:

 

A few class rules: I require all cell phones and other electronic devices turned off and put away before entering class. This means you may not use a computer to take notes or use a cell phone or any other device to text message.  Any violation of this rule will lower your course grade by one letter.

 

Instructions for projects 1, 2, and 3 will be distributed before you begin each project.  Each project is due on the specified date at the beginning of class.  Late submissions will lose one letter grade; submissions more than two weeks late will not be accepted.

 

1. "Family" Folklore Project.  Describe in detail one customary observance in your family tradition (or that of another folk group to which you belong).  Your description should include a chronological presentation of what occurred during a specific enactment of the observance (e.g., an annual family reunion), including any preparations that were necessary.  You should carefully provide the setting (time and place), persons involved, and the traditional and unique aspects of the particular enactment you treat.  The last point is especially important, for you need to suggest through your description the dynamic between the forces of custom and tradition and of innovation.  For this project, you may simply draw upon your own memory.  But if you do interview someone else, that person should be clearly identified.  The project should produce a five-page, typewritten paper, which is due on 29 September. This will count for 15% of your final grade.

 

2. Functional Analysis of a Legend.  Using a tape recorder, collect a legend.  When you interview your source, find out as much about his or her use of the legend (how he or she learned it, its natural context, etc.) as possible. Analyze the functions possibly performed by the legend you have collected.  The result of your project will be a three-page, double-spaced, typewritten essay in which you develop your functional analysis and a verbatim transcript of the interview you conducted. You will submit a labeled cassette or CD in its respective case, thereby documenting your recorded interview. This will count for 20% of your final grade.  Due 8 November.

 

3. Presentation of a Joke Performance.  Using a tape recorder, collect a joke.  Then interview the person about the natural context in which he or she would usually tells this joke and/or others like it.  You should transcribe the joke so that not only what is said appears in print, but also some sense of how it is performed also appears.  The result of your project will be this ethnopoetic transcription of the joke itself, a transcript of the interview with the joke-teller, and a two-page, double-spaced essay in which you describe your ethnopoetic method and features of the performance that do not appear in the text.  You will also submit the cassette on which you recorded the interview. This will count for 15% of your final grade.  Due 1 December.

 

4. Examinations and Quizzes.  There will be two examinations: a mid-term on 6 October and a final exam on 8 December.  You will also take quizzes over assigned readings from time to time, so be sure you have completed the readings given for each class meeting.  Both of the major exams will test objective knowledge of concepts as well as your ability to use those concepts when writing essays.  Material will come from class presentations and from assigned readings.  There may be a comprehensive component on the final examination.  The mid-term examination can be made up only with a verified, justifiable excuse (illness, serious family emergency, university business).  You must initiate the make-up process, and the make-up must be taken within a week of your return to class.  Each exam will count 20% of your final course grade; a quiz average and class participation will count 10%.  There will be no make-ups for the final examination.

 

5. Attendance Policy. This course does not fall under the university attendance policy, but regular attendance is important.  Consequently, a record of attendance will be kept.  And though the Student Handbook explicitly states that a student in an upper-level course cannot receive a failing grade solely on the basis of attendance, your final average will be affected negatively by excessive absences.  If you miss four classes without verified, justifiable excuses (illness, serious family emergency, university business), your final average will be lowered one letter grade.  Should illness or work schedule force you to miss an excessive number of classes, you should drop the course.

 

6. Disability Policy: Any student with a verified disability can receive assistance through Disability Services.

 

7. Grades.  Failure to turn in a project or to take an examination will result in a zero for that percent of your final course grade.  Grading Scale:  The numerical ranges of letter grades for mid-term and final grades will be: A = 90-100, B = 80-89, C = 70-79, D = 60-69, F = below 60.