Past Course Offerings
Spring 2008
English 270: Introduction to FolkloreInstructor: Ray Cashman
MW 9:30-11:18 am
#08538-6
This class explores forms of traditional, vernacular culture--including verbal art, custom, and material culture--shared by men and women from a number of regional, ethnic, religious, and occupational groups. At the same time, we will consider various interpretive, theoretical approaches to examples of folklore and folklife discussed, and we will investigate the history of folklore studies and the cultural contexts in which this field has flourished. Recurring central issues will include the dynamics of tradition, the nature of creativity and artistic expression, the construction of personal and group identity, and the relationship between folklore and worldview. Assignments will include quizzes, essays, a folklore collection and analysis project, and a final exam.
East Asian Languages and Literatures 357: East Asian Folklore
Instructor: Mark Bender
MW 1:30-3:18 pm
#02529-5
This class is a survey of various aspects of oral tradition and material culture in China, Korea, and Japan, with most of the emphasis on select ethnic minority groups in southwest China.
English 367.05: The US Folk Experience
Instructor: Martha Sims
TR 9:30-11:18 am
#08589-2
"367.05 The U.S. Folk Experience" typically focuses on the experiences, traditions, and expressive and material culture of common Americans from a wide range of groups and subcultures. In this particular ".05" section we will come to better appreciate of memory, place, and community here in University District of Columbus, Ohio. In order to do so, we will adopt methods and perspectives shared by folklorists, anthropologists, and oral historians. You will conduct fieldwork research (including observation, participation, note-taking), record interviews with University District residents, and transcribe these interviews. In addition to documenting your fieldwork, ethnographic writing assignments will include reflections on the fieldwork process, how the past is represented in the present and to what ends, how mere space is transformed into meaningful place through narrative, and how and to what extent the University District may be considered a community. Interview transcripts, fieldwork documentation, and analyses will be presented to the University Community Association and housed in the OSU Center for Folklore Studies Archives.
Comparative Studies 377: Contemporary Folklore in the Arab World
Instructor: Sabra Webber
TR 9:30-11:18 am
#05647-7 (Arabic) or #05647-7 (Comp Std)
This Non-Western or Global Cultures and Ideas GEC course will introduce students to a wealth of Arabic folklore, including the lore of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Arabs as well as Berbers, Kurds and other Arab world communities. Folklore is defined here as traditional expressive culture: verbal art (e.g., myths, legends, folktales, riddles, jokes); material culture (e.g., the construction of shrines, homes, boats as well as production of pottery, jewelry, embroidery, carpets, and calligraphic art); visual presentation of self (e.g., applications of henna, tattoos, dress, hairstyles); folk religion, rituals, and festivals; and folk music (e.g., lullabies). Emphasis will be not on finished products but on cultural process. We will look at what Arab world "Folk," from different regions, religions, and language and ethnic traditions have in common in regard to ethos, world view, practical and aesthetic needs and how they differ, as well as at national and international appropriations of local lore.
International Studies 501: Living Jerusalem: Ethnography and Bridgeblogging in Disputed Territory
Instructor: Amy Horowitz
TR 11:30-1:18 pm
#21389-2
The "Living Jerusalem" course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of this complex city. We will explore ethnographic, historical, political and peace studies fields and examine their approaches to the study of Jerusalem. Some of the issues to be studied include: dueling (or dualing) histories, contemporary political issues, intersections of cultural practice, cultural borrowing, transmission, appropriation, disputed claims to cultural legacies, and how the internet allows culture to travel across borders. During the quarter students will have several opportunities to enter into an electronic learning environment with Palestinian and Israeli students and faculty at Al-Quds University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Under the auspices of the International Studies Program (OSU), the Rothberg International School (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and the Centre for Jerusalem Studies (Al-Quds University) students will examine the impact of web logs (blogs) and videoconferencing as dialogue points for individuals living as adversarial neighbors in this disputed urban context. One of our goals is to better understand the capabilities of weblogging to bridge student and faculty communities from Israel, Palestine, and the United States as they learn about Jerusalem. Several sessions during the seminar will be conducted electronically. During the class, students and faculty will use weblogs and video conferencing to engage in dialogues about course readings, lectures, and fieldwork archives that were collected during the early 1990's by the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Studies.
English 577.02: The Ballad (Folklore Genres)
Instructor: Richard Firth Green
TR 3:30-5:18 pm
#08618-7
This course will study development of the traditional folk ballad (songs like 'Barbara Allen' and 'The Gypsy Laddie') from its origins in the British Isles down to its continuing presence in contemporary North America. The primary focus will be thematic (Tragic Ballads, Supernatural Ballads, Outlaw Ballads, Humorous Ballads, etc), but there will some opportunity to discuss the traditional ballad in relation to related types like the broadside, and the literary ballad. There will be a strong emphasis upon the ballad in performance throughout, and wherever possible ballad tunes will also be included.
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures 648: Orality and Literacy
Instructor: Margaret Mills
TR 11:30-1:18, Hagerty 335
#12317-6
Students will examine major theories of writing and of oral composition and transmission, in juxtaposition to case material deriving from a variety of Middle Eastern cultures.
Prereq: Permission of instructor.
This course introduces the major theoretical trends concerned with literacy and oral communication and their interactions in global perspective, then critiques those theories in the light of case material primarily from the Middle East. All readings are in English. Students working in other areas of the world are encouraged to write their final research papers on case material or theory with direct reference to their own areas of specialization, and to bring their perspectives derived from other parts of the world to bear on classroom discussions of assigned readings. Global theories of literacy and orality owe a great deal to Middle Eastern data, which may in fact limit their applicability elsewhere. The writing system invented in southwestern Asia became the parent of all the surviving alphabetic writing systems of the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia. Furthermore, a rich body of research on oral traditions, testing certain dominant theories of oral formulation and transmission, has also accumulated for the region over the last thirty years or so. This course will sample this rich double data base to juxtapose and critique concepts and research strategies in comparison to one another. The course will equip students with an overview and critique of theories of literacy and of oral communication which is applicable worldwide.
English 770.02: Intro to Grad Study in Folklore 2: Fieldwork
Instructor: Ray Cashman
MW 1:30-3:18 pm
#08805-7
This course explores a range of methodological, theoretical, and ethical issues in fieldwork as practiced in folklore and allied fields of ethnographic research. Students will take turns leading discussion of class readings. Equal emphasis will fall on students applying perspectives, methods, and strategies from readings and discussion in a series of hands-on exercises that will include participant-observation out in the world and face-to-face interviewing of other living, breathing homo sapiens (no auto-ethnography or internet research allowed). Written work for the course will consist of reports based on these empirical projects of gathering, documenting, and analyzing folklore materials.
Comparative Studies 792 (future 770.04): Folklore in the History of Disciplines
Instructor: Sabra Webber
TR 1:30-3:18 pm
#05687-0
This 792 course, "Folklore and the Disciplines," is a foundational course for graduate studies in folklore, but also offers students in related fields of anthropology, socio-linguistics, and studies of religion, literature, science, and psychoanalysis insight into the ways that their disciplines, as well, were shaped by and shaped nineteenth century phenomena such as colonialism, nationalism, industrialization, spiritualism, and romanticism. Folkloristics today continues to draw upon these other co-emergent disciplines, and those disciplines, in turn, draw upon "traditional" expressive culture genres and indicators for data, for inspiration, and for resources upon which to draw in order to inject rhetorical power into their theoretical discourses. There are at least three foci of this seminar: First, how can we re-think the effects of the scholarly energy of the nineteenth century, especially in Western Europe, more complexly and less stereotypically? Certain "givens" of that period need to be re-examined by broadening geographically and in terms of social roles, races, genders and classes the spectrum of where what we now think of as folklore was studied and by whom. Second, what kinds of scholarly and societal "underpinnings" did folklore and the other emerging disciplines share—not only those of empire, but of a "classical" education, of politics, of travel habits, of missionary and military endeavors, of theories of race, class, and gender. Especially we will investigate how these theoretical assumptions were being troubled, and by whom. Where were the loci of tensions, especially in 19th century Britain and other Western European venues, and how did these translate over into early studies of folklore in the US. Third, how were the relationships between the armchair students of the practices of the folk and the "other," whether of verbal art genres, material culture, body art, dance, music, rituals or festivals negotiated with those who conducted field studies? And, How did those dedicated to the archeological past or the geographic present, relate to those dedicated to the study of what Sir Richard Burton’s nemesis, John Hanning Speke, referred to disdainfully as those (like Burton) fascinated by the "manners and customs" of global inhabitants of their 19th century world?
Anthropology 810.21: Study Design and Data Analysis in Ethnographic Research
Instructor: Mark Moritz
R 2:30-5:18 pm
#01525-7
The focus of this course is research design and ethnographic methods. Instead of attempting to survey the vast literature on ethnographic fieldwork, we focus on a selection of methods that are central to much anthropological fieldwork – writing fieldnotes, participant observation, interviewing, surveys, freelists, pile-sorts, and rankings. Other techniques and issues will be incorporated as they emerge from student inquiry. In addition to data-gathering methods, we will also learn and experiment with quantitative and qualitative data analyses. And because methods are meaningless if they are not part of a well though through research design, you will also learn how to design a research project and write it up in a research proposal. Students can use this course to design their MA or Ph.D. research project. This course will be taught as a seminar. This means that students share responsibility for the success of the course and have to come to class prepared, i.e., having read and reflected on the readings and be prepared to discuss them.
