Past Course Offerings
Winter 2007
English 367.05 The U.S. Folk ExperienceInstructor TBA
MW 1:30-3:18
Arps 177
Call #08331-2
This composition course asks students to read, research and write about a variety of types of folk groups and expressions. Students will learn some basic principles of interpreting folklore and use those as critical lenses to examine narratives (written and oral), material culture, and belief practices.
English 577.02 Folklore Genres: Legend
Professor Merrill Kaplan (Kaplan.103@osu.edu)
TR 1:30-3:18
Denney 238
Call # 08364-1
This course introduces students to the legend, one of the three major genres of folk narrative. Is legend, as the Grimms wrote, “more historical” than folktale? Is this form of traditional narrative always “told as true,” as other scholars have maintained? Is it a narrative genre at all? This course explores these questions and examines the structure and subject matter of legend, the relationship between legend and personal experience, the place of legend in social discourse, and
possibilities for interpreting legend as a meaningful expression. Examples will be drawn from several places and periods including the contemporary US and 19th-century Scandinavia. There are no prerequisites for this course. Assignments will include a class presentation, a term paper, and a final exam. Readings will be made available in a course packet and/or on electronic reserve.
English 770.01 Introduction to Graduate Study in Folklore 1: Folklore Genres and Interpretive Methods
Professor Dorry Noyes (noyes.10@osu.edu)
MW 11:30-1:18
Denney Hall 265
Call # 08537-8
This course, part of the newly revised graduate curriculum in folklore, provides an entry into folklore studies through the ground floor. While at 800-level we offer courses focusing on the core bodies of folklore theory-tradition, performance, and sociocultural differentiation--, the 770 series provides a practical introduction to the stuff of vernacular cultural creation and its study. This first course throws us into the deep end: interpreting folklore in context, the equivalent of close reading in literary studies. After a brief introduction to the history and politics of folklore research, we will survey the canonical oral, material, and gestural genres of the field, looking at a variety of traditions internationally through the work of good ethnographers. Through these examples, students will find guidelines for conducting their own "philology of the vernacular," in Richard Bauman's phrase. In addition to responses to the readings, students will perform a series of interpretive exercises to be revised into a final paper on material of their own choosing.
NELC 792 (Cross-Listed With Comparative Studies) Tradition & Transmission
Margaret Mills, (mills.186@osu.edu)
M 1:30-3:18
Hagerty Hall 71
Call #121546
This course is offered as one of the core graduate seminars for those interested in theory and research methodology in folklore studies. We will review theories of how cultural forms travel through time and space across social networks, their stability, variation, and cultural reproduction. Key terms such as genre, structure, formula, and text/ entextualization are examined for their place in theories of transmission. Other key concepts and topics: Diffusion and the comparative method; ethnomimesis; habit and the reproduction of the everyday; implicit vs. explicit memorial forms; theories of oral transmission, orality and memory techniques, literacy and entextualization; sites of memory (memory as celebrated, as sequestered, or censored/suppressed); cultural continuities operating below awareness; traditionalization and invented traditions; heritage.
Classics 870 Greek and Roman Religion and Myth: Animals in Mediterranean Antiquity
Professors Sarah Iles Johnston and Tim McNiven (johnston.2@osu.edu, mcniven.1@osu.edu)
R 1:30-4:18
University Hall 448
Call #05222-0
The aim of this course is "to test Levi-Strauss' oft-quoted precept that 'animals are good to think with' against the ancient material, understanding 'animals' to include the hybrid and the monstrous as well as the normal." Although it would be helpful if students could read Greek and Latin, the instructors would be happy to try to accommodate those who do not.
T&L 925.56 Ethnography of Communication
Professor Marcia Farr (farr.18@osu.edu)
T 4:30 p.m.
Ramseyer 200
Call #08020-1
This seminar introduces the Ethnography of Communication as a field of inquiry for studies of oral and written language, i.e. oral genres and literacy practices. It explores cultural differences in language use, investigating oral language and/or literacy practices within specific populations and across social contexts. This course is essential for those considering language or literacy-focused ethnographic research for their dissertations.
The course provides the theoretical framework and methodology of this field. In addition to two texts that cover theory, methods, and central concepts of the field, a third text is an example of research carried out within this tradition. This study focuses on the use of language to construct personhood in a transnational community of Mexican families living in Chicago and in their village-of-origin in Michoacán, Mexico.
