Programs of Study
Graduate Curriculum
The following represents a structuring-in-progress of graduate folklore course offerings, and is intended as a guide for students, who should also check with the Center for the most up-to-date information on course numbers. Students taking the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization will take the first two courses on the Tools list, one Theory course, one Topics course, and an additional course to be agreed on with their adviser. Students wanting the equivalent of a full degree in folklore should take as many as possible of both Tools and Theory courses.Course Offerings
I. Tools
Tools courses prepare students to do primary research in folklore studies by giving them hands-on practice with genres, field settings, communicative situations, and professional activities. They will also provide orientation to the field and its history.770.01, currently offered annually, will in future be offered in alternate years with 770.04 in Winter Quarter. 770.02 will be offered in alternate years with 770.03 in Spring Quarter. The Center for Folklore Studies organizes the professionalization workshop annually, relying on folklore faculty and Center staff but inviting visiting practitioners as funding permits (in 2005-06 visitors came from the Library of Congress and University of Illinois Press).
Folklore Genres and Interpretive Methods
English 770.01, 5 hours
Introduction to the canonical genres; practice in the interpretation of folklore
in context.
Field Research
English 770.02 or substitute, 5 hours
Introduction to ethnographic research design, participant observation and interview
methods, ethics in human subjects research, archiving of research materials, and
ethnographic writing. May be substituted by Comparative Studies 706 (Complex Ethnography),
Political Science 768 (Intro to Qualitative Methods), Anthropology 810.21 (Study
Design and Data Analysis: Ethnographic Research) or Anthropology 810.23 (Ethnographic
Field Experience).
The Ethnography of Communication
English 770.03 or substitute, 5 hours
Ethnographic approaches to interaction and performance; the speech community;
the communicative economy. May be substituted by Teaching and Learning 925.26
(Seminar in the Ethnography of Communication).
Folklore in the History of Disciplines
Comp Studies 770.04 (number to be proposed in 06-07; currently taught as CS 677.02), 5 hours
The history of folklore as an object of self-reflection and scholarly inquiry
in Western modernity and beyond it.
Workshop in Professionalization
Yearlong noncredit workshop organized by the Center for Folklore Studies. Topics include sessions on human subjects review, careers in folklore, abstract preparation and conference presentation, publishing, archiving and materials handling, thesis and dissertation design, grant writing, and applying for jobs.
II. Theory
While these are not the only theory courses we offer, they are intended as core theory courses: what is basic and common to the field. Each course examines a central concept in the field, reviews the history of approaches to it in folklore studies and related disciplines, and synthesizes the issues currently at stake in its study. We have set a series of parameters for these courses to assist faculty in designing their syllabi and in our collective discussions:The courses will be designed to serve the interests of all students, regardless of area and disciplinary focus, public or academic career goals, and so on. Indeed, one purpose of this curriculum is to foster more effective conversation across positions within the field. Professors must therefore make special efforts in these courses:
- Each course will combine theory and "thick" case studies to give students some hands-on understanding.
- The range of examples and authors will be international (which also means including the U.S. in its diversity) and not exclusively contemporary.
- A range of genres (verbal, musical, material, and gestural/kinesic) will be considered in every syllabus.
- In teaching contemporary theory and best practices, we also need to teach the history of theory and method in the discipline: older approaches will be included and considered for what we can do with them practically as well as critically.
- By the same token, while we will often need to incorporate work that is not by folklorists, we will focus on what the discipline itself has and has not done: this is an important part of our reconstructive project, to consider things left implicit, blind spots, and so on.
- Fieldwork and ethnographic method will be highlighted throughout: how the data is being constructed and for what purpose.
- The public character of folklore will be recognized throughout. Folklore has never been exclusively or even primarily an academic discourse, and its theorizing has never been free of political and applied considerations. It is also unique for the degree of grassroots as well as institutional participation: the "folk" themselves need to be understood as part of the constitution of the discipline.
Each course will be taught every other year, so that students have the opportunity to take any of the three within two years. In 2006-07, The Folk will be offered in Autumn Quarter as English 870; Tradition will be offered in Winter as Comparative Studies/NELC 792. Performance will be offered in 07-08.
Tradition
New 800-number (until then as CS 792), 5 hours
The transmission of cultural forms through time and space across social networks,
with special attention to the dynamic of conservation and innovation.
Performance
New 800-number (until then as Eng 870), 5 hours
Performance as a heightened mode of communication characteristic of vernacular
cultural process, studied in the context of ongoing social interaction.
The Folk
New 800-number (until then as CS 792 or Eng 870), 5 hours
“Folklore” and “the folk” as metacultural concepts in
the history of modernity. More broadly: cultural form as a social tool for both
differentiation and integration.
