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The Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Folklore

Students wishing to earn a formal credential in folklore may earn a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization, an interdepartmental minor in folklore. The Folklore G.I.S. was approved by the Council for Academic Affairs in September 2007 and is co-sponsored by twelve departments from four colleges. Open to Masters and PhD students in any department, it provides both focus and flexibility for students, balancing core courses with electives that can overlap with the student’s degree program. The Folklore GIS will appear on the student's transcript.

The GIS can serve as the foundation of a full program of folklore coursework or as a secondary specialization. It provides an opportunity for students in a wide range of fields to pay focused attention to vernacular communicative resources and vernacular expression in art, religion, and politics (the latter a particular strength of our folklore faculty). Folklore's emphasis on ethnographic grounding and "theories of the middle range" allows students interested in globalization, cultural change, and democratization to understand these processes from the perspective of local actors. Tracing the emergence of vernacular cultural forms, their movements through informal channels, and their adaptations across time and space, folklore provides an important complement to the study of formal institutions. A secondary specialization in folklore is a valuable credential for jobseekers both inside academia and in nonprofit and public institutions.

Coursework
The GIS consists of 23 hours of coursework distributed across the folklore graduate curriculum, as follows. Note that course numbers are in flux: check with the Center for current options. All courses must receive a grade of B+ or higher (or S in the case of independent study) in order to count for the GIS.
  • Tools 1: English 770.01 or Comparative Studies 770.04
  • Tools 2: English 770.02 or a substitute course in ethnographic methods, including English 770.03 (The Ethnography of Communication), 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).
  • Theory: One course from the core Theory list
  • Topics: One course from the Topics list (for current options, see annual and quarterly folklore course lists)
  • One additional course in any category OR 3 hours of independent study with a folklore faculty member, to be approved by the GIS advisor. This may be part of the work towards the MA thesis or the PhD qualifying exams. The independent study will be used to allow students to integrate their folklore work with their primary program.
Note: A student with an MA from another institution who has already taken the equivalent of the two required Tools courses may substitute other folklore courses with the approval of his or her GIS advisor.

Admission and Advising
The GIS is open to MA and PhD students in any department. Coursework done for the primary program may count towards the GIS (that is, these need not all be elective hours), but at least 14 hours must be taken outside the student's home department.

The student's progress from admission to completion will proceed as follows:

  1. Students interested in taking the GIS should seek preliminary advising from the Folklore GIS Committee chair (currently Dorothy Noyes, Director of the Center for Folklore Studies) to discuss course selection and integration of the GIS with the student's primary field of study. Students should also, obviously, discuss the GIS with their own departmental advisor, and we encourage joint meetings.
  2. Students will then write a one-page proposal explaining the place of their folklore work in their program of study, signed by both the student and the student’s departmental advisor. This should be returned to the GIS Chair for review by the GIS Committee. Students should signal their intention to complete the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization as soon as possible. This facilitates course planning, enrollment projections and program accountability, and ensures the availability of the needed courses in the future.
  3. On acceptance of the proposal by the GIS committee, the student will select a GIS advisor from the core folklore faculty.
  4. Students will meet at least once per year (in Autumn Quarter) with their GIS advisor, who will approve their course selections. Students are also encouraged to participate actively in the Center for Folklore Studies and the Folklore Student Association.
  5. On completion or near-completion of the GIS coursework (in the case of masters’ students, at least one quarter before graduation), the student will fill out the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization Program Form and obtain a signature from his or her departmental advisor. S/he then takes it to the GIS Chair, together with the GIS Transcript Designation Form for final approval and signature.
    Important: Please note that the GIS Program Form asks for your social security number and the grades received in the courses, according to the guidelines of the Graduate School. This information is protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Therefore, please do not send the completed GIS form electronically to anyone, but use hard copies. If you wish to share a draft with your advisor or others electronically, make sure to remove your SSN and any grades.
  6. The Folklore GIS Chair keeps copies of each form and sends copies to the student’s home Graduate Studies Committee and to the Graduate School. The Graduate School verifies the correspondence between the Program Form and the student’s record and approves the specialization on the student’s transcript.