Programs of Study
Undergraduate Folklore Programs at OSU
Folklore is vernacular art, the culture that people make for themselves. The forms of folklore circulate from person to person and group to group, adapting to every change of context: they are both deeply traditional and new with every performance. Folklore is cherished by families or danced on the streets by unruly young people. It is despised as old-fashioned, banned as dangerous, preserved as precious heritage, mass-produced for tourists, and called on to legitimate both wars and social justice movements. Folklorists study the careers of these malleable collective forms across time and space.A specialization in folklore will give you skills important to being a global citizen and also valued by a wide range of employers in business, nonprofits, and academe (see Folklore Careers for more detail):
- Field observation and ethnography. Learn how to size up an unfamiliar situation, participate in it appropriately, and describe it in writing.
- Understanding diversity. Learn how communities in the US and internationally develop distinctive forms of expression that can foster strong identities, conflicts, and cultural bridges.
- The interpretation of culture. Learn how to "read" a wide variety of cultural messages according to their own conventions.
- The Folklore Major in the Department of Comparative Studies
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The Folklore Minor, open to students in any department, through the Department of Comparative Studies.
Formal declaration of the major or minor is done through the Department itself, but we strongly urge you also to make an appointment with a core folklore faculty member when you get interested in studying folklore:
see a list of the faculty (If you are not sure which faculty member is closest to your interests, please contact Center for Folklore Studies Director Dorothy Noyes). This faculty member, or another one as appropriate, will serve as ongoing folklore advisor (for general matters, however, you'll continue with your departmental advisor). Students should consult with the faculty advisor on how to focus their folklore studies and integrate coursework with individual research interests. Though the program offers broad-based familiarity with folklore studies, a student might choose to place special emphasis on a particular place or group (e.g. Middle Eastern women or neopagans), genre (e.g. festival or fairy tale), medium (e.g. material culture or folklore on the Internet), domain (e.g. religious or family folklore), or issue (e.g. prejudice or tourism). See here for some examples of how a folklore minor can fit in with different kinds of major. -
The Folklore Focus Area in the English major
(Note: currently there are no formally defined focus areas in the English major, so this would not appear on your transcript, but it is something that can be highlighted in your letters of recommendation.) Students planning a focus in folklore should meet early on with a member of the folklore faculty in English (Shuman, Noyes, Cashman, Kaplan, Modan) in order to discuss how to integrate folklore coursework with other courses in the major. For example, a student might combine an interest in ballad and folksong with courses in Romantic poetry; an interest in folklore and politics with courses in Rhetoric; an interest in oral narrative with courses in medieval literature; an interest in legend with courses in film or the Gothic novel; an interest in immigrant and ethnic folklore with courses in ethnic literatures. Crossover work of this kind would be excellent preparation for an honors thesis and also for application to graduate school.
Students should be aware of the activities of the Center for Folklore Studies, including the Folklore Students' Association, in which undergrads are active co-participants. The Center also offers occasional research and work-study opportunities.
