Autumn 2010 | Winter 2011 | Spring 2011
Autumn 2010
Slavic 130: Introduction to Slavic Culture: The Vampire in East European and American Culture
Instructor: Dr. Daniel Collins
Lecture: T H 1:30-3:18 pm
Class #:26402
This course is an introduction to the culture of the Eastern European and East Central European peoples-(Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusans, Poles, Kashubs, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, and Albanians). We will discuss their present distribution, prehistory, and relation to other peoples of Eurasia. We will also survey their early culture, including pagan, animistic, and dualistic religious practices and their Christianization. Our focus will be the myth of the VAMPIRE, which has had enduring power not only in Eastern European folk belief but also in American popular culture right up to the present day. In our study of vampire beliefs, we will cover a wide variety of topics:
- Folk beliefs about the soul, fertility, community safety, and diseases
- The coexistence of pagan and Christian practices in Eastern Europe
- Eastern European rites of social passage
- Boundary-crossers and their demonization
- Folk monsters related to the vampire (Evil Eye, rusalka, nav, mora, etc.)
- The function of monsters in coping with fears, identity issues, & repressed desires
- The historical Dracula-his life; his image in Romanian folklore; how he came to be a symbol of all that is evil in Western culture
- The vampire's changing image from its origins to the present-East European communal demon; Enlightenment puzzle; Romantic Sublime hero; Victorian violator of innocence; Nietschean Superman; old Hollywood sexual predator; new Hollywood sexual brinksman and misunderstood social misfit
- Why the vampire has such enduring power and adaptability as a cultural symbol
Readings (Available at SBX)
Course Packet (= CP)
The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories , by Alan Ryan (= PB)
Dracula , by Bram Stoker (any unabridged edition will do)
Arts and Sciences 137.18-10: Scuttlebutt, Hooah and Yellow Ribbons: The Folklore of War and Wartime
Instructor: Susan Hanson and Dorothy Noyes
W 5:30-7:18 pm
Class #: 23848
This seminar is a brief introduction to the interdisciplinary field of folklore studies, using the folklore of the military, war, and wartime as its theme. The term folklore is understood generally as referring to the aesthetics of everyday life--the creative ways people interact with one another: how they express themselves, tell stories, gesture, and joke; how they play, celebrate, party, and parade, how they how they honor, mourn, and memorialize. During the first part of the term we will concentrate mostly on key terms and concepts, and folklore research methods. The remainder of our time will be spent exploring some of the ways that folklore is mobilized for expressive, political, and economic ends during contemporary wartimes. Prereq: Rank 1 standing or permission of instructor. Open only to first-year students.
Freshman Seminar
Folklore major/minor elective
English 270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Ray Cashman
T H 1:30-3:18 pm
Class #: 9282
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, and the construction of personal and group identities.
GEC Arts and Humanities Cultures and Ideas Course
Folklore Concentration Requirement
English 367.05: Intermediate Essay Writing: The U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Leila ben-Nasr
T R 11:30-1:18 pm
Class #: 9322
In this course, we will use the core concepts and methods of the field of folklore as the basis for reading assignments and writing projects. Because the theme of this course is "The U.S. Folk Experience," we will begin with a brief introduction to basic concepts of American folklore and ethnography, including folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology, focusing on how these concepts and methodologies contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Students will also learn fieldwork techniques and use them in the study of local practices and groups. These practices will provide the "raw data" students will use for ethnographic writing assignments.
GEC Social Diversity in the U.S.
Second Writing Course
Folklore major/minor elective
Persian 370: Persian Mythology and Folklore
Instructor: Saeed Honarmand
T R 1:30-3:18 PM
#26628
This course covers the mythology and folklore of Persian-speaking lands, from cosmological texts through popular theater and narrative performance to popular customs and beliefs.
Students will become familiar with the concepts and individuals (gods, heroes, demons) of ancient and more recent Persian mythology, as well as with various categories of folklore and folklife in present day Iran. This course will also introduce students to the basic concepts and methods of comparative myth and folklore studies. Although a variety of texts will be read, the emphasis of the course will be on the mythological and folk aspects of the texts, rather than their purely literary qualities. Prereq: English 110 or 111
GEC Arts and Humanities Literature Course
Folklore Major/Minor elective
English 577.02: Studies in Folklore: Folklore Genres: The Legend
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
M W 3:30-5:18 pm
Class #: 25586
This course introduces students to legend, that genre of folk narrative that includes tales of King Arthur and Elvis Presley, elves and alien abductions, and everything you've heard about the Mooney Mansion on Walhalla Drive. Students will gain familiarity with traditions of several places and times while exploring the structure and subject matter of legend, the relationship between legend, belief, and personal experience, and the nature of legend as contested truth. Students will learn about the history of the collection of legends and become acquainted with the work of major scholars. By the end of the course, students will understand some of the difficulties posed by attempts to define legend as a genre and have learned strategies for interpreting legend and rumor as meaningful expression. Readings will include both primary and secondary material. Primary material will be sought in 19th-century Scandinavia and among Spanish-speaking New Mexicans as well as gathered from students' peers and contemporaries. Written work will include short response papers, a final exam, and a folklore collection project.
Folklore major/minor elective
English 597.02: American Regional Cultures in Transition: Appalachia, South Louisiana, and the Texas Border Country
Instructor: Ray Cashman
M W 1:30-3:18 pm
Class #25482
This course will introduce you to the folklore of three American regions. Each is famous for its traditional culture, but each is often thought of as deviating in a distinctive way from the national culture: Louisiana is “creole,” Texas is “border,” and Appalachia is “folk.” While exploring these differences, we’ll also explore the commonalities. Imagined as different from a supposed American norm, each region is both attractive to outsiders and stigmatized by them. In each region, a dynamic vernacular culture has emerged out of complex race and class relations. In each region, both government policy and economic forces have powerfully transformed local lifeways and the physical environment, and vernacular political expression has been subject to violent repression. Each region has also been strongly marked by in- and out-migration. And each region is strongly connected with the outside world: Louisiana looks to the Francophone world and the African diaspora, Texas maintains strong relationships across the border, and, unexpectedly, Appalachia has been economically and culturally involved with places such as Spain and China since the eighteenth century. Assignments include three take-home essay exams and a final research paper.
GEC Capstone Issues of the Contemporary World
Folklore major/minor elective
Comparative Studies 677.03: (Material Folk Culture) Cultures of Waste and Recycling
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
M W 1:30-3:18 pm
Class #: 25688
This course explores the notion of the residual: what is left over, useless, unclassifiable. Starting off from Agnès Varda's film The Gleaners and I (2000), we will explore the customary management of communal resources, both human and material. We'll examine the creation of waste (and its converse, deprivation) with the codification of custom in modernity, and look at strategies by which waste is recuperated out of necessity, aesthetic interest, or ideological commitment. We'll look at how different kinds of leftover move in and out of systems of value: for example, the labeling of things as "junk" or "antiques," people as "trash," or ideas as "folklore." Finally, we'll think about the status of residues in social and cultural theory. Readings will be eclectic, including classic selections from symbolic anthropology (Douglas, Leach, Lévi-Strauss, Thompson) and sociology (Weber, Veblen), folktales, the Book of Ruth, Benjamin Franklin, and ethnographic articles on stereotyping, outlaws and outsiders, collecting, folk art, and popular protest. Students will write a few short response papers and a research paper.
Folklore Major/Minor Elective
Topics Option Folklore GIS
Comparative Studies 792: Folklore and the Disciplines
Instructor: Sabra Webber
Th 3:30-6:18 pm
Class #: 26146
This 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, and science 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, or 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?
Tools 1 Option Folklore GIS
CS & NELC 792: Tradition and Transmission
Instructor: Margaret Mills
M W 3:30-5:18 pm
CS #26681
NELC #26676
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.
Theory Option Folklore GIS
Chinese 879: Contemporary Approaches to Chinese Folklore and Ethnography
Instructor: Mark Bender
M 3:30-6:18 pm
Class #: 25286
The course seeks to engage contemporary approaches to Chinese folklore and ethnography via representative texts from scholars inside and outside of China. Course materials will be in English and Chinese. Advanced reading knowledge of Chinese required.
Other courses of interest:
Anthropology H650: Research Design & Ethnographic Methods
Instructor: Mark Moritz
MW 12:30-2:18
Class #: 26950
The focus of this course is research design and ethnographic methods. We cover a wide range of formal and informal methods of data collection and quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis. This course is highly recommended for all honor students who are considering doing social science research. Students will learn how to design a study and be trained in different research methods by participating in a collaborative research project. In this collaborative research project we will as a class design a study, collect data, analyze data, and write up the results in a research article.
Art Education 670: Public Policy and the Arts
Instructor: Margaret Wyszomirski
W 4:30-7:18
Class #: 3129
The purpose of this course is to explore the various ways in which public policy, especially at the federal level, has been concerned with the arts. Discussion will cover the history, interests, purposes, rationales, politics, and agencies/programs involved in an arts policy system. In the process, students will also become familiar with basic policy documents in this area as well as changes that have occurred over time.
EDU-T&L 925.10: The Ethnography of Communication I
Instructor: Marcia Farr
T 7:00 - 9:18 pm
Class #: 27150
This Fall course introduces the Ethnography of Communication as a field of inquiry. The primary aim of the course is to provide a theoretical and methodological framework for research on language and literacy. In addition to two texts that cover theory, methods, and central concepts of the field, other texts and readings provide examples of research carried out within this tradition. Students will learn about the theoretical assumptions and conceptual frameworks of the Ethnography of Communication, as well as the various methods for both gathering and analyzing data. Since Ethnographers of Communication study oral and written language as they are embedded in various social and cultural contexts, this is a fertile framework for research on vernacular dialect speakers, English language learners, the use and acquisition of literacy, the inter-relationships of orality and literacy in daily practice across diverse populations, and other topics. This course is highly recommended for those considering language or literacy-focused ethnographic research for their dissertations. Note: A follow-up course, The Ethnography of Communication II, will be offered during Spring Quarter 2011. Students are strongly encouraged to take both courses to develop themselves as independent researchers.
Winter 2011
English 270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: TBA
MW 11:30-1:18
Course #: 14777
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, and the construction of personal and group identities.
Modern Greek 268: Folklore of Contemporary Greece
Instructor: Yiorgos Anagnostou
MW 9:30-11:18
Course #: 17300
A general survey of socio-cultural trends and issues in modern Greece through close examination of ethnographies and other folk expressions. This is an introductory course that fulfills the performance and social diversity GEC requirements.
English 367.05: The U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: Martha Sims
MW 9:30-11:18
Course #: 26165
In this course, we will use the core concepts and methods of the field of folklore as the basis for reading assignments and writing projects. Because the theme of this course is "The U.S. Folk Experience," we will begin with a brief introduction to basic concepts of American folklore and ethnography, including folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology, focusing on how these concepts and methodologies contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Students will also learn fieldwork techniques and use them in the study of local practices and groups. These practices will provide you the "raw data" students will use for ethnographic writing assignments. 367.05 fulfills the GEC "Social Diversity in the US" requirement and the second composition course you need to graduate.
International Studies 550: Cultural Diplomacy
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
TR 9:30-11:18
Course #: 6385
This course explores cultural diplomacy, broadly understood: the exchange of ideas and performances across national borders with the intention of acquiring political influence, abroad or at home. We'll begin by considering the cultural dimensions of political diplomacy and international relations in general, then look at state-sponsored cultural diplomacy (world fairs, student exchanges, cultural centers abroad, performer tours, broadcasts, hearts-and-minds campaigns in conflict situations). Next we'll look at "citizen diplomacy"—sister cities, folk dance tours, peace delegations, conferences, voluntourism—and subaltern and alternative cultural diplomacy drawing on traditional craft and performance genres. We'll briefly examine the new focus on culture in international development projects and intergovernmental organizations such as UNESCO, WIPO, WTO, and the World Bank. We conclude by considering the nature of the cultural turn in post-Cold War international relations. Case studies from all regions of the world and from the Cold War to the present.
English 597.02: American Regional Cultures in Transition
Instructor: Dorothy Noyes
TR 1:30-3:18
Course #: 24905
This course fulfills the capstone GEC requirement by introducing you to the folklore of three American regions. Imagined as different from a supposed American norm, each region is both attractive to outsiders and stigmatized by them. In each region, a dynamic vernacular culture has emerged out of complex race and class relations. In each region, both government policy and economic forces have powerfully transformed local lifeways and the physical environment, and vernacular political expression has been subject to violent repression. Each region has also been strongly marked by in- and out-migration. We'll look at historical change through the prism of celebrated folklore forms such as Louisiana Mardi Gras, Appalachian fairy tales, and the Tex-Mex corrido. We'll also explore the impact of recent events: Hurricane Katrina and the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, mountaintop-removal mining in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and the proposed border fence across the US-Mexican border to halt undocumented migration. Readings will be drawn from several disciplines. Students will write three short essay exams and a research paper.
Comparative Studies 597.02: Issues of the Contemporary World: Global Culture
Instructor: Sabra J. Webber (Columbus campus) & Katherine Borland (Newark campus)
TR 10:30-12:18
Course #: 14547
This capstone course for non-majors addresses issues of the contemporary world through the medium of folklore and the study of folkloristics. Drawing upon examples from around the world (Africa, the Middle East, India, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the South Pacific and so on) we will consider what part of our contemporary culture is “lore” and how traditional cultural resources interact with commercial, mediated and state-generated cultural constructs. We will examine oral, musical, visual and material cultural expressions. We will explore how the types, motifs, and characteristics of folklore find their way into popular literature and film as well as how folklore adapts and shapes the products of commercial mass media. Finally, we will identify the ways in which communities around the world, including those of students in the course, use their folklore as a counter-hegemonic resource to resist or negotiate regional and global powers. The course will be team taught in two electronically linked classrooms on the Columbus and Newark Campuses & two 3-way videoconferences sessions with students in Egypt. Written requirements are five 2-3 page reading and film synthesis papers over the course of the quarter.
Comparative Studies 677.04: Studies in World Folklore: Comparative Folk Groups (Gender and Traditional Cultural Practices)
Instructor: Amy Shuman
MW 1:30-3:18
Course #: 25384
Folklorists have always studied gender, whether in research on women's lament songs or on men's work songs. We cover these topics and others as part of discussions of sexuality, global feminism, feminist ethnography and gender politics. Often the larger theoretical studies fail to account for local culturally-specific experiences. This course is designed to bring the culturally specific research into conversation with the theoretical work. Topics include: gender and "traditional" cultural practices; representations of gender in folktales, ballads, jokes and other genres; and gender politics in everyday life including sexuality, social roles, and stigma. Theoretical issues include the incompatibility of cultural relativism and feminism; global feminism and local cultural resistance movements; and feminist ethnography.
Scandinavian 710: Introduction to Old Norse-Icelandic
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
TR 3:30-5:18PM Lazenby Hall 0001
Course #: 25184
Introduction to the grammar of Old Norse-Icelandic language. Brief overview of Old Norse literature and the context of its production.
English 770.01: Intro to Grad Study in Folklore: Genres and Interpretive Methods
Instructor: Merrill Kaplan
TR 9:30-11:18
Course #: 25909
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.
Comparative Studies 792: Public Practice in Folklore/Ethnomusicology
(CIC shared course taught by videolink from Indiana University, Bloomington. Note modified schedule. For further information, please contact Dorothy Noyes <noyes.10@osu.edu>)
Instructor: Jason Baird Jackson
MW 1:30-3:30 Hagerty 145
Course #: 25126
The disciplines of folklore and ethnomusicology each possess long and substantive histories of engagement with, and contribution to, public policy and civic life. Public folklore and applied ethnomusicology are vital concerns today and scholars in these fields put their training and expertise to work in a wide and growing range of professional settings in government, industry and civil society. This course provides background in the history of public practice in folklore and ethnomusicology, examines the methods, theories, and practical skill sets used by public or applied scholars in both fields, and examines some of the most prominent employment sectors in which folklorists and ethnomusicologists work outside the academy. Special attention will be given to work in arts agencies, K-12 education, festival and event production, the recording industry, digital media, museums, and social action. A key theme of the course are the ways that folklorists and ethnomusicologists, whether employed in academia or the public sector, can pursue work as public intellectuals concerned with serving diverse constituencies and producing scholarship in varied formats. Attention will also be given to ethical practice in public sector work, including examination of key controversies that have centered debate within both fields. Scholars at work in, or with significant knowledge of, public practice careers will regularly participate in the seminar as guest presenters and discussion partners.
English 872: Discourse, Space, and Place
Instructor: Galey Modan
TR 3:30-5:18
Course #: 24930
This interdisciplinary course examines how social actors use language to construct identities for various kinds of places – particularly cities – and relate their own identities as community insiders or outsiders to those constructions. Reading materials will be drawn from the fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic and urban anthropology, and cultural geography, with an emphasis on ethnographic work. Students will conduct their own mini-ethnographies of a place of their choice within the Columbus area. Although no knowledge of discourse analysis or linguistics is assumed, readings and discussions will include (but not be limited to) close analysis of the linguistic features and strategies that speakers or writers use in their constructions of place. Texts: Journal articles and book chapters. Requirements: Recording and observation of linguistic interaction, short papers, final project involving data collection. Questions: Contact Galey Modan (modan.1@osu.edu)
English 891: Seminar in Disability Studies: Theories of Stigma and Normalcy
Instructor: Amy Shuman
MW 9:30-11:18
Course #: 15010
Beginning with foundational concepts in disability studies (for example, normalcy, the body, stigma, performance, and identity), we will explore theoretical discussions, personal/autobiographical texts, literary works (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, and film), and ethnographic works on culture and disability. Our inquiries will be from multiple perspectives including ethical, cultural, legal, emotional, historical, and aesthetic. Readings include selections from Tobin Siebers, Michael Berube, Lennard J. Davis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Brenda Brueggemann, Erving Goffman, Nancy Mairs, and others.
Spring 2011
English 270: Introduction to Folklore
Instructor: Martha Sims
MW 1:30-3:18
Course #: 13419
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, and the construction of personal and group identities.
East Asian 357: East Asian Folklore
Instructor: Mark Bender
TR 3:30-5:18
Course #:13109
This course introduces the traditional folklore of various cultures in East Asia. Considering folklore as a dynamic process, the course will examine specific items of folk activity in the cultures of China, Korea, and Japan, giving due to local, majority, and minority ethnic cultures. In the first two weeks of the course, discussions will center on key terms such as "folklore," "tradition," "context," "performance," and "genre." In ensuing weeks, the themes of folk song, narrative, dance, material culture, epic, rituals, and ethnic tourism will be explored. This quarter, there will be an especially heavy focus on certain ethnic minority cultures in southwest China (Yi, Miao (Hmong), Tibetan, and others).
English 367.05: The U.S. Folk Experience
Instructor: TBA
TR 11:30-1:18
Course #: 13458
In this course, we will use the core concepts and methods of the field of folklore as the basis for reading assignments and writing projects. Because the theme of this course is "The U.S. Folk Experience," we will begin with a brief introduction to basic concepts of American folklore and ethnography, including folk groups, tradition, and fieldwork methodology, focusing on how these concepts and methodologies contribute to the development of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Students will also learn fieldwork techniques and use them in the study of local practices and groups. These practices will provide you the "raw data" students will use for ethnographic writing assignments. 367.05 fulfills the GEC "Social Diversity in the US" requirement and the second composition course you need to graduate.
English 577.03: Studies in Folklore: Irish Folklore
Instructor: Ray Cashman
MW 1:30-3:18
Course #: 22417
This course introduces the popular beliefs, vernacular customs, material culture, and oral traditions of Ireland, north and south. Although much Irish folklore has roots in the far distant past, we will focus on those traditions documented from the late 18th through 21st centuries—a period during which folklore inspired the Irish literary revival and served the nation-building project of a newly independent republic. We will conclude with an investigation of the politics of culture, identity, and heritage in contemporary Northern Ireland where the legacy of British colonialism remains most pronounced. Students will work with and help process as-yet unreleased audio materials from the archives of the Ulster Folk Museum. Other assignments will include a midterm exam and final 8-10 page paper.
English 597.01: The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Instructor: Amy Shuman
MW 9:30-11:18
Course #: 13483
We will explore the concept of stigma as a central issue in disability studies. According to Erving Goffman, cultural groups establish certain kinds of practices and ways of being as normal and acceptable and others as not normal and unacceptable. Many disability scholars challenge how the category of "normal" gets used as if it is natural. Goffman says that people who are considered not "normal" are put in the position of having to manage their identity, to prove that they can be normal and accepted. In this class we will look at how stigma works in everyday life, in fiction, in film, in news accounts, and in personal narratives by people with disabilities.
English 770.03: The Ethnography of Communication
Instructor: Ray Cashman
TR 1:30-3:18
Course #: 26211
This seminar treats language as social action and investigates how people from a range of speech communities "do things with words" (J.L. Austin). Through close attention to specific speech events we come to appreciate how the meanings of verbal messages are negotiated by speakers and listeners employing and enacting culturally specific models of performance, expectation, and interpretation. We will consider perspectives from linguistic anthropologists, sociolinguists, folklorists, and performance studies scholars to better appreciate the interdisciplinary "ethnography of communication" approach pioneered by Dell Hymes. We will give special attention to longer stretches of oral discourse in their performance contexts, in particular narratives from several genres (e.g., personal experience narratives, jokes, legends, myths). Assignments include ethnography of a speech event, transcription exercises, class presentations, and a final exam.
English 870: The Folk: Theories of High and Low Culture
Instructor: Amy Shuman
MW 1:30-3:18
Course #: 13647
Our larger concern in this class is differentiation and classification, including Merleau-Ponty's idea that the failure to differentiate can produce injury. We will begin with the concept of the folk is an invention of modernity and nationalism. The classification as "folk" can be used negatively, to exoticize others, to demean particular practices, or positively, to reclaim identity, or as a strategy of empowerment, among other alternatives. This course explores many of the modern binary oppositions that rely on or include the concept of folk, such as authentic/fake, local/global, belief/superstitition, high/low, oral/literary, modern/traditional. In addition to these academic classifications, we will observe how groups use the category of folk in their understandings of themselves, whether in terms of heritage culture, ethnic customs, or subcultures. Readings will include academic discussions of issues, popular ethnographies in which groups represent themselves, and representations used in museums, festivals or other public events. No prior familiarity with folklore is necessary.
Other courses of interest:
Korean 655: Interdisciplinary Courses in Korean Art, Music, Film, and Theatre
Instructor: Chan Park
MW 3:30-5:18
Course #: 26596
Interdisciplinary course in the history and criticism of Korean art, music, theatre, martial art, healing art and film with reference to their implications to humanity. Taught in English. Credit counts toward Korean undergraduate major and minor, and adds to the available courses for East Asian Master's degree program.
Comparative Studies 792 (Cross listed in Hebrew): Ancient Jewish Mysticism and Magic
Instructor: Michael Swartz
W 2:30-5:18
Course #: 13273
While the ancient rabbis were formulating the classics of law and biblical interpretation, ancient Jews pursued striking visions of God enthroned on a huge chariot; attempted to conjure angels to reveal secrets of wisdom and cosmology; and used unauthorized ritual practices to obtain a material benefit for an individual. These texts and practices raise questions about the nature of ancient Judaism as well as the relationship between Judaism and other religions of the Greco-Roman world. This course will explore ancient Jewish mysticism and magic in order to understand their cultural context, phenomenology, literary characteristics, and importance for the history of religions in the ancient Mediterranean. For more information please contact the instructor at: swartz.69@osu.edu