Please note that this webpage is currently under review to reflect current programming and course offerings across OSU.
Thank you for your patience as CFS make necessary updates in coordination with Comparative Studies and ASCCAS.
For the most up-to-date information, please reference the Comparative Studies Minor in Folklore Page and consult your advisor.
Folklorists focus on a broad spectrum of social expression, examining the forms and ways of living through which communities shape their reality. Those forms include language, work, food, play, dance, song, gestures, beliefs, and so forth. Folklore tends to focus on those cultural forms that permeate the everyday, which are passed from generation to generation, usually orally, with no one author or creator. Folklorists might study such activities as riddles, bell ringing, ethnic joking, or urban legends, apparently trivial practices which, when examined in context, reveal themselves as significant performances: constructions of identity, presentations of self, strategies of control or resistance, manipulations of resources, exercises of virtuosity, spaces of reflection upon the nature of things.
The Department of Comparative Studies offers a minor in folklore available to students in any major. Students are encouraged to talk with a folklore faculty member to determine how students from any major could adapt the minor to their interests. Make an appointment to talk over what courses are coming up and what professors and subjects will be most useful to you. Email cfs@osu.edu.
The minor in folklore requires a minimum of 15 credit hours in folklore courses drawn from several departments. All students must take English 2270 OR Comparative Studies 2350(H): Introduction to Folklore, and four additional courses, for a total of 15 credit hours. One course from the “Ethnography and Writing” category is recommended. At least one of the following courses is required: English 4577.01, 4577.02, 4577.03, or Comparative Studies 5957.01 or 5957.02. No more than 6 credit hours may be taken at the 2000 level. Overlap with the GEC is permitted where appropriate. For the folklore minor, students take a minimum of 15 hours of coursework in folklore, including at least 9 hours at the 3000-level or above and no more than 6 hours at the 2000-level.
Required Course (3 credits)
- English 2270/Comp Studies 2350(H): Introduction to Folklore
Elective Courses (12 credits)
One of the following is required:
- Comp Studies 5957.01, 5957.02
- English 4577.01, 4577.02
Fieldwork and Ethnographic Writing Courses
(One of the following is recommended, but not required):
- Comp Studies 4655, 5189-S
- English 2367.05(H)
Additional electives:
- Anthropology 3334
- Chinese 5400
- Comp Studies 3658, 4597.03, 5668 (cross-listed in NELC), 5957.01, 5957.02
- English 4577.01, 4577.02, 4597.02
- International Studies 4800
- Japanese 5400
- Modern Greek 2680
- NELC 5568 (cross-listed in Comp Studies)
- Scandinavian 3350
- Slavic 2230 (.01 in-person and .99 distance-learning)