Folkloristics

""Folkloristics"...will stand among the best folklore books ever written...it is unequaled in the number and detail of the illustrative examples it presents. The book, indeed, is a veritable summa of the types of folkloric studies found in American journals and books in this century." - Carl Lindahl. "Folkloristics" is the most complete and up-to-date study of folklore and folklore methodologies. Two noted folklore scholars outline four perspectives that researchers employ to conceptualize, document, and study the phenomena that we consider 'folklore': folklore as artifact, describable and diffusible entity, culture, and behavior. The opening chapter describes the pervasiveness of folklore in everyday life, including its uses in literature, films, television, cartoons, comic strips, and advertising. Subsequent chapters characterize and illustrate in detail the four perspectives used in folklore research, and the authors conclude by demonstrating the interrelatedness of the perspectives.
Each chapter has five components: a characterization of the field of folkloristics or of a perspective used in studying folklore; examples, definitions, and quotations presented within boxes and embedded in the text at specific points; illustrations from or related to published works characterized; concluding statements that summarize principal points made in the chapter; and endnotes. "Folkloristics" employs a variety of folklore examples, such as myths, legends, ballads, jokes, riddles, traditional foods, festivals, and healing ceremonies - over 400 examples illustrating some 45 expressive forms and processes. These come from diverse peoples in the U. S. and other countries (47 national, tribal, and ethnic groups). The cultures represented include those of Native Americans (e.g., Zuni, Winnebago, Hopi), African Americans, Mexican Americans, Japanese Americans, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Tongans, Finns, the English, Russians, Peruvians, Costa Ricans, the Mende of Sierra Leone, and the Choke of Zaire, as well as the cultures of occupational groups, religious communities, children, women and gay men.