ANT 311 FOLKLORE
Far from being relegated to the quaint shadows of the past, folklore thrives today in everyday life: in the legends shared in dorm rooms, the songs chanted at public protests, the jokes told in board rooms, the rituals used to ward off bad luck, and the internet memes that flood our social media. Folklore, the study of traditional expressive culture, is both a window into the values and beliefs of the people who share it, as well as an artistic product with value and merit in its own right. We will examine individual folklore forms such as legends, jokes, songs, rituals, festivals, material culture, superstitions, folktales and food traditions in order to understand how people create and express their understandings of important and pervasive themes such as race, power, globalization, poverty, social justice, gender, family, religion, and communal identities.
Prerequisite
None
Course Types
Society, Anthropology Elective