This essay concerns the role of key faculty in developing folklore research and teaching programs at UCLA, particularly Robert A. Georges. It also deals with students learning about folklore and mythology through performances, conferences, and other sources, some of which they initiated and directed. Further, this article surveys how students engaged in folkloristic practices in the sense of initiating and perpetuating social traditions, putting their developing knowledge and skills about others' traditions into professional practice, and finding employment after graduation in academe, the entertainment industry, the public sector, and other venues. Last, Ifocus on Denise Ann Kozikowski, a former student of mine to whose memory this issue of the journal is dedicated.
Wroclaw, Poland, has gnomes! Visitors to the city may come on one of these metal pieces almost anywhere: on the street, a lamppost, or a windowsill, or next to an ATM machine. While they are kitschy, fun, and whimsical, their meaning, often ignored, has depth. It comments on the city's rich and tumultuous history and addresses art, ownership, and political strife.
Many colleges have moved away from folklore studies and privileged theoretical perspectives believing that the study of folklore is no longer relevant. However, folklore is the study of what people do individually, communally, and societally and why they choose to do so. Understanding peoples' thoughts and actions at all levels of society and through time cannot be outdated. Using embodied identity as a framework and oral-formulaic analysis as a process clears pathways for a new understanding of how folktales, social practices, and performances capture the lasting effects of imposed historical narratives and beliefs in social hierarchies. Reviewing these forms of communication and their role in creating societal cohesion or discord allows us to adopt a more egalitarian analytical lens that reveals a more accurate picture of ourselves and our societies.
My exploration begins with a personal narrative, followed by a discussion of how decolonizing methodologies reframed my understanding of applied folklore ethics and methods. I describe ways I am collaborating with a documentary filmmaker and curanderas (women healers) in Los Angeles who supported the Latinx community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I use critical frameworks to build on applied folklore in ways that can advance the field as well as support the goals of community researchers I engage with.
Robert A. Georges, who broke new ground in the analysis of narrating events during his long career at UCLA, passed along his insight into storytelling to the author, his son, who applies those lessons to his work as a designer of immersive ride experiences at the Disney amusement parks, taking the family tradition and understanding of storytelling events to a new level of expression.
This Gedenkschrift honors the passing of our good friend and colleague Denise Kozikowski and the loss of a program, UCLA Folklore & Mythology. Like folklore itself, the contents of this volume are also characterized by continuity and change. They span a range from traditional (though unusually innovative) scholarly research and theoretical articles to personal reflections, dreamwork, and even a graphic essay building on the influences of the academic Program and Denise herself.
The modern concept of the nation and the political form of the nation-state were deeply influenced by folklore scholarship. Johann Herder envisioned the nation-state as a political model made possible by keen attention to cultural communities. Now, at the end of modernity, how can contemporary folklorists come to better understand the new global communities, traditions, and identities, and their implications? How could folklore once again provide new models for identity, community, and (ultimately) governance, in the age of global communications?
Using Steven Swann Jones's structural analysis of the innocent persecuted heroine, this essay examines the trio of films released in 2012 based on the tale of "Snow White," and considers the films' relationship to the version produced by Walt Disney in 1937. It explores the innovations the films make to the narrative and their implications regarding the tale's underlying theme of the development of young women.
The folkloric figure of the wild man (and wild humans, more broadly) exists in different cultural contexts worldwide. This work focuses on the historical examples of the wild man in Italian Alpine folklore, mainly in local art and folk narrative. The analysis of these examples suggests a deep connection between the wild man and the local image of wilderness, in opposition to the anthropic domain of the Alpine villagers.
This article analyzes the ritual of drowning Marzanna/drowning death (topienie Marzanny/& sacute;mierci) and identifies factors responsible for changes in it and for its exceptional vitality. Four historical phases are described: a) the late Middle Ages, when it was seen as a remainder of the religion of pagan Slavs; b) the turn of the twentieth century, when it functioned in folk culture as a kind of magical purifying and vegetative practice; c) the second half of the twentieth century, when it was introduced to schools as a sort of educational play; and d) the beginning of the twenty-first century, when it has undergone revitalization in the religious practices of contemporary paganism. KEYWORDS: folk rituals, purifying and vegetative magic, de-sacralization, re-sacralization, contemporary paganism
Using Steven Swann Jones's structural analysis of the innocent persecuted heroine, this essay examines the trio of films released in 2012 based on the tale of "Snow White," and considers the films' relationship to the version produced by Walt Disney in 1937. It explores the innovations the films make to the narrative and their implications regarding the tale's underlying theme of the development of young women
In this essay, I outline Anand Prahlad's existential critique of folklore studies while simultaneously considering the personal and professional inspiration Prahlad has offered me. I highlight Anand Prahlad's profound influence in Folklore Studies, Disability Studies, and creative writing. KEYWORDS: African American Folklore, Folklore Studies, Disability Studies, Proverbs
This creative essay theorizes that the white fetishization of blackness defines the white American relationship to all things black, including black people, their culture and cultural productions, and the myriad of significations that blackness embodies in the white imagination. This fetishization, rooted in colonialism and oddly reflected in popular, self-identified fetish communities and practices, is a necessary condition for "whiteness," white power, and white identity. Approaching the topic of race in American culture through the lens of fetish theory is implicitly a critique of more conventional approaches and a suggestion for a paradigm shift in studies of culture and race.
This creative essay explores the ways that the fields of folklore and museum studies form a complementary pair, with mutually beneficial and engaging areas of study and interest. It is anchored by a discussion of my intellectual development and perspective in relation to a key mentor, Dr. Anand Prahlad. This complementarity is demonstrated with specific examples of folk art in museums-and the fundamentally odd things that museums collect and folklorists study.
This article considers what it is like living continuously in a tourist town. Specifically, the author explores the kaleidoscopic experience of residing in an area of Edinburgh frequented by tourists and how it positions the author, a scholar of tourism, as both researcher and subject. The article theorizes tourism in terms of the fetish, an idea inspired by Anand Prahlad's mentorship.
On Monday, March 21, 2022, I sat down with Anand Prahlad (University of Missouri Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus) to have a conversation via Zoom. Topics discussed included everything from cryptocurrency to pedagogy. The portions of the interview included here offer insight into Dr. Prahlad's legacy as an educator and scholar. Questions were provided to Professor Prahlad in advance, so he uses past tense occasionally to denote a question that he previously contemplated). The text has been edited for length and clarity.
The language of food is often used to communicate and debate beliefs about race and identity. This article explores a narrative offered by white people to the author as proof of nonracism. While the teller claims amusing innocence, the narrative reinscribes historical beliefs about white supremacy and black bodies as fetishized commodities.
Western scholarship is particularly concerned with the intentionality behind women's dress and grooming in Islamic societies. In everyday life, however, women manipulate their available repertoires to meet a variety of needs and purposes. Impulses toward resistance are typically intertwined with other motives and messages. Interviews with urban women in contemporary Iran reveal that trendy styles of dress such as wearing mantels without buttons and tucking scarves behind ears perform autonomy, comfort, and a rejection of the dominant model of hijab imposed by authorities.
The influential English writer M. R. James (1862-1936) developed a repertoire of techniques for creating folkloresque ghost stories that seem authentically supernatural. These include the citation of (often invented) scholarly sources, details of (often invented) material culture and landscape, and reference to (often invented) oral tradition. James's stories are literary (folkloresque) counterparts to supernatural legends, creating their sense of credibility with techniques that are similar to those used to create a sense of truthfulness in legends.
