What's your definition of folklore? There are many definitions out there. The author of our textbook offers one that probably encompasses yours: "Informal traditional culture".... That's our benchmark. How does your definition overlap with McNeill's? Did you exclude things that she includes, or vice versa?

Reading

Estimated time to read: ~25 minutes

McNeill, Lynne (2013). Chapter 1 "What is Folklore?" in Folklore Rules, pages 1-16.

UW Library : Permalink to Folklore Rules

Rationale: This is our first reading because Lynne McNeill is a master at bringing together ideas to zero in on the essential core. What might be unexpected in this chapter is the idea that

Folklore = People + Traditions = Folk + Lore

So, who are the folk -- who are the people we're studying? How does folklore show us a path into their world? - In this course, we'll often return to these questions. Answers will be as deep (or as shallow) as the descriptions written by folklore fieldworkers like you and I (our fieldwork and analyss wll be discussed in the next lecture!)

Lecture 1 (15 min)

In this lecture keep the following ideas in mind:

- - What are variants?
  - And, how do they factor into folklore studies?

Optional Expansion...

Watch (11 min): Lynn McNeill (author of our textbook), “Folklore doesn’t meme what you think it memes” (2015),

Have some thoughts or questions? Why not join the optional all-class conversation... Discovering Folklore forum