History and Theory of Folklore and Mythology

FOLKMYTH 98A Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Are the myths of a society comparable to the dreams of an individual? Do all of a region’s fairytales derive from a single plotline? Why do UFO abduction accounts sometimes show similarities to earlier elf and fairy lore? Can we reconstruct any of the narratives our ancestors told before the last ice age?

Folklore, mythology, and oral literature are mysterious areas of study; some of the most pressing questions these topics pose remain as open today as when they first began to be researched. In this course, we equip ourselves to explore such questions anew by tracing the development of major theoretical orientations in our field. While the course will focus primarily on contributions dating from between the late-19th and late-20th centuries, some attention will also be devoted to theoretical approaches currently in the process of being born.

Course Notes

Required of all, and limited to, concentrators.