It is important to recognize that folklore is not simply a way of obtaining available date about identity for social scientists; it is actually one of the principal means by which an individual and a group discovers or establishes his or its identity.

Alan Dundes

Categorized in : Way Identity Important Principal

Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.

Alan Dundes

asian-culture grandparent children

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Alan Dundes

christmas inspirational funny

If a student takes the whole series of my folklore courses including the graduate seminars, he or she should learn something about fieldwork, something about bibliography, something about how to carry out library research, and something about how to publish that research.

Alan Dundes

graduation inspirational funny

Americans often have trouble enjoying the present moment.

Alan Dundes

enjoy moments trouble

Future orientation is combined with a notion and expectation of progress, and nothing is impossible.

Alan Dundes

progress expectations impossible

I mentioned that one of the tripartite formulas in American worldview involves time: past, present, and future.

Alan Dundes

formulas worldview past

Life, it seems, is nothing if not a series of initiations, transitions, and incorporations.

Alan Dundes

incorporation transition seems

In my introductory course, Anthropology 160, the Forms of Folklore, I try to show the students what the major and minor genres of folklore are, and how they can be analyzed.

Alan Dundes

genre students trying

My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses.

Alan Dundes

taught identity years

Americans have a penchant for the future and tend to disregard the past.

Alan Dundes

disregard past

I have a great advantage over many of my colleagues inasmuch as my students bring with them to class their own personal knowledge of national, regional, religious, ethnic, occupational, and family folklore traditions.

Alan Dundes

personal-knowledge religious class

Cities all over the world are getting bigger as more and more people move from rural to urban sites, but that has created enormous problems with respect to environmental pollution and the general quality of life.

Alan Dundes

cities people moving

In the light of our culture, these are not unreasonable questions and tactics, but if once again, we try to see the lens through which we look, we can see that there is far too great an emphasis placed on the future.

Alan Dundes

light trying culture

Polls are frequently taken to try to tease out or determine likely directions and trends, but once taken, they belong to the past, requiring that new polls be taken.

Alan Dundes

taken trying past

There can be no self without other, no identity of group A without a group B.

Alan Dundes

without group identity self

The study of folklore is largely the study of particular folklore genres: myth, folktale, legend, ballad, proverb, riddle, superstition, etc.

Alan Dundes

superstition legend myth study

They do not merely collect texts; they must also gather data about the context and the informant and, above all, write an analysis of the items based upon the course readings and lecture material on folklore theory and method.

Alan Dundes

write about data theory

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.

Alan Dundes

folklore discussion forbidden taboo

Their term project consists of a fieldwork collection of folklore that they create by interviewing family members, friends, or anyone they can manage to persuade to serve as an informant.

Alan Dundes

project create friends family

The class has become over the years fairly large, running to three hundred or more, but I always insist upon reading all the student folklore collections myself. Although this is a tall order, I look forward to it because I learn so much from it.

Alan Dundes

student myself look reading