Please note that all readings, besides the required text of Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes, are available on the program Moodle site. To access Moodle, go to my.evergreen.edu, log in, find the Slavic and Celtic Folklore program and click on the word “moodle.” If you are not a member of this program, you do not have access to these readings.
For week 1:
Read “Who Are the Folk?” pp. 1-19, and “The Number Three in American Culture,” pp.134-159 in Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes. For Wednesday, locate, write down, and bring with you ten items of folklore: a proverb, a song, a family expression. . . . We will discuss these in class.
For week 2:
“Thinking Ahead,” pp. 69-85, in Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes. On Moodle: “Spirits of the House and Farmstead,” pp. 51-63, and “Spirits of the Forest, Waters and Fields,” pp. 64-82, from Russian Folk Belief, by Linda Ivanits. In addition, read “Why We Became Religious” and “The Evolution of the Spirit World” (Marvin Harris), pp.15-18, from Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion; and “The Well of Her Memory” (Patricia Monaghan), pp. 137-166, from The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog.
For week 3:
Russian epic songs (“Volkh Vseslavyevich”; “Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber”; “Alyosha Popovich, His Squire Yekim, and Tugarin”; “Sadko”) from An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics, trans. by James Bailey and Tatyana Ivanova; Ukrainian epic songs: “Duma about Marusia from Bohuslav”; “Duma about the Flight of Three Brothers from the city of Azov” from Ukrainian Dumy, trans. by George Tarnawsky and Patricia Kilina; South Slavic epic songs (“The Tsar and the Girl”; “The Building of Skadar”; “The Fall of the Serbian Empire”; “The Kosovo Maiden”; “Marko Kraljavić Drinks Wine at Ramadan”; “A Maiden Outwits Marko”; “The Wife of Hasan Aga [Hasanaginica]” from Songs of the Serbian People: From the Collections of Vuk Karadžić, trans. and ed. by Milne Holton and Vasa D. Mihailovich). Also on Moodle: “The Ballad of ‘The Walled-Up Wife’” [Alan Dundes, pp. 185-204] from The Walled-Up Wife: A Casebook, ed. by Alan Dundes).
For week 4:
“Texture, Text, and Context,” pp. 20-32, in Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes. Also, on Moodle read selected passages from The Táin (pronounced “tawn”).
For week 5:
“Stovelore in Russian Folklife,” (Snejana Tempest) pp.1-14; “Food in the Rus’ Primary Chronicle,” (Horace Lunt), pp.15-30, both from Food in Russian History and Culture, ed. by Musya Glants and Joyce Toomre. Also, read “Outcast from Life’s Feast: Food and Hunger in Ireland,” (Hasia Diner) pp. 84-113, from Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration.
For week 6:
“The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus,” pp. 223-261, in Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes. In addition, read the six assigned folktales on the Moodle site for this week (three Slavic and three Celtic); come to seminar prepared to discuss them.
For week 7:
“Wet and Dry, the Evil Eye,” pp. 93-133, and “To Love My Father All” [re: King Lear], pp. 211-222, in Interpreting Folklore by Alan Dundes, and on Moodle, “The Devil” from Russian Folk Belief, by Linda J. Ivanits. In addition, read the six assigned folktales on Moodle for this week (three Slavic and three Celtic); come to seminar prepared to discuss them.
For week 8:
To be arranged
For week 9:
To be arranged
For week 10:
Your final draft is due on Monday, June 4. Begin working on your self-evaluation and faculty evaluations. Please be on time for your evaluation conference! Both Sean and Pat will begin holding evaluation conferences by the end of the 10th week of classes, and will complete them early in evaluation week.