[#5b] performance & authenticity

[#7] wrap-up

we conclude our crash course in folklore studies, by talking about where we've been and where to go next, now that you're a folklorist!

[#6b] the folkloresque

we explore how today's folklorists are investigating the complex relationships between folk cultures and pop culture / mass media, focusing on michael foster's theory of the folkloresque.

[#6a] fakelore & folklorism

what goes on in the grey zone where folklore and pop culture overlap? in this segment we look at two ways in which this hybrid folk-pop culture has been negatively valued: fakelore (fabricated folklore) and folklorism (secondhand folklore).

[#5b] performance & authenticity

we discuss how items of folklore are brought to life through an act of performance, and examine issues of authenticity in folklore studies.

[#5a] folk groups

we talk about Alan Dundes's 1965 definition of a folk group as "any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor," and the advantages of this dynamic definition over the static notion of "the folk" as "the illiterate in a literate society."