What the heck is folklore?
This course exemplifies one of the reasons I love UC's Honors Program so much! Where else would a student on a pre-med track get to study something like folklore?
Folklore is, most simply, an informal culture. Think of it as the "unspoken rules" part of culture, the part that tells everyone within the culture or sub-culture something about how they should behave. Most importantly, however, is the understanding that folklore is not old, it is not ancient, it is not dusty, and it is not archaic. Folklore is a living, breathing thing that not only continues to have impact on us today, but is constantly renewed and recreated to serve varying purposes.
Every "group"--the "folk"--has its own folklore. Take college students, for example. There's an expectation about the way we should behave, and an endless supply of stories, both true and exaggerated, to support and reinforce this idea. Within college students, there are other "folk" groups. For instance, arts and sciences students. Within that group, there's an expectation about the kinds of things studied, maybe some rivalries between groups or majors, and yet another set of stories to support all of it. Even with that group, there are other "folk" groups. Let's take my example, the neuroscience majors. We add another layer of complexity: we have tracks within the major (not uncommon), so there are even breakdowns within that folk group. So, now we're down to the level of neuropsychology-track majors. Can we take it even farther? Absolutely! While there are literally dozens of ways to do this, I'm going to go with a simple one and divide the group into premeds and prospective grad school applicants. I'm in the premeds folk group, so I'll break that further into prospective allopathic students and prospective osteopathic students. Among the prospective allopathic students, there are a whole host of folk groups, some of which overlap with other groups farther back on the tier I just described. If we're talking about me, we can put me into the dual-admissions students group, which we can further sub-divide into Connections and R.O.S.E. students.
The point of that little exercise is to show just how prevalent folklore is, even without our realizing it. Every tier I just named has its own set of rules, stories, expectations, taboos, etc. that are not always sanctioned directly by a governing body or institution. They arise from the folk themselves. World Folklore and Traditions sought to teach us this, to help us analyze and understand folklore from multiple lenses and perspectives, and to see how folklore can be intentionally manipulated to support an agenda. And, of course, there was the icing on the cake: a week-long stay in Reykjavik, Iceland, which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone and everyone!
Folklore is, most simply, an informal culture. Think of it as the "unspoken rules" part of culture, the part that tells everyone within the culture or sub-culture something about how they should behave. Most importantly, however, is the understanding that folklore is not old, it is not ancient, it is not dusty, and it is not archaic. Folklore is a living, breathing thing that not only continues to have impact on us today, but is constantly renewed and recreated to serve varying purposes.
Every "group"--the "folk"--has its own folklore. Take college students, for example. There's an expectation about the way we should behave, and an endless supply of stories, both true and exaggerated, to support and reinforce this idea. Within college students, there are other "folk" groups. For instance, arts and sciences students. Within that group, there's an expectation about the kinds of things studied, maybe some rivalries between groups or majors, and yet another set of stories to support all of it. Even with that group, there are other "folk" groups. Let's take my example, the neuroscience majors. We add another layer of complexity: we have tracks within the major (not uncommon), so there are even breakdowns within that folk group. So, now we're down to the level of neuropsychology-track majors. Can we take it even farther? Absolutely! While there are literally dozens of ways to do this, I'm going to go with a simple one and divide the group into premeds and prospective grad school applicants. I'm in the premeds folk group, so I'll break that further into prospective allopathic students and prospective osteopathic students. Among the prospective allopathic students, there are a whole host of folk groups, some of which overlap with other groups farther back on the tier I just described. If we're talking about me, we can put me into the dual-admissions students group, which we can further sub-divide into Connections and R.O.S.E. students.
The point of that little exercise is to show just how prevalent folklore is, even without our realizing it. Every tier I just named has its own set of rules, stories, expectations, taboos, etc. that are not always sanctioned directly by a governing body or institution. They arise from the folk themselves. World Folklore and Traditions sought to teach us this, to help us analyze and understand folklore from multiple lenses and perspectives, and to see how folklore can be intentionally manipulated to support an agenda. And, of course, there was the icing on the cake: a week-long stay in Reykjavik, Iceland, which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone and everyone!