Although Mr. Dorfman's article on the alleged demise of the academic discipline of Folklore (October 1997, Field Notes: "That's All, Folks!") contains many errors of fact, we should note at the outset that his point regarding Folklore's proponents' lack of initia tive to clarify the subject matters and methods of its own field of inquiry is well taken. We welcome this opportunity to elucidate.
While it is true that the early explorations of the Grimms and other nineteenth-century folklorists remain key to appreciating the historical impulse to understand the vernacular cultures of the world's peoples, it is perhaps far more interesting today to ponder why students seeking post-graduate educations at the end of the twentieth century continue to insist u pon choosing to devote their professional careers to a field so poorly understood, and hence so easily maligned. Surely we could instead be attending Ph. D. programs in Anthropology, Literary Studies, Dance, Sociology, Linguistics, Musicology, Psychology , History, Art and Architecture, Semiotics, Popular Culture, or Cultural Studies.
However, we understand that the value of the discipline of Folklore is precisely that it embodies the wisdom of all these disciplines and others besides. Mo re than that, it productively incorporates the findings - theoretical and methodological - of all of them from the unique vantage point of a concern with human traditions. That is to say, Folklore concerns itself with the enactment of cultural and artist iccontinuity across time and place (rather than with disruption), a concern for which other branches of the humanities and social sciences have historically demonstrated little interest or imagination. In spite of the failure of American universit ies to heed the well-meaning rhetoric of the past thirty years or so, our committed allegiance to informed interdisciplinarity is and will remain the beating heart of Folklore's longlasting and hard-won insights into the human - not merely departmental - condition.
Given that the overwhelming majority of the world's peoples cultural and cognitive products remain beyond the reach of canonical history, we regard it as our responsibility to shed light on the rich tapestry of human experience which the eclectic study of social and cultural "lore" is uniquely equipped to reveal. Many of us also consider it our responsibility to recognize and contextualize post-industrial cultures as contributing - not the only, or even most significant - colorful t hreads to the ongoing construction of the singular garment that is the traditional, continuous story of what it means to be human. We recognize that we can no longer afford to view these goals as mutually exclusive. Far from being "hobbyists," we do not take these tasks lightly.
Sincerely,
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