In 'That's All, FOLKS" [LF. October] John Dorfman claims that the academic
study of folk!ore is dead as a doornail in the United States. His brief vignette
surely ranks as one of
best hatchet jobs since George Washington took after his
father's beloved cherry tree
Although Dorfman's name suggests that he has
village origins, he did not consult many bona fide Folklorists in his investigation
of the folklore comnmunity. Instead
he quotes academics with degrees in African
Studies, American CiviIization, and Sociology, among others, to the effect that the
study of folklore is in decline. Why didn't Dorfman bother to ask some of the
leading folkore theorists, e.g.. Henry Glassie o
f Indiana University, for their
views?
As for folkloristics. the study of Folklore (as linguistics is the study of
language), being "undertheorized," I wonder if Dorfman knows Danish folklorist
Axel Olrik's "epic laws," French folklorist Arnold Van G
ennep's "rites of
passage". Swedish folklorist C.W. von Sydow's concept of "oicotype" and Russian
folklorist Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale, all older classic
theoretical contributions which continue to be utilized by scholars in a var
iety of
dlsciplines outside of folkloristics.
There is also factual misinformation. Dorfman
claims that the only Ph.D.-granting folklore programs in the country outside of
the University of Pennsylvania are the ones at Indiana University and UCLA. Heo
mitted mention of the doctoral program in foklore at the University of Texas, to
say nothing of the M.A. in folklore programs at the University of North Carolina
(the oldest graduate program in folklore in the U.S.), Western Kentucky
University, the Unive
rsity of Oregon, and the University of California, Berkeley,
among others Folkloristics dead? I don't think so. If Dorfman or anyone else is
seriously interested in finding out what's going on in contemporary folkloristics I
suggest they check such bo
oks as Henry Glassie's Passing the Time in
Ballymenone (1982), Jame M.. Taggirt's Enchanted Maidens :Gender Relations in
Spanish Folktales of Courtship and Marriage (1990), and Regina Bendix's
Amerikanische Folkloristik: Eine Einfuhrung (1995).
At a moment in American history when multi-cultural diversity is being
celebrated, this is precisely when enlightened university administrators ought to
be encouraging practitioners of an international discipline which goes back to
Herder an
d the Grimms, a discipline which has been ahead of its time in
recognizing the importance of folklore in promoting ethnic pride and in
providing invaluable data for the discovery of native cognitive categories and
patterns of worldview and values.
Ala
n Dundes
Professor of Anthropology and Folklore
University of
California,
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in on-screen reading.)