Because there are so many papers and because they are all previously published, I will describe the overall nature and content of the compilation, but not evaluate the individual essays. Dundes was born in New York City, the son of a lawyer and a musician. His parents were not religious, and Dundes considered himself a secular Jew. [20] He has been described as "widely credited with helping to shape modern folklore scholarship", [1] and as "one of the most admired and influential folklorists in the world" [6] He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more [7] and is credited with authoring over 250 articles. [2] One of his most notable articles was called "Seeing is Believing" in which he indicated that Americans value the sense of sight more than the other senses. a b c d e f Fox, Margalit (April 2, 2005). "Alan Dundes, 70, Folklorist Who Studied Human Custom, Dies". The New York Times . Retrieved October 31, 2008.

He met his wife Carolyn while attending Yale University. They were married for 48 years, [6] and had a son (David) two daughters (Lauren and Alison) and six grandchildren." [1] With this expanded social definition of folk, a wider view of the material considered to be folklore also emerged that includes, as William Wilson points out, "things people make with words (verbal lore), things they make with their hands (material lore), and things they make with their actions (customary lore)" (2006, 85). Dundes, Alan. 1999. International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore. Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers: chap. 1. Shortly before his death, Dundes was interviewed by filmmaker Brian Flemming for his documentary, The God Who Wasn't There. He prominently recounted Lord Raglan's 22-point scale from his 1936 book The Hero, in which he ranks figures possessing similar divine attributions. [16] An extended interview [17] is on the DVD version of the documentary.

My Book Notes

Dundes was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 - the first Folklorist to be recognized in this way. [18] The late Alan Dundes (1934-2005) was a masterful and exhaustive bibliographer who compiled numerous scholarly anthologies in the course of his career. 1 What does he wish to achieve in the present compilation? He manifestly does not seek to make a gathering of current, cutting-edge work in folkloristics; indeed, many of today’s most influential folklore scholars are not directly represented here at all. Nor does he bring together a collection of classic essays, a showcase of the best that the discipline has produced over time, for only a few of the essays might so qualify (for example, 20, 69, 82). Rather he attempts a characterization of the discipline of folklore diachronically (its founders and pioneers, its institutionalization internationally, the important theories that have given impetus and meaning to its research) and synchronically (the major genres of folklore, the influential concepts, its dominant methods), and does so by letting folklorists and related scholars present and past, on this continent and abroad, speak for themselves. In my view he succeeds, for the work gives a realistic portrait of a relatively small but worldwide scholarly field that provides an engaging and honest sense of its range and variety, its struggles, its personalities, its issues and methods. Dundes, Alan. 1980. “Who Are the Folk?” In Interpreting Folklore. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics. University Press of Mississippi.

a b "About Folklore: Alan Dundes Obituary". August 7, 2008. Archived from the original on August 7, 2008 . Retrieved February 27, 2022. Alan Dundes, "From Etic to Emic Units in the Structural Study of Folktales", The Journal of American Folklore; Vol. 75, No. 296 (Apr. - Jun. 1962), pp. 95-105 JSTOR 538171 with C. Banc) (1986) "First Prize: Fifteen Years. An Annotated Collection of Political Jokes" ISBN 0-8386-3245-9 These days, folklore is a broad discipline. Folklore scholars have studied the importance of molasses in the traditional Newfoundland diet, roadside crosses and their place in public expressions of grief, the practice of Neo-Pagan religion in the Ukraine, expressions of ethical belief in animal rights demonstrations, and many other elements of human culture. You can also find folklorists in the public sector; helping communities preserve their intangible cultural heritage, highlighting issues of race and class in museum exhibitions, facilitating intergenerational transmission of traditional boat-building techniques, helping domestic abuse survivors tell their stories, and so on. We still study what you might expect as well; legends, ballads, märchen, children’s games, vernacular architecture, and other such topics. A folk or peasant society is but one example of a 'folk' in the folkloristic sense. Any group of people sharing a common linking factor, e.g., an urban group such as a labor union, can and does have folklore. 'Folk' is a flexible concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. The critical issue in defining 'folk' is: what groups in fact have traditions?" (emphasis in the original, see footnote 34, 13)Ed.) (1991). Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. His presidential speech at the American Folklore Society conference in 1980 argued that there was an anal-erotic fixation in the German national character; this generated significant controversy. [3] He introduced the concept "allomotif" (coined in an analogy with " allomorph", to complement the concept of " motifeme" (cf. " morpheme") introduced by Kenneth L. Pike) to be used in the analysis of the structures of folktales in terms of motifs identified in them. [4] [5] Dundes asserts that “folk” can refer to “any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor. It does not matter what the linking factor is-it could be a common occupation, language, or religion-but what is important is that a group…have some traditions that it calls its own” (Dundes, 1965: 2). Abrahams, Roger D. 1972. ‘Personal Power and Social Restraint’. In Towards New Perspectives in Folklore. Austin: University of Texas Press: 19-20.

a b c d Oliver, Myrna (April 3, 2005). "Alan Dundes, 70; Folklorist Drew Laughs and Hostility". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 31, 2008.

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Known unofficially as the "Jokes Professor" [6] at UC Berkeley, his classes were very popular, combining learning with "an irresistible wit and style". [1] In this introductory course, students were introduced to the many various forms of folklore, from myth, legend, and folktale to proverbs and riddles to jokes, games, and folkspeech ( slang), to folk belief and foodways. The final project for this course required that each student collect, identify, and analyze 40 items of folklore. All of this material (about 500,000 items) is housed and cataloged in the Berkeley Folklore Archives. [8] Dundes also taught undergraduate courses in American folklore, and psychoanalytic approaches to folklore (his favorite approach) in addition to graduate seminars on the history of folkloristics, from an international perspective, and the history and progression of folklore theory. Before the term folkloristics can be fully understood, it is necessary to understand that the terms folk and lore are defined in many different ways. While some use the word folk to mean only peasants or remote cultures, Alan Dundes of the University of California at Berkeley calls this definition a "misguided and narrow concept of the folk as the illiterate in a literate society" ( Devolutionary Premise, 13). Ben-Amos, Dan. 1972. ‘Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context’. In Towards New Perspectives in Folklore. Austin: University of Texas Press: 9. In 1966 Dundes was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1972 was named a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. [18]