Folklore and British Cultural Studies
As an American folklorist studying postcolonial literature in a cultural studies centre in England, I felt a bit colonized myself when, upon browsing in Fred Inglis' Cultural Studies, I read about "the large vacant spaces now being staked out by cultural studies" (181). It reminded me of the nineteenth-century maps of Africa, made by Europeans, that depicted the continent as an unfilled void, even though it teemed with people, cultures and boundaries. So, too, with cultural studies, which now is settling into intellectual territory also claimed by a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, popular culture studies and folklore.
I have become a resistant reader of cultural studies texts, thinking sometimes as I read: But what about folklore? Folklore did this long ago. Folklore does this better. Folklore has an answer to this problem.
I have concluded that folklore and folkloristics (a term recently adapted from European usage to refer to the study of folklore) are absent from cultural studies discussions and programs in England because they are inadequately or wrongly understood--yes, in the land of their origins. As Gillian Bennett has pointed out, folklore has never thrived as an academic discipline in England, apparently because it has not been able to separate itself from its origins in a genteel English antiquarianism.
Consequently, many English academics tend to think that folkloristics is obsessed with inconsequential survivals and revivals--such as, for the former, the soulcaking play still given in Cheshire and, for the latter, the 1960s revival of folk songs. Of course, these, too, are manifestations of traditional folk culture, worth studying by folklori...
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----- Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle: Stories of black pullman porters. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1989.
Folklore is a collection of stories passed down from generation to generation that include Legends, Myths, and Fairy Tales.
African- American folklore is arguably the basis for most African- American literature. In a country where as late as the 1860's there were laws prohibiting the teaching of slaves, it was necessary for the oral tradition to carry the values the group considered significant. Transition by the word of mouth took the place of pamphlets, poems, and novels. Themes such as the quest for freedom, the nature of evil, and the powerful verses the powerless became the themes of African- American literature. In a book called Fiction and Folklore: the novels of Toni Morrision author Trudier Harris explains that "Early folk beliefs were so powerful a force in the lives of slaves that their masters sought to co-opt that power. Slave masters used such beliefs in an attempt to control the behavior of their slaves"(Harris 2).
Folklore is an important aspect of cultures around the world. Folklore is the traditional beliefs, myths, legends, and fairy tales spread via the word of mouth. Legends are based on historical facts or beings, but the characters or events are exaggerated. Myths are based on religion, they feature supernatural beings or creators, and they usually explain a natural phenomenon. Fairy Tales have a fantastic element, generally presenting magic, imaginary creatures, and good versus evil. Italian folklore is steeped in all categories of folklore, but the historical significance of legends has the greatest concentration. History is a value that is dear to family in Italy. The past is important to the bedrock of Italian folklore because history is believed
Folklore is a collection of stories passed down from generation to generation that includes Legends, Myths and Fairy tales. Legends are a semi-true story, which has been passed on from a person to another person that has an important meaning. Myths are a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon. A Fairytale is a children's story about magical which they have imaginary beings and lands. Hispanic Folklore is the traditional is mostly about beliefs, legends, customs and stories of the community of the hispanic culture. Hispanic or latino culture encompasses the traditions, language, religious beliefs and practices, legends, music and history.
Pimple, Kenneth D. "The Meme-Ing Of Folklore." Journal Of Folklore Research 33.3 (1996): 236-240. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2014.
The term Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, also known as FASD, is an umbrella term used to describe a range of adverse effects caused by maternal intake of alcohol while the fetus is in utero. Under the Canadian diagnostic guidelines FASD includes the diagnostic terms ‘fetal alcohol syndrome’ (FAS), ‘partial fetal alcohol syndrome’ (pFAS), ‘alcohol-related Neurodevelopmental disorders’ (ARND), ‘fetal alcohol effects’ (FAE), and ‘alcohol-related birth defects’ (ARBD). These conditions manifest themselves in the form of developmental disorders, weight and height deficiencies and a specific set of facial characteristics to varying degrees. While many characteristics of FASD are well understood, the vast majority are still being researched. This leads to vast information gaps especially when concerned with Aboriginal populations globally notably in Canada and Australia.
Children can be effected by their caregiver’s alcohol and substance abuse in numerous ways. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a pattern of birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. Children born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome tend to have physical abnormalities such as deformed facial characteristics. They are generally born with a variety of emotional and/or intellectual limitations. It is very common for these children to...
For many years it was believed that alcohol can affect an unborn child only after placenta and umbilical cord are fully developed. Ten to fourteen days after fertilization the egg arrives into the uterus, and nests there. In that phase there is no connection between a mother’s bloodstream and a child via umbilical cord, but while placenta is developing embryo is getting its nutrients from mother’s blood through yolk sac. The minute alcohol enters mother’s bloodstream trough her stomach and the small intestine, it will also get to the embryo by cellular processes and it will disturb the cell division.
While mental disorders are characterized by abnormal behaviors in certain people, abnormal behavior is considered by psychologists when a combination of the mentioned elements meet together: unusual or statistically infrequent; socially unacceptable or in violation of social norms; fraught with misperceptions or misinterpretations of reality; associated with states of severe personal distress; maladaptive or self-defeating; and dangerous (Nevid et al, 2011). Some would think that psychopathy is considered a mental disorder due to its characterization based on abnormal behavior but in fact isn’t classified as one by the terms of the DSM-IV. As defined in the DSM-IV, “A mental disorder is a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.” (Hare, 2009) Therefore, psychopaths are described as being people suffering from antisocial personality disorder and are evaluated and judged by these terms. The following paper’s goal will therefore consist of explaining what is psychopathy and its facets, how psychopathy in youth is apprehended, how psychopathy influences violence and sexual violence, as well as evaluating if psychopaths are considered by the judge to be criminally responsible.
Ethnomusicology has an image problem. Insofar as anyone has heard of ethnomusicologists at all, there is a fairly common feeling (and not unjustified, bearing in mind what ethnomusicologists collectively seem to do) that ethnomusicology is, exclusively, the study of non-Western musics. Actually, this isn't so. Ethnomusicologists study Western traditions also, albeit not in huge numbers in Britain – but even here, our sparseness in the study of local traditions is probably no more marked than our sparseness in the study of overseas traditions. (There are just two British ethnomusicologists who work on Chinese music, for instance, which means that we have something like 1/8 of the world's population each; I'm happy to let the other chap take on most of these.) As we shall see below, and although the international connections are important, where ethnomusicology differs from the other fields of music studies – and where it may offer ideas of potential utility to those studying British folk traditions – is not really a function of geographical scope at all.
Throughout the years that humans have roamed this land we call earth they have made myths. Myths that give them a certain sense of security to fill that unknown knowledge they have. The most common myth is the cultural myth. What is a cultural myth? A cultural myth is the narrative explanation--in both written, visual and oral form--of a culture, its origins, its mission, its development, and its future. Along with elements of truth, myths constitute the very substance of a culture’s concept of reality (week 1, day 2 notes).
First named and treated in the 1960’s, the condition results from the toxic effect of alcohol consumption and its chemical factors on a developing fetus. FAS is the leading cause of mental retardation in one out of every seven hundred fifty births. This number changes drastically if the mother is a heavy, habitual alcoholic, as high as twenty nine children out of every one thousand births. The ultimate sadness of this disease is that is one hundred percent
Like any other society, folklore is present in the Russian culture. However, legends are the most heavily concentrated category in Russian culture. People are more entertained in the sense of truthfulness and loose historical accuracy, than
Bottigheimer Ruth B. Fairytales Folk Narrative Research and History “Social History” JSTOR 14, 3 (1989). 343-357, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).