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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Utah State University

Anthropology

USU folklore

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Folklore And The Internet: Vernacular Expression In A Digital World, Trevor J. Blank Jan 2009

Folklore And The Internet: Vernacular Expression In A Digital World, Trevor J. Blank

All USU Press Publications

Folklore and the Internet is a pioneering examination of the folkloric qualities of the World Wide Web, e-mail, and related digital media. It shows that folk culture, sustained by a new and evolving vernacular, has been a key, since the Internetýs beginnings, to language, practice, and interaction online. Users of many sorts continue to develop the Internet as a significant medium for generating, transmitting, documenting, and preserving folklore. In a set of new, insightful essays, contributors Trevor J. Blank, Simon J. Bronner, Robert Dobler, Russell Frank, Gregory Hansen, Robert Glenn Howard, Lynne S. McNeill, Elizabeth Tucker, and William Westerman showcase …


Haunting Experiences: Ghosts In Contemporary Folklore, Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, Jeannie B. Thomas Jan 2007

Haunting Experiences: Ghosts In Contemporary Folklore, Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, Jeannie B. Thomas

All USU Press Publications

Ghosts and the supernatural appear throughout modern culture, in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts. Popular media's commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from what people believe about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Belief and tradition and the popular or commercial nevertheless continually feed off each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from multiple angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously. They …


Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film As Vernacular Culture, Sharon R. Sherman, Mikel J. Koven Jan 2007

Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film As Vernacular Culture, Sharon R. Sherman, Mikel J. Koven

All USU Press Publications

Interest in the conjunctions of film and folklore is stronger and more diverse than ever. Documentaries on folk life and expression remain a vital genre, but scholars such as Sharon Sherman and Mikel Koven also are exploring how folklore elements appear in, and merge with, popular cinema. They look at how movies, a popular culture medium, can as well be both a medium and type of folklore, playing cultural roles and conveying meanings customarily found in other folkloric forms. They thus use the methodology of folklore studies to analyze films made for commercial distribution. The contributors to this book look …


What Goes Around Comes Around: The Circulation Of Proverbs In Contemporary Life, Kimberly J. Lau, Peter Tokofsky, Stephen D. Winick Jan 2004

What Goes Around Comes Around: The Circulation Of Proverbs In Contemporary Life, Kimberly J. Lau, Peter Tokofsky, Stephen D. Winick

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In this collection of essays, prominent folklorists look at varied modern uses and contexts of proverbs and proverbial speech, some traditional and conventional, others new and unexpected. After the editors' introduction discussing the history and status of attempts to define proverbs, describing their contemporary circulation, and acknowledging the especially important work of paremiologist Wolfgang Meider, the contributions examine the continuing pervasiveness and idiomatic relevance of proverbs in modern culture.


Once Upon A Virus: Aids Legends And Vernacular Risk Perception, Diane E. Goldstein Jan 2004

Once Upon A Virus: Aids Legends And Vernacular Risk Perception, Diane E. Goldstein

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Once Upon a Virus explores how contemporary, or "urban," legends are indicators of culturally complex attitudes toward health and illness. Tracing the rich tradition of AIDS legends in relation to current scholarship on belief, Diane Goldstein shows how such stories not only articulate widespread perceptions of risk, health care, and health policy, they also influence official and scientific approaches to the disease and its management. Notions that appear in narratives of who gets AIDS, how and why, are indicators of broad issues involving health beliefs, concerns, and needs.


Folklore In Utah: A History And Guide To Resources, David Stanley Jan 2004

Folklore In Utah: A History And Guide To Resources, David Stanley

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Over thirty scholars examine the development of folklore studies through the lens of over one hundred years of significant activity in a state that has provided grist for the mills of many prominent folklorists. In the past the Folklore Society of Utah has examined the work of such scholars in biographical and other essays published in its newsletters. This book incorporates those essays and goes well beyond them to include many other topices, offering a thorough history of folklore studies and a guide to resources for those pursuing research in Utah now and in the future. The essays survey the …


Worldviews And The American West: The Life Of The Place Itself, Polly Stewart, Steve Siporin, C. W. Sullivan Iii, Suzi Jones Jan 2000

Worldviews And The American West: The Life Of The Place Itself, Polly Stewart, Steve Siporin, C. W. Sullivan Iii, Suzi Jones

All USU Press Publications

A diverse group of writers and scholars follow the lead of noted folklorist Barre Toelken and consider, from the inside, the ways in which varied cultures in the American West understand and express their relations to the world around them. As Barre Toelken puts it in The Dynamics of Folklore, "'Worldview' refers to the manner in which a culture sees and expresses its relation to the world around it." In Worldviews and the American West, seventeen notable authors and scholars, employing diverse approaches and styles, apply Toelken's ideas about worldview to the American West. While the contributors represent a range …