Overview
The Folklore Program trains intellectual leaders in folkloristics for the twenty-first century. The program seeks to provide a deep, critical, and theoretically-informed reading of folklore scholarship from the seventeenth century through the present. Students are urged to develop a particular field of expertise in folkloristics. At the same time, graduate students are advised to develop a strong grounding in another discipline or a multidisciplinary perspective, such as race and ethnic studies, performance studies, science studies, rhetoric, narrative theory, ethnomusicology, materiality, women's and queer theory, or others in order to bring new perspectives into folkloristics work.
The program is truly international in scope, seeking to challenge the Eurocentric roots of folkloristics by bringing in critiques and alternatives from outside the Euro-American orbit, particularly through study with leading folklorists from around the world who come to Berkeley each year as visiting faculty members.
Undergraduate Program
There is no undergraduate program in Folklore.
Graduate Programs
Folklore : MA
Courses
Folklore
FOLKLOR C261 Theories of Narrative 4 Units
Terms offered: Spring 2012, Spring 2011, Summer 2006 10 Week Session, Spring 2006
This course examines a broad range of theories that elucidate the formal, structural, and contextual properties of narratives in relation to gestures, the body, and emotion; imagination and fantasy; memory and the senses; space and time. It focuses on narratives at work, on the move, in action as they emerge from the matrix of the everyday preeminently, storytelling in conversation--as key to folk genres--the folktale, the legend, the epic, the myth.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 10 hours of lecture per week
8 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Folklore/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Also listed as: ANTHRO C261
FOLKLOR C262A Theories of Traditionality and Modernity 4 Units
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
This seminar explores the emergence of notions of tradition and modernity and their reproduction in Eurocentric epistemologies and political formations. It uses work by such authors as Anderson, Butler, Chakrabarty, Clifford, Derrida, Foucault, Latour, Mignolo, Pateman, and Poovey to critically reread foundational works published between the 17th century and the present--along with philosophical texts with which they are in dialogue--in terms of how they are imbricated within and help produce traditionalities and modernities.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit with different topic and different instructor. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Folklore/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Also listed as: ANTHRO C262A
FOLKLOR C262B Theories of Traditionality and Modernity 4 Units
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
This seminar explores the emergence of notions of tradition and modernity and their reproduction in Eurocentric epistemologies and political formations. It uses work by such authors as Anderson, Butler, Chakrabarty, Clifford, Derrida, Foucault, Latour, Mignolo, Pateman, and Poovey to critically reread foundational works published between the 17th century and the present--along with philosophical texts with which they are in dialogue--in terms of how they are imbricated within and help produce traditionalities and modernities.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit with different topic and different instructor. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Folklore/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Also listed as: ANTHRO C262B
FOLKLOR 298 Readings in Folklore 3 - 6 Units
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Folklore/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
FOLKLOR 299 Directed Research 3 - 6 Units
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-6 hours of independent study per week
Summer:
6 weeks - 7.5-15 hours of independent study per week
8 weeks - 5.5-11 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Folklore/Graduate
Grading: Letter grade.
Faculty and Instructors
Faculty
Stanley H. Brandes, Professor. Cultural anthropology, ritual and religion, food and drink, alcohol use, visual anthropology, Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Spain, Mexico.
Research Profile
Charles L. Briggs, Professor. Linguistic and medical anthropology, social theory, modernity, citizenship and the state, race, and violence.
Margaretta M. Lovell, Professor. Architecture, design, American art.
Research Profile
Tamara C. Roberts, Assistant Professor.
Candace Slater, Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile