Oring’s “On The Concepts of Folklore”

1. Oring’s“On The Concepts of Folklore” Chapter One of the Introduction

2. ‘Folklore’ • a common term • Clearly compound of ‘folk’ and ‘lore’ • But whazzat? (whazzem?)

3. ‘Folk’ • “any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor” (Dundes) • Common factor creates ‘sense of identity’ • E.g. ethnicity, occupation, kinship, religious belief, gender, age, etc. • Fairly broad, so turn to ‘lore

4. ‘Lore’ • Dundes’ lengthy quote • Useful for providing sense of what folklorists study • Not a definition of lore • Individual terms not defined, not comprehensive • What is common factor of items listed? • AND, why are some items qualified by prefix ‘folk’?

5. History of the study • Emerging from Romanticism • Quasi-rejection of ‘civilisation,’ seen as artificial and intellectual, in favour of the natural and spiritual • ‘Feeling’ • Urban, educated people cut off from nature, not so unlettered, rural ones • Art (songs, poetry, etc.) of rurality ‘uncompromised’ by modernity

6. History of the study (cont.) • Emerging from Nationalism • Sense of a people’s identity, typically in response to perceived threat/inferiority of others • In both England and Germany, the ‘other’ was France and Italy (centers of the intellectual world), privileging Greco-Roman culture over Anglo-Saxon / Germanic

7. History of the study (cont.) • “Romantic Nationalism” • When modernity seen as ‘from outside,’ a ‘rediscovery’ of local traditions and a rejection of ‘higher culture’ occurs • Germany: Wagner (e.g.) and Teutonic myths • China: Hu Shih and the New Culture Movement • USA: 1950s folk music revival (hippies, etc.) • Cape Breton(?)

8. Question to blow your minds • Why are the places to study folklore in Canada (Newfoundland, Quebec, Cape Breton, Alberta) also places that have historically seen themselves cut off from the rest of Canada?

9. The actual word ‘folklore’ • William Thoms: suggested replacing the term ‘popular antiquities’ (‘old things of the people’) with “a good Saxon compound” • Note the anti-Greco-Roman, romantic nationalist tone in that comment • Word caught on like wildfire

10. Another perspective: Cultural evolution • Darwin’s Evolution of the Species was thought to be a model for culture as well: • Contemporary culture is to earlier cultures as homo sapiens is to some kind of monkey-thing • There are vestiges of a “more primitive” time in our lore (superstitions, etc.), the same way that we have vestiges of stages biological evolutionary development in our bodies

11. Cultural evolution (cont.) • Lore seen as something to discover and, essentially, eliminate as a hindrance to development • But study of ‘primitives’ gives insights into our past • Ridiculously racist/ethnocentric

12. Folklore as a ‘survival’ • But what about ‘new’ items, i.e. things not attributable to a distant past? • Slowly redefining lore • from ‘ancient’ to ‘old’ to ‘traditional,’ with emphasis on its means of transmission (‘oral’) • Slow redefining folk • From rural/illiterate/poor to urban blue collar to any group, with emphasis on sense of identity

13. Whither the peasants? • The absence of an indigenous ancestor population for (white) North America encourages move from peasant model to one more broadly conceived • Don’t worry, peasants aplenty in Europe, Asia, etc.

14. The folk society model • A model in which a society’s members are mainly similar (physically, behaviourally, ideologically), change little over generations, economically independent, isolated from other communities, internally trade economy, etc. • The model is in contrast to the modern cosmopolis • ‘Folk’ becomes a relative term

15. Other attempts • ‘Verbal art’ • No reference to past, no assumptions about kinds of groups • But limits to certain forms (excludes material culture, ritual, etc.) • ‘Interstitial culture’ • That which falls between the gaps of formal institutions, centres of power, etc.

16. Conclusion • Not simple, is it? • Read “Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism” for Thursday • If the Introduction is not in the bookstore by Friday, copies of Chapter 2 will be available outside my office