Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and course registration is about to open! We hope that Mason students will enjoy these exciting and engaging folklore courses that we are offering this summer and fall. Check them out below!
SUMMER COURSES
Deadline to apply is April 15, 2023.
FOLK 690: Field School for Cultural Documentation
June 5 - July 6 | Debra Lattanzi Shutika
This intensive course is presented as a collaboration between Mason's Folklore Program, Library of Congress, and the National Park Service. It will offer hands-on ethnographic training for beginners regarding the documentation of local cultural resources, the preservation of documentary materials, and the public presentation of cultural heritage. Instruction will cover topics such as research ethics, preliminary research, interviewing and sound recording techniques, ethnographic observation, and field note writing. Training will be provided on the archival organization of documentary materials gathered in the field and the use of documentary materials for exhibitions and other public presentations. Course instruction will include lectures, hand-on workshops, discussions, and supervised team-based fieldwork with a carefully selected cultural community.
The field school will begin on Monday, June 5, 2023. Coursework will be based on the Mason Square campus of George Mason University, accessible via Metro. Because of the short-term nature of the class, students must attend all class sessions and should have at least 30 hours total to dedicate to fieldwork (June 12-July 6).
The first week of classes (Monday through Friday, 5-9 PM) will take place in the classroom. Students will learn how to design a team fieldwork project, how to conduct ethnographic observations and interviews and use digital recording equipment, and the basics of field archiving. Students will be assigned to teams and will create a fieldwork plan with the assistance of instructors.
Fieldwork activities will begin in the second week of the course. During weeks 2, 3, and 4, students will be on-site at least 30 hours working in teams to conducting fieldwork. There will not be regular class sessions, but teams will meet with a professor once a week to assess their progress and make adjustments to their research strategy.
During the final week of class, June 20-22, research teams will finalize their ethnographic collections and prepare them for the archiving as part of the Northern Virginia Folklife Archive. Teams will also conduct a final presentation of their findings to the public.
Tuition scholarships are available; graduate students are encouraged to apply. This course is open to the general public!
FALL UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
Registration starts...
- April 13: Seniors
- April 17: Juniors
- April 19: Sophomores
- April 21: Freshmen
- July 21: Non-Degree Undergraduate
FOLK 100: Global Folklore
MW 1:30-2:45 PM | Debra Lattanzi Shutika
In this class, you will learn how people in a variety of cultures use folklore as well as what concepts scholars have developed to understand folklore more generally. We will examine folklore from cultures associated with different regions of the world. Beyond exposing you to folklore and cultures with which you may not be familiar, the goal of the course is for you to be able to apply concepts central to folklore studies in order to think critically about the folklore you experience in your own life. This course fulfills the Mason Core Global Understanding requirement.
ENGH 202: Food and Folklore
W 4:30-7:10 PM (online) | Kimberly Stryker
Students will examine the cultural contexts behind the food we eat (and the food we don’t). Through examining definitions, reading online resources and articles, and observing the Folklore of Food all around them, students will gain an appreciation for the pervasiveness of this fascinating subject and the ways their own perception of foods influences their cultural lives and the lives of others. This course will make you ask questions, challenge preconceived notions and think critically about the role of food in human society.
ENGH 315: Folklore and Folklife
R 4:30-7:10 PM | Kimberly Stryker
(hybrid) M 10:30-11:45 AM & online (TBD) | Lijun Zhang
This course provides an introduction to different forms of vernacular culture, including oral/verbal, customary, and material folklore, and considers various interpretative and theoretical approaches to the examples of folk culture discussed. We will explore how folklore is both an unofficial body of cultural knowledge and aesthetic practice and a communicative process that shapes and reflects everyday experience. We will also learn methods of ethnography and field collection that we can use to uncover structures, functions, and meanings in expressive culture.
ENGH 316: Topics in Myth & Literature: Changelings and Fairies
MW 10:30-11:45 AM | Debra Lattanzi Shutika
This course offers a literary exploration of fairies and changelings in contemporary fantasy and young adult fiction. Changelings are typically the offspring of a fairy, troll, goblin or other folkloric creature who is secretly left in the place of a human child, but changelings can also be an infant image of ice or an enchanted piece of wood that eventually becomes ill and dies. Changeling stories often reflect concerns about difference (physical, social, economic, and gender), disability and vulnerability.
Changeling stories are not always about folkloric creatures; there is a large body of related literature on the idea of the “literary double,” also referred to as the doppelganger or “evil twin.” These texts explore ideas about human nature and ethical consciousness and are an important variation on the classic changeling story. We will study a variety of contemporary literary texts that explore the role of the changelings, fairies and doubles, paying particular attention to the ways authors fictionalize fairy legends and the folklore of changelings.
ENGH 415: Topics in Folklore Studies: Folk Arts and Folk Artists
W 4:30 - 7:10 PM | Lijun Zhang
In this course, we will examine the traditional arts of everyday life, such as basketry, textile arts, pottery, mementos and other objects of memory, carving in wood and stone, and more. We will explore the folk aesthetics of group-based creativity as well as folk artists and their life through the lenses of folklore studies, history, anthropology, biography, etc. We will consider traditional arts and objects as texts and narratives in material form. Examples are drawn from multiple cultures as well as traditions in students' own lives.
ENGH 412: Public Folklore
T 4:30-7:10 PM | Lisa Gilman
This course explores the theory and practice of arts and cultural programming in the public sphere. Readings, focused discussions, guest speakers, and a fieldtrip to DC cultural institutions will illuminate a range of professional opportunities available to cultural workers of varied backgrounds.
FALL GRADUATE COURSES
Registration starts...
-
April 11: Graduate Students
-
April 26: Non-Degree Graduate
FOLK 501 / ENGH 591: Advanced Introduction to Folklore and Folklife
R 4:30-7:10 PM | Benjamin Gatling
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the discipline of folklore studies. Students will begin by exploring the basic definitional characteristics of folklore and the concepts that form the foundation for folklore research. Students will go on to survey the major genres that folklorists use to classify the materials they study. The second half of the course looks in more depth at eight “keywords” for the study of expressive culture: art, genre, text, context, tradition, performance, group, and identity. Students will explore the significance and influence of each of these keywords on folklore scholarship and use them as lenses through which to investigate case studies of students own choosing.
FOLK 550 / ENGH 591: Public Folklore
T 4:30-7:10 PM | Lisa Gilman
This course explores the theory and practice of arts and cultural programming in the public sphere. Readings, focused discussions, guest speakers, and a fieldtrip to DC cultural institutions will illuminate a range of professional opportunities available to cultural workers of varied backgrounds.
FOLK 560 / ENGH 591: Folk Arts and Folk Artists
W 4:30 - 7:10 PM | Lijun Zhang
In this course, we will examine the traditional arts of everyday life, such as basketry, textile arts, pottery, mementos and other objects of memory, carving in wood and stone, and more. We will explore the folk aesthetics of group-based creativity as well as folk artists and their life through the lenses of folklore studies, history, anthropology, biography, etc. We will consider traditional arts and objects as texts and narratives in material form. Examples are drawn from multiple cultures as well as traditions in students' own lives.
April 02, 2023