Lecture (LEC)

Topic: Fieldwork in folklore

In this class, students will learn about fieldwork by doing it, as well as reading about it. We will read two ethnographic works, and discuss the methodology employed by the authors. These ethnographies were chosen to represent documenting songs, stories, and material culture, in Europe and in South America. We will also read how-to fieldwork manuals. But we will do many small fieldwork projects, getting comfortable with the questions that haunt all novice fieldworkers: how do I contact people? What do I say to them? When do I take out my audio recorder and camera? What do I write in my field notebook? How do I catalog my information? Students in the class are required to engage in the main techniques of fieldwork: observation, documentation using a notebook, a camera, and an audio recorder, interviewing, interpretation, and also the written presentations of fieldwork findings and oral presentations that employ technological aids. During the class meetings students discuss the theoretical, practical, and ethical/moral issues of fieldwork from the standpoint of their own experience. Students are required to abstract general principles and provide specific examples based on their own work, feedback, personal feelings, and reflections. In this way, it is hoped, they internalize many of the theories and practices of fieldwork, relegating them to second nature. When one encounters the complexity and confusion of a real field situation, one should not have to think about fieldwork, but find it possible to act quickly and productively. Students will learn self-confidence, and develop a knowledge that will enable them to conduct research on their own.