Courses in Folklore and Ethnomusicology use fascinating approaches to understanding culture, history, and music. Introductory classes consider the broad roles of folklore and music in human lives.
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Our courses examine specific traditions in places such as the United States, Ireland, the Caribbean, China, or Africa. In looking at how traditions are created and carried forward, we pay close attention to topics that touch our lives every day: health and illness, superstition, urban legends, social movements, commemoration, the internet, cultural diversity, and more.
The popular courses below give a sense of what is available to undergraduates interested in the rich history of stories, music, and other forms of expression around the world.
Folklore inspires the choices we make every day: how we communicate, what foods we eat, what games we play, what stories we tell, how we interpret the world around us. The practices, beliefs, and objects that constitute folklore are so intrinsic to our daily lives that they are often overlooked in other disciplines that study human culture, but every culture has folklore and we are all part of the folk.
Play, game, and sport are ambiguous terms important to the study of cultural expressions. In this course, we engage the student in situated activities, ranging from the unstructured doing of leisure and entertainment to the structured, institutionalization of sport with respect to the intersections of participant-spectator relationships, public-private spaces, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, class, ability, and location.
I have learned so much from my Folklore classes. The most significant thing I have learned is to study what I love. Because of this major, I know that the possibilities for the future are endless.
Emily Coleman, B.A. 2013 (High Distinction)
The College of Arts