Folklore

Ballad

Genre of folk narrative. A sung narrative.

Psychological approaches

One of the approaches to myths. Looking for symbols rather than specific motifs and details to learn about culture.

Solar mythology

One of the approaches to myths. Max Miller's idea that myths are humanity's way of explaining how the solar system/ universe/ weather works. But clearly they aren't all about this stuff.

joke

Verbal genre of folklore (usually) intended to provoke humor/laughter with a traditional punchline/surprise

3 keys factors in legends

1. interesting plot 2. some believe 3. message or moral BIM (believed, interesting, moral) 1. Strong story appeal: the details or the plot is intriguing 2. Foundation in actual belief: some members of society believe it 3. Meaningful message or moral (often implied). According to Brunvand, these are the reasons legends are so widespread in American culture today

culture hero

A mythological figure who brings something new/valuable to society (ex: Prometheus brought fire to society). Considered a motif or character type, not an archetype (folklorists hate archetypes).

"Stepping" dance genre

Expression of group identity (African-American, collegiate, gendered) Gender norms defined and challenged through performance Public image (dance as a form of outreach, trying to advertise frat or appeal to the ladies) vs. personal experience

Text-based approaches to folklore

Ffocusing on the text, possibly to the detriment of other things we might want to study Roots in Romanticism and philology (Herder and the Grimmes) Superorganic assumptions about folklore: Texts exist independently of their makers; folklore has autonomy; it's inorganic, unlike us. This is problematic and seems clearly false. Active vs. passive bearers (Carl von Sydow). The idea of archetypes is a perfect example of a superorganic assumption — you don't even need people to have archetypes, they say. Folklorists don't like this because you're missing out on function.

Folktale

Genre of folk narrative. These are fictional formulaic narratives. Includes jokes, fables, and fairy tales. Content: mix of real and unrealistic traditional motifs (kings and talking horses) Context: folk and literary transmission; anonymous vs. known tellers, collectors, editors, and writers (as active bearers) Structure: Opening and closing formulas; sequential plot functions Functions: entertainment and artistry, education, validation of social norms (specifically marriage), social pressure/control, wish fulfillment

Narrative jokes

Genre of folktale, and thus of folk narrative. They're humorous stories that are formulaic and understood not to be literal. Example: "A priest and a rabbi walked into a bar..."

Changing cultural context of belly dance

Grew in popularity in U.S. in 60s and 70s; diversified from its images of exotic, glamorous or folksy Feminist movement Teachers from MidEast train teachers in U.S. Broader situational contexts: seen not just MidEast restaurants and nightclubs, also Renaissance Fairs, birthday parties and other cultural events

content of legends

Historical (like Civil War legends) vs. etiological (talking about the origins of something); supernatural vs. contemporary (urban legends). Folklorists prefer "contemporary legends" to "urban legends" because not all legends take place in cities. Migratory (we can trace its transmission over time and space) vs. local (exists only in one place). Some legends seem like local legends because they are told like they happened at local place, but really variations exist in lots of places Bizarre, disgusting, disturbing

Contamination

Legends juxtapose dissimilar cognitive and cultural categories Examples: The legend about AIDS juxtaposes HIV and death; homosexuality gets juxtaposed with kinkiness; food with genocide or impotence Legends are thus stories about contamination, and stories that contaminate cultural categories

Trickster

Type of motif/character. Characteristics: Masters of disguise Excessively hungry/desirous Childish/foolish yet clever Gender-bending (Loki turns himself into a female horse) Mostly men Amoral (not necessarily evil though, sometimes engage in goofy violence) Examples: Krishna, Hermes, the crow/raven in Native American mythology, coyotes, Biden in Obama/Biden memes

Analytic categories

Western classifications coming from outsiders, like the terms "myth" and "legend"

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

a hypothesis that the structure of a language determines a native speaker's perception and categorization of experience.

Monogenesis

assumes a single origin point of folklore, which then spreads around the world. More likely the more complicated a story is

polygenesis

assumes multiple origin points for folklore, which then probably spreads a bit

referential meaning

basically literal meaning, it's the dictionary definition of words

Passive bearer

someone who knows the text but doesn't perform it (I've tasted the recipe and heard the joke, but can't make the recipe or tell the joke well)

Active bearer

someone who not only knows a text but performs it really well (someone who makes holiday recipes, or is always ready with jokes)

How to heal trauma

The most effective therapies integrate traumatic memory into normal memory Body and brain must be reassured that they're safe before they can process Key components: -Dealing with hyperarousal -Increasing self-awareness and mindfulness -Support network/ relationships -Embodiment, touch, synchronous movement. People are hurt by touch, but letting people touch you is key to healing -Completing activation patterns/ urges to action

Movement vocabulary

The parts of the body involved in dance, and how they move

Texture

The shape, form, and aesthetic qualities of a text. Examples: the physical characteristics of art; the opening/ closing formulas of fairy tales and stories (i.e., "One time my friend's friend...).

Riddles

Traditional questions with unexpected traditional answers; verbal puzzles

Trauma

Trauma: A literally overwhelming experience, often undesired and uncontrollable; a stimulus greater than the organism is designed to process -Includes elements of helplessness, involuntary loss of control, threat/danger -"Traumatic event" = initial experience of trauma Not all trauma leads to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Common types of trauma: -Acute -chronic/complex -historical/cultural -Developmental (not yet in Diagnostic Statistical Manual) Trauma can be relative and subjective, those watching an accident can be more affected by those in the accident

Trauma and flashbacks

Trigger (noun): any sensory experience that causes a trauma flashback In a flashback state: -Body and brain believe the experience is happening now; threat is still present -Brain has less access to language and reason -Typical responses to perceived threat: fight/flight or freeze/submit BUT we can't assume that every time someone appears agitated or shut down that they're having a trauma response/flashback

Types of riddles

True riddle (description + block) — the block makes it seem like a paradox or unsolvable. Pretend obscene riddle — kid's like these, you're expecting an obscene answers but you don't get it. "What is a man who marries another man?" "A minister." Riddling question — riddles that don't really give you enough info to solve: "How can a cherry have no stone?" "When it's a blossom." Non-oral riddle — like pictures or words that contain the riddle visually

Blason populaire

Type of folklore which makes use of traditional slurs and stereotypes of a particular group. Examples: ethnic jokes, blonde jokes.

Hmong immigration and folklore

Unrest and war in SE Asia in 60s and 70s caused mass immigration to US Traditional arts (weaving, embroidery) vs. home videos Folklore + refugee status (conflicts vs. healing)

Propp's Tale Roles

Villain Hero Donor Magical helper Princess (and her father) Dispatcher False hero

Meaning

What the folklore may symbolize or represent, it's subjective.

Intertext

a text that we can recognize in other texts Some intertexts we can recognize between reality TV and fairy tales: The Bachelor showing up with a slipper like in Cinderella.

popular songs

composed/recorded by professionals

Susan Kalčik

"'Like Anne's Gynecologist or the Time I was Almost Raped': Personal Narratives in Women's Rap Groups." Collected personal narratives and "kernel stories" from all female "rap groups" — collaborative groups where women tell stories and realize their problems are universal problems of sexism A major subject of the stories is oppression experiences women have in jobs ( low salary, slow promotion, humiliations), in school (treatment by male professors and students, advice from counselors), and in situations relating to dating, marriage, and living together. Another frequent theme is self-discovery, which often involves exchanging information about physiology, a subject on which many women arc ill informed. I have heard a number of personal narratives about vaginal infections and how doctors do or do not treat them, for example. Rape (attempted, unreported, or of men by women) and names (their significance, changing and keeping them, their relation to a woman's identity) were subjects that also received much attention. Women were more polite in these rap groups than men were assumed to be, asking permission to speak and making sure everyone had a chance to speak. They did interrupt each other a lot though and no one seemed to mind. In other words, kernel stories are emergent structures. They emerge from the context in which they appear to support another woman's story, to help achieve a tone of harmony in the group, or to fit the topic under discussion or develop that topic with related ideas. Thus, the climax or point of the story can shift from telling to telling; different parts of the story, events or details, can be foregrounded to make the story suit the point the narrator wishes to make. Non-narrative elements are important because they can easily be used to shape the story to fit the situation. It is important to note that this shifting can be done both by the narrator when she chooses what of the story she will tell this time and by the group members when they ask questions or reveal in comments what they think the point of the story is or ought to be. The kernel story, then, is a conversational genre of folklore in two ways. First, conversation can become part of the story, and, second, it is structured in part by the conversational context from which it emerges. The structure of a kernel story, therefore, is fluid. It may be very brief, consisting of an introduction of some sort and the kernel itself. The story may not b be developed beyond this kernel if the audience already knows the story and an allusion to it is considered sufficient or if the kernel is offered by way of a supportive comment, indicating that the narrator has had a similar experience to one being presented by someone who has the floor. A kernel may not be developed if no one expresses an interest or asks any questions, if the narrator does not choose to tell any more, or if another narrator wins a competition to speak next. If the narrator does want to tell more of her story, however, or to answer questions about it, she may expand the kernel by means of several devices. Kernel stories may be developed by adding exposition and detail or by adding non-narrative elements such as a rationale for telling the story; an apology; an analysis of the characters, events, or theme; or an emotional response to the story. A story also can be developed by stringing several kernels together to produce an elaborate story or a unit longer than a story, such as a serial.

Benjamin Filene

"'Our Singing Country': John and Alan Lomax, Leadbelly, and the Construction of an American Past." ugh just read the google doc notes

Åke Hultkrantz

"An Ideological Dichotomy: Myths and Folk Beliefs Among the Shoshoni." Cult myths are myths that you act on That the mythology of the Plains Shoshoni has not degenerated from a supposed older cultic mythology is clearly shown by, among other things, the fact that the same type of mythology predominates among Shoshonean groups in the deserts, mountains, and plateaus west of the Rocky Mountains. The Shoshoni in these areas have lived isolated from each other and have existed under different conditions. But their mythology shows everywhere the same pattern and, to a great extent, the same content. Our conclusion, therefore, must be that in certain cultures myths can form a field which is quite independent of the other parts of the religion. This is in itself a valuable result of our investigation and brings to the fore the question as to what degree similar discrepancies between mythology and religion have occurred within the better-known religions in ancient and modern times. Up to now, the majority of anthropologists and historians of religion have more or less taken for granted that both belief complexes, in as much as they may at all be separated, support each other. An important problem which still needs to be dealt with is: under what conditions does a dichotomy such as the one we have observed among the Shoshoni originate? Should one allege ecological adaptation, social structure, or simply deficient integration between myth and cult? Myths cannot be confined to embracing only the category of cult-myths. Neither may one unquestioningly deduce all myths from cult-myths. The Shoshoni material evinces that the "main function of the myth is to sanction the establishment and condition of the world and its institutions, thereby safeguarding the existence of people and society. In many cases, the very recitation of the myth is so filled with power that it influences—or is thought to influence—the course of actual events. The ritual may strengthen this effect by copying the myth, but it certainly does not follow that everywhere a myth is followed up by a ritual.

Jeana Jorgensen on belly dance

"Dancing the Numinous: Sacred and Spiritual Techniques of Contemporary American Belly Dancers." In this paper, I explore how contemporary American practitioners of belly dance (as Middle Eastern dance and its many varieties are often called in the Englishspeaking world) conceptualize not only the spiritual dimensions of their dance, but also how the very notion of performance affects sacred and spiritual dance practices. Drawing on interviews with members of this community, I describe the techniques of sacred and spiritual belly dancers, how these dancers theorise performance, and how the conflicts inherent to patriarchal mind-body dualism are resolved in these practices. My purpose here is twofold: to document an emergent dance tradition and to analyse its meanings in the relevant social context. Belly dance carries serious implications for gender identity, as it is a dance mostly done by women but is also highly sexualized in the perceptions of many outsiders - wrongly so, for the most part. Most of the belly dancers who discuss their views in print and online agree that while belly dance can be sexy, it is not, in most cases, a seduction or invitation. Since belly dance has roots in dances from the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and India, it raises problematic questions of authenticity and appropriation. Belly dance is still practiced in many parts of the Middle East, selectively depending upon local Islamic laws, and there continues to be discussion of what makes a particular belly dance style, performer, or performance 'authentic'. There are many sub-styles of belly dance in America, and each is authentic in its own right as an expression of individual and sub-cultural identity. Further, any form of dance, social or solo virtuosic, is capable of giving insights into both individual and cultural beliefs. Belly dancers resist objectification using a number of strategies, some of which include taking a spiritual approach to the dance, or performing for restricted audiences. The context in which belly dancers make meaningful choices about their bodies and their art is an oppressive one, as the West is still largely patriarchal. An important feature of most patriarchal societies is dualism, or "the assumption that there are two distinct, mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive substances, mind and body, each of which inhabits its own self-contained sphere" (Grosz 1994: 6). Dualism is also gendered, aligning women with the body, nature, and emotions/irrationality, while men are aligned with the mind, culture, and reason/rationality. Because of the gendering of dualism, it is especially transgressive for women to dance in ways that bring them closer to the immaterial world of spirit and religion. I elaborated upon some differences between the representation and embodiment of the numinous, and the ability to enter a flow or trance-like state, which most often happens through the use of repetitive movement, embodied practice, and ritual meanings. I asserted that belly dancing the numinous is both performance and performative, and that belly dancers who engage with the numinous also engage with complex notions of audience, ranging from audience as divine entities to audience as ritual participants. Finally, I explained why these performances are so complex and powerful: they place performers in the un-feminine position of displaying transformative power on stage in a way that flaunts patriarchal norms and challenges mind/body dualism.

Sheila Bock and Katherine Borland

"Exotic Identities: Dance, Difference, and Self-fashioning." They present two independent ethnographic studies—one examining belly dancing by white women in Central Ohio and one examining the salsa dance scene in the culturally diverse municipalities of Northern New Jersey—in order to complicate our understanding of how and why people draw upon traditions of cultural Others in their expressive behavior. They argue that dancers' accounts of their dancing experiences reveal these practices to be forms of self-fashioning aimed in part at liberating the dancing subject from restrictive and disciplinary identity categories. Through ethnographic comparison they explore embodied practices as distinct from representational practices of exotic othering. The practices we highlight here offer an escape from a restrictive femininity to a celebratory one, through the kinesthetic knowledge women acquire through dance. For the white women in Central Ohio, learning to belly dance becomes a means of resisting the Western ideal of the thin feminine form. For the women of diverse backgrounds in Northern New Jersey, the salsa studio becomes a site in which divergent ideals of femininity are actively negotiated. Moreover, salseras exercise autonomy and agency by attending and "exhibiting" themselves at dance events. In both cases, invocations of otherness extend beyond representational practices to include changes in female dancers' self-concept based on bodily experience. We wish to emphasize that our point is not that researchers should exclude questions of representation from the study of practices that traverse cultural boundaries. Rather, we contend that scholarly critiques of exoticizing practices focusing primarily on issues of representation run the risk of perpetuating overly simplified dichotomies of cultural difference. Our explorations of how and why people adopt the cultural practices of others in our two case studies foreground the multifaceted nature of both the experiences and the identities people craft for themselves.

Stanley Brandes

"Family Misfortune Stories in American Folklore." Whatever their culture, people have always sought to understand why some individuals live in better circumstances and have greater access to the good things of life than others. Generally, scholars have found that explanations for differential living standards are not infinitely diverse and idiosyncratic, but rather that they are neatly patterned into stories and tales which revolve around well defined themes. These stories are sensitive cultural barometers. They not only reflect the way people perceive economic opportunities and social structure, but also indicate how particular individuals rationalize or justify their own position within that structure. For any full comprehension of a society's worldview, we must turn to its explanations of socioeconomic variation as embodied in tales of success, misfortune, and failure. Classic narrative: In Europe and Latin American, people blame and credit luck for their socioeconomic status, whereas in America (because of Protestant work ethic and American Dream) they attribute it to merit. But this narrative ignores the family misfortune story. Common themes of family misfortune stories: Loss of legitimate inheritance. Typically, the stories concern an ancestor two or three generations back who was supposed to inherit a fortune, but who was, through various circumstances, cheated out of his or her just property. In some cases the potential heir foolishly rejects the money himself. Victimization by relatives. A common misfortune theme concerns the underhanded attempts of relatives to cheat each other out of money or opportunities for financial gain. Typically, the details of these stories, as with so many others, are vague even when they recount relatively recent events. Lack of entrepreneurial spirit. This type of story usually involves an unambitious or financially naive ancestor, distant or recent. The ancestor had either money or the opportunity to earn it, but lacked interest in the possibilities presented by the situation. Lack of business acumen. This is the single most common type of misfortune story in my sample. Unlike the stories in the preceding theme, which concern complacent or unambitious souls, these stories involve ancestors who actually try to make it, but fail. Spurred opportunity through love or pride. In many families misfortune has resulted from the conscious rejection of wealth in deference to some higher goal. The most frequently cited goals include either the obligation to a loved one or the maintenance of self-esteem or pride. Most, though certainly not all, of these stories impart less of a sense of bitterness and defeat than do those concerning other themes. The Great Depression or other unforeseen disasters. Family misfortune stories reflect a basic paradox in American explanations of success, stagnation, and failure. On the one hand, we are inclined to place almost total responsibility for socioeconomic status on personality characteristics inherent in the individual.On the other hand, we encounter quite a different attitude expressed in the family misfortune stories. Here, for the most part, it is the behavior and personality of other people, specifically one's ancestors, that are called upon to explain economic immobility or decline. These stories are told because of massive moral pressure on people to succeed, a pressure which blacks and Mexicans don't have so they don't tell them.

Ann Schmiesing

"Gender and Disability: The Grimms' Prostheticizing of 'The Maiden without Hands' and 'The Frog King or Iron Henry.'" Good terms to know: impairment, disability, editorial prosthesis, narrative prosthesis Both "The Maiden without Hands" and "The Frog King" follow the broad pattern of presenting a physical anomaly that results from malevolent forces and is magically erased by the end of the tale: the maiden loses her hands because the Devil orders that her father cut them off, the Frog King lost his human form because a witch cast a spell on him, and both magically return to able-bodiedness toward the end of the narrative. But whereas the very title of "The Maiden without Hands" points to narrative prosthesis, commentators have overlooked the manner in which the Frog King's transformation into a frog is portrayed as essentially disabling in the tale, especially as a result of Wilhelm Grimm's additions. Ironically, whereas Wilhelm's editorial interventions actually diminish depictions both of the maiden's experience of her impaired body and of social reactions to her handlessness, his changes enhance depictions of impairment (as physical reality) and disability (as socially constructed) in "The Frog King." Whereas the maiden becomes more passive, moreover, the Frog King becomes more self-assertive. Each tale offers a striking example not only of the Grimms' editorial prostheticizing of individual tales in the KHM but also of the very gendered nature of disability in the collection. There are nevertheless exceptions to the tendency for female characters to be portrayed with disabilities that make them passive and for male characters to be portrayed with disabilities that do not substantially hinder their agency. But these exceptions are themselves largely gendered. For example, female villains are often depicted with a disability or physical anomaly that is meant to further mark their wicked deeds without in any way compromising their ability to perform them, but this has the effect of casting female agency as wicked.

Wolfgang Mieder

"It Pays to Proverbialize" Interested in cultural literacy, believed proverbs were very important still, especially in advertisements. Proverbs do indeed continue to play an incredibly important role in human communication of all sorts. Proverbs contain the wisdom and insights that humankind has gained through observation and experience. They are the everyday and common-sense philosophy of all people. Although some proverbs do indeed disappear over time due to their archaic wording or their outdated message, there are also newer proverbs that fit modern times and mores. Example of proverb evolution: The early 18th-century British proverb "It never rains but it pours" enjoys currency as well to the present day. However, a fascinating variation was created by way of an advertisement in 1911. At first the Morton Salt Company's popular slogan "WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS"! with a picture of a little girl under a large umbrella was but a variant of the traditional proverb, stressing by implication that the salt would remain granular even in dampness. Through repeated use it has now become an oikotype, i.e., a proverb in its own right with a similar meaning. As such, the new proverb has become so well-known that it is replacing the older version, with the verb "to pour" referring to heavy rain and not to dispensing loose salt.

Alan Dundes

"Many Hands Make Light Work or Caught in the Act of Screwing in Light Bulbs." Even though lots of folklore is being created today in order to satisfy people's needs, folklore which folklorists can practically see at its moment of inception, they still just catalog and describe it. Dundes wants them to go further and analyze it. There's more to jokes than may seem. There are sexual and political themes in the light bulb jokes. What is of special interest is that apparently this single joke — "How many Polacks does it take to screw in a light bulb? Five, one to hold the bulb and four to turn the chair" — provided a model or impetus for a whole new cycle of jokes, all based on the initial formulaic question of how many s does it take to screw in a light bulb? This leads one to speculate on the possible genetic interrelationships of joke cycles. As the light bulb cycle may have spun off from the Polack joke cycle, so the Polack cycle may in turn have derived from some earlier cycle. One cannot help wondering what new joke cycle, if any, may be inspired by one or more of the light bulb jokes. It seems to the average American that it has become increasingly difficult for an individual to effect change. More and more, it is groups, not individuals, which have become the agents of change. And so it is that we can understand the inflation of numbers with respect to how many people (of a particular group) it takes to change a light bulb. In theory, one person can change a light bulb; in practice, it may take more than one to carry out the task. If the above analysis is at all valid, we can perhaps better understand the popularity of the light bulb jokes. On the one hand, they reflect the ageold theme of sexual impotence, a metaphor which lends itself easily to minority groups seeking power. But on the other hand, they may reflect a widespread malaise Americans share about energy supplies and the power that comes from energy. The simple necessities such as cheap gasoline and electricity, once taken for granted, are now in some jeopardy. Without electricity, we will all be unable to screw in lightbulbs to any useful purpose. We shall all join the Jewish mother who complainingly sits in the dark. Add to this the American concern about losing political power in the world and about the individual's losing power to control his own destiny and we can see other reasons why the cycle might have mass appeal. We should not be misled by the presence of particular groups named in the cycle for when we joke about the impotence of others, we are joking about our own potential lack of sexual and political power.

Jeana Jorgensen on queer studies

"Queering Kinship in 'The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers'" Uses allomotific analysis. "The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers" only superficially conforms to the Grimms' patriarchal, nationalizing agenda, for the tale rather subversively critiques the nuclear family and heterosexual marriage by revealing ambiguity and ambivalence. In "The Seven Ravens," a father exclaims that his seven negligent son s should turn into ravens for failing to bring water to baptize their newborn sister. It is unclear whether the sister remains unbaptized, thus contributing to her more liminal status. Because they are allomotifs, the methods by which the brothers are enchanted and subsequently disenchanted can be treated as meaningful in relation to one another. One of the advantages of comparing allomotifs rather than motifs is that we can be assured that we are analyzing not random details but significant plot components. I interpret this equivalence as a metaphorical statement: threats to a family's cohesion come in all forms, from well-intentioned actions to openly malevolent curses. The father's misdirected love for his sole daughter in two versions ("The Twelve Brothers" and "The Seven Ravens") translates to danger to his sons. This danger is allomotifically paralleled by how the sister, without even knowing it, causes her brothers to become enchanted, either by picking flowers in "The Tvvelve Brothers" or through the mere incident of her birth in "The Twelve Brothers" and "The Seven Ravens." Ironically, in performing subservient femininity, the sister fails to perform adequately as wife or mother, since the children she bears in one version ("The Six Swans") are stolen from her. When the sister is married to the king, she gives birth to three children in succession, but each time, the king's mother takes away the infant and smears the queen's mouth with blood while she sleeps (Zipes 2002b, 170). Finall)~ the heroine is sentenced to death by a court but is u nable to protest her innocence since she m ust not speak in order to disenchant her brothers. In being a faithful sister, the heroine cannot be a good mother and is condemned to die for it. This aspect of the tale could represen t a deeply coded feminist voice. 6 A tale collected and p ublished by men might contain an implicitly coded feminist message, since the critique of patriarchal institutions such as the family would have to be buried so deeply as to not even be recognizable as a message in order to avoid detection and censorship. Marriage, though the ultimate goal of many fairy tales, does not provide the heroine with a supportive or nurturing environment. In this tale its presentation subtly exposes the workings of courtship as a hunt or chase with clearly prescribed gender roles. In both cases, the king weds her for her beauty, and the heroine silently acquiesces. The heroine is slandered in her own home, and, tellingly, her marriage is not stable until her brothers are returned to human form. The main episodes of the tale type follow Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp's structural sequence for fairy-tale plots: the tale begins with a villainy, the banishing and enchantment of the brothers, sometimes resulting from an interdiction that has been violated. The sister must perform a task in addition to going on a quest, and the tale ends with the formation of a new family through marriage. As Alan Dundes observes, "If Prop p's formula is valid, then the major task in fairy tales is to replace one's original family through marriage" The sister's loss of her finger, equivalent to the loss of her voice, is a symbolic disempowerment. One loss is a physical mutilation, which might not impair the heroine terribly much; the choice not to use her voice is arguably more drastic, since her inability to speak for herself nearly causes her death in the tales. Both losses could be seen as equivalent to castration. However, losing her ability to speak and her ability to manipulate the world around her while at the same time displaying domestic competence in sewing equates powerlessness with feminine pursuits As I've shown, the Grimms' versions of "The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers" affirm some family values on the surface, but the texts are also radical in their suggestions for alternate ways of being. The nuclear family is critiqued as dangerous, and the formation of a new marital family does not guarantee the heroine any more safety.

Jo Ann Koltyk

"Telling Narratives Through Home Videos: Hmong Refugees and Self-Documentation of Life in the Old and New Country." Homeland Videos: The most popular and frequently viewed videos are homeland videos. Unlike the home-mode videos, homeland videos are produced with a more general Hmong audience in mind. The videos are made by amateur Hmong filmmakers who go to the homeland (either Thailand, Laos, or China) as tourists. Upon returning home, they prepare and market the videos they have made, distributing them through kinship channels to Hmong communities throughout the United States, thus reimbursing themselves for their trip. What makes these homeland videos meaningful to individual Hmong families is how the sense of place is constructed. Place is generalized throughout the greater part of the videos. The focus is on elements of lifestyle and daily activities rather than the actual details of any one village or individual. Therefore the "typical" village, marketplace, or rice field carries with it the potential of being all places at once while at the same time it becomes one special place in the viewer's memory. Generalization allows the viewer to make a personal connection to place and activity and thus enter into the "experience" of the homeland through the process of remembering. Hmong often portrayed as having a hard time adjusting to modern life and America. In contrast, the Hmong videos that I have discussed here show that the Hmong are a creative, enterprising, and future-oriented group. Genres like folktales, fairy tales, legends, and proverbs "lose their old meaning and are reformulated to fit new social settings". True-experience stories, based on reminiscences of the past or personal experiences in the present, are predominant narratives for immigrant groups; these narratives carry "a much greater significance for the group than old and still-repeated tales and legends". Within these new narrative forms, as is the case with Hmong videos, the storyteller becomes the hero, facing and solving present-day problems with human rather than supernatural solutions.

John McDowell

"The Living Ballad." Opening description is Mexicans singing in a room together with guitars, calling out lyrics. This is a living ballad. primary performers= main story teller secondary performers= subsidiary singers who provide harmony and music to the narrative. tertiary performers= the audience members who chime in during cued/ appropriate times well respected ballad compositions are left to the hands of the more well-known, highly respected members of the community, who are notable in writing ballads for the community The living ballad, with its permeable (as opposed to conclusive) text opening toward the experience of the community, is a platform upon which composers, performers, and audience members meet to celebrate and commemorate regional history. We think of ballads as fixed and distant from our experience, but the living ballad is intimate to those who participate in them and it is always evolving.

Kay Stone

"The Misuses of Enchantment: Controversies on the Significance of Fairy Tales." "Little did we realize while reading our childhood fairy tales how controversial these seemingly simple stories were." Gender matters when interpreting tales: women often see that their initial reactions to fairy tales caused problems for them in thinking that Prince Charming was what they needed. The emphasis on ideal female beauty, passivity and dependence on outside forces suggested in fairy tails is supported by Western culture in general. The women and girls who felt uncomfortable with this model were not certain that they had the right to do so. Thus, while fairy tales are not inherently sexist, many readers receive them as such. This study indicates that many females find in fairy tales an echo of their own struggles. Gender of both reader and protagonist is indeed significant in this struggle.

Elliott Oring

"The People of the Joke: On the Conceptualization of a Jewish Humor." There exists a conceptualization of a special relationship between a particular culture and a particular folklore form. For some reason, commentators have seen fit to establish a bond between the Jewish people and the joke. Those who for millennia were characterized as "The People of the Book" may now be characterized without excessive exaggeration as "The People of the Joke." Part of folklore helps sad/displaced groups narrative: JEWISH HUMOR IS A RELATIVELY MODERN INVENTION. THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF A HUMOR THAT WAS IN SOME WAY CHARACTERISTIC OR DISTINCTIVE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE BEGINS ONLY IN EUROPE DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THIS HUMOR DERIVES FROM A CONCEPTUALIZATION OF JEWISH HISTORY AS A HISTORY OF SUFFERING, REJECTION, AND DESPAIR. GIVEN THIS HISTORY, THE JEWS SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO LAUGH ABOUT AT ALL. THAT THEY DO LAUGH AND JEST CAN ONLY SIGNAL THE EXISTENCE OF A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JEWS AND HUMOR AND SUGGESTS THAT THE HUMOR OF THE JEWS MUST IN SOME WAY BE DISTINCTIVE FROM OTHER HUMORS WHICH ARE NOT BORN OF DESPAIR. It is these same conceptualizations that even determine predictions concerning the fate of Jewish humor. Some have seen the end of Jewish humor in the rise of a Jewish State, where humor as a weapon has become obsolete. Others foresee a merger between dilemmas of the Jew and "modern man," with the sheer nihilism of the modern age overpowering the transcendental abilities of the Jewish joke. Still others regard the transcendence of Jewish humor as offering an escape from modern forms of despair and imply that Jewish humor and the humor of modernity are merging. Ultimately, as we have seen, it is not really Jewish humor that is at stake. Conceptualizations of the Jewish joke are merely crystallizations of conceptualizations of the Jewish people, their history, and their identity. The notion of Jewish humor will persist as long as there remain conceptualizations that fundamentally distinguish Jewish history and experience from the history and experience of a world of nations.

Margaret Lyngdoh

"The Vanishing Hitchhiker in Shillong: Khasi Belief Narratives and Violence Against Women." Every legend, if examined within the context of its telling, its listening and its communication, has the potential to influence the perspective of its teller and audience. Meaning that is generated is relevant to the social, political and economic circumstance of the group to which the legend belongs to. In this case, the story of the murdered hitchhiker evokes a deep rooted sentiment in the mind of the Khasis: a young woman, with child is upheld to be the epitome of motherhood and the brutal murder is seen as an affront to the very image of maternity. We come back to the idea of the matriarchy, to the figure of a woman who gives birth and is thus, venerated. Socio-cultural elements thus lie rooted in the image that is presented through the events of the murder. The narrative of the vanishing hitchhiker is reflective of the loss of cultural values and conventions among the Khasis in a context of fast-paced change and evolution and in the assertion of the position of woman and the eternal values she stands for in Khasi society.

Linda Lee

"Ugly Stepsisters and Unkind Girls: Reality TV's Repurposed Fairy Tales." I suggest that the relationship between fairy tales and reality television is more complicated than previous literature suggests. In their efforts to transform into a "swan" or to marry a "real-life Prince Charming," participants enact fairy tales through, on, and with their bodies. None of these programs recreates the source fairy tale whole cloth. Rather, they are postmodern fairy tales or fairy-tale pastiches. Though reality television is a significant vector for transmitting contemporary versions of folktales and fairy tales, it has been largely ignored by folklorists and fairy-tale scholars. This category of reality TV program remains very popular, even though twenty-four televised seasons of the Bachlor have resulted in only three marriages. Through its core identity as a competition-elimination show, The Bachelor and its spin-offs make explicit what is implicit in "Cinderella": the thematic importance of competition between women. These programs' fairy tale-ness is emphasized in other ways, too. A kiss is a key motif, associated primarily with the Disney versions of "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty." In Euro-North American understandings, a fairy-tale kiss is more powerful than almost anything else in the world—it can transform beasts into men and revive comatose (or dead) princesses. This transformative power is critical during the Bachelor, and the producers make this the case. A common criticism levied against reality TV is that it is not real. That is, despite its purported unscripted quality, its narrative is a fiction constructed during editing, often following specific direction to the contestants by producers and directors designed to make for more drama. Heroes and villains clearly defined in reality shows. These programs—especially those in the Bachelor Industry—also naturalize ideas about who deserves the opportunity to fall in love. The Bachelor Industry attracts only participants who have the financial security to leave their jobs and participate in this live-in program—apparently the homeless are not welcome here, either. Further, the vast majority of the participants on these programs are white, suggesting that people of color have little place in this kind of romantic fantasy

Managing trauma / managing stigma

-Admitting trauma is stigmatization (which sucks) -Trauma flashbacks can include stigmatized behaviors ("why are you shutting down, are you stupid?") -Studying trauma in folklore can help us understand social and narrative strategies for managing stigma -Kristiana Willsey's case study on veteran personal narratives found that there's a fundamental disconnect btw the experiences of veterans and those of the general public. Her hypothesis is that veteran personal narratives are strategically fragmented, and that they're asking for help/ for action. They're not just bad storytellers.

how we study folktales and fairy tales

-Collect and analyze -Comparative methods to trace tradition and variation -Other approaches: ---Cultural context (anthropological) ---Structural ---Literary (aesthetics; motif and theme) ---Psychological/ symbolic ---feminist/queer and other ideological (Marxist, eco-critical, etc.). These tend to be more surface-level analyses, just looking at gender roles and such ---Disability studies lens

How to study folklore

1. Collect it (take note of text, texture, and context) 2. Analyze it (for meaning and function)

Trauma and memory

2 key factors in forming memory: -How personally meaningful the event was -How emotionally activated we were at the time ("arousal" in the nervous system sense) Standard/non-traumatic memory = linear, contains sense of time, accessible through language, can change over time Traumatic memory = sensory, frozen in time, not always consciously accessible, dissociated, not incorporated into autobiography, fragmented

The Motif-Index of Folk Literature

6 volumes that documented motifs, a major tool that folklorists use, written by Stith Thompson.

archetypes

A collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is timeless and universally present in individual psyches. Often involve a human-deity mix (ex.: the earth mother). Jung said that their origins are sort of unknowable, which is not how folklorists like to talk. And these make it seem like themes and motifs are universal, whereas folklorists study how they vary in different cultures

Folk music

A culture's informally transmitted, traditional music practices Perpetuated in oral tradition regardless of origins Production of variants through communal recreation is key Encompasses genre, instruments, social contexts, including: Instrumental folk music Folk songs (words and music that circulate orally in traditional variants among members of a folk group) Wordless folk songs

Belly dance

A fusion style of dance with roots in danes performed in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Movements inspired by Middle Eastern music. Dances are patterned by music. It can be performed individually or in groups, to live or recorded music, choreographed or improvised History: Unknown age and origins Oral tradition locates its origins in Middle Eastern harems, nomadic tribes Also influenced by Gypsies (Roma), Spanish flamenco, and Indian classical dance Folk groups: Teachers, students, professional performers, troupes, musicians, costumers, audiences (often friends, family, and the general public)

National stereotype vs. national character

A generalization between a group of people vs. an attempt to accurately describe a group. These are mental categories.

ecotype/oikotype

A local or contextual variant of folklore

Queer Theory and fairy tales

A natural fit? -Fairy tales already queer (ambiguous, magical, multilayered) -Fairy tales already deal with deepest human desires -Fairy tales express/explore erotic content, taboos, perversity, and gendered landscapes Queer readings of fairy tales -Go against the grain -Read between the lines -Upset binaries

Joke cycle

A series of thematically linked jokes that respond to current events. Obama/Biden memes and dead baby jokes are examples.

Folk metaphor

A statement drawing an explicit comparison (i.e., "to paint the town red." These don't have traditional wisdom like proverbs do.)

The Tale Type Index

Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, or ATU Index. Has sub-genres with numbers. Folktale sub-genres (with ATU numbers): Animal tales (1-299). Like Aesop's Fables Ordinary folktales /tales of magic/fairy tales (300-749) Religious tales (750-849) Realistic tales (nouvelle) (850-999). They have the look and feel of fairy tales, but not as much magic. Often about infidelity or honor. Tales of the stupid ogre/giant/devil (1000-1199). When Odysseus blinds cyclops, that's a stupid ogre tale. Anecdotes and jokes (1200-1999) Formula tales/ cumulative tales (2000-2399). You go with person A, and then pick up person B for adventure, etc. The Gingerbread man is an example.

Text

An item or instance of folklore.

Context

Any circumstances or information that surrounds a text

Brief History of Sex Ed

Chicago public schools (1913) were first to teach it, students loved it but it got shut down immediately. During WWI, US Army doctors started realizing there was a problem with venereal disease, told soldiers to keep it in their pants while overseas, but they soon realized that most men who had STIs came into the war with it. This was alarming Comprehensive sex ed by 1970s, people were getting accurate information 1981: Adolescent Family Life Act — provided funding for a series of social programs aimed at promoting abstinence through reproductive health education

Functions of ballads

Commemoration Folk justice/commentary on sexual violence and domestic abuse Upholding (and sometimes subverting) gender norms

The Comstock Act

Comstock Act: outlawed publishing/mailing anything "obscene" (contraception, abortion, etc.). You could be thrown in jail for doing so, but law was eventually relaxed Used to prosecute Margaret Sanger among others

Legend messages about sex

Contamination through touch Rape culture — the overall social norms that silence survivors and enable abusers, perpetuated through folklore and other forms of culture

Analyzing family folklore

Content: usually unique to a family, though may share common themes Context: when/where is it told/performed/taught? By whom? Form: Does it belong to a specific genre based on how it is structured? Function: why is it carried out/ preserved?

American Tribal Style (ATS) and Tribal Fusion

Created in 1980s in SF by Fat Chance Belly Dance Collective Improvisation through shared dance vocabulary, cues Innovative costuming style Borrows from flamenco and Indian classical dance Widespread in US and abroad Popular because it can be done to contemporary music, incorporates other dance styles

Folk dance

Dance that is transmitted and practiced in a traditional/informal manner Does not have to come from a non-literate/ peasant society Is not necessarily "unrefined" Where it becomes more commercialized, folklorists look for variation, other folkloric traits and genres

Allomotif

Dundes coined it, interchangeable narrative components which have the same function in variants of a story, such as the different reasons that Little Red Riding Hood tarries before getting to grandma's house. Each variant can tell you something important, though.

Motifeme

Each variant of an allomotif

Proverbial phrases

Encompasses folk simile and folk metaphor

Traits of family folklore

Family folklore is generically complex and composite -Multiple members = tradition-bearers -Puzzle pieces vs. whole picture -Family narratives are thus composites, requiring multiple tellings and sources Family folklore is deeply related to worldview -Family stories assert the shared identity of families -These stories help family members to have a shared sense of history, location and roots -They reveal where the family positions itself in relation to the rest of the world: engaged? Disengaged? Etc. Trauma and family folklore -Family folklore can chronicle trauma, provide insights into resilience -Family also = site of danger, developmental trauma, neglect

Folk song

Folk songs are perpetuated in oral tradition, regardless of whether they originated there (may originate from "art" or "popular" songs)

Folk narrative/ narrative folklore

Folklore in story form, under the category of verbal arts. Something has to change or happen in the story; it's not a summary or report, it's the full story. Different cultures have different standards for what's newsworthy enough to be in story form.

Family folklore

Folklore transmitted by and about families. Thomas Green: Family members talking to family members about relatives, family events, and family ways of being and doing. Includes stories, jokes and songs about family members and events, as well as the ways relatives share those items with one another. Some more examples: photo albums, arrangement of items in the home, gestures used by the family, festivals the family celebrates.

Trauma and folklore fieldwork

Folklorists seek stories, customs that arise from conflict We document community encounters with deprivation, violence, massive social shifts We're interested in the idea that storytelling gives therapeutic/cathartic relief, but this isn't always the case Potential for flashbacks in interviews, which might look like: -Flat affect (discussing traumatic things in neutral voice), dissociation, spacing out -agitated/aroused state (difficulty sitting still) -Fragmented narration (which can also be a narrative strategy) Tips for dealing with trauma: -Eye contact -Focus -Pacing -Redirect the conversation -Ask questions that stay with the story, but take it in a new direction -Encourage awareness of present moment -Give control back by letting them have agency over how their story is told

Trauma and narrative

For people with trauma, remembering = reliving With certain parts of the brain offline, the event is experienced not as something with a beginning, middle, and end, but rather as fragments Thus, narrative and unprocessed trauma are fundamentally opposed

Tall tale

Genre of folk narrative. A narrative that's told as true but that becomes evidently false at some point

Vladimir Propp's Morphology

He wrote Morphology of the Folktale (1927) Using a corpus of Russian fairy tales, Propp demonstrated that they all follow the same basic plot Specifically there are 31 events or "functions" that occur in the same order, even if some are excluded from a given tale. The character who performs them does not matter, only the role matters.

American ballads: cross-dressing and other queer topics

How do we approach these as queer texts? o Gender as performance o Non-heterosexual desire o Gender ambiguity as alluring

The Devolutionary Premise

Idea that folklore decays over time Oldest version of a tale = best, fullest, most complete version is the original Grimms believed that myths became folktales. Idea that all folklore are half-remembered myths getting worse and worse Folklore "runs down" from higher to lower status groups Is folklore thus dying out?

Immigration and folklore

Immigrants bring their folklore with them to their new homes Reasons to maintain home-country folklore: nostalgia, faith/morality, to assert one's group identity Folklore is created in new environments, blending the immigrant with the native Immigrations on multiple levels: between nations, from rural to urban, between cities or states

Sheila Bock and Kate Parker Horigan

Key terms: family, stigma, externalization, reorientation "Invoking the Relative: A New Perspective on Family Lore in Stigmatized Communities." Bringing together fieldwork materials from two independent studies—examining narratives of Hurricane Katrina and accounts of Type 2 diabetes, respectively—this chapter highlights how family stories do more than signify the values and identities of particular groups. They also enable individuals to contest articulations of morality and blame in broader contexts of stigma. "Family" is not only a classification of a particular folk group or a descriptor of narratives' thematic content, but a rhetorical strategy employed by narrators in contexts wherein their reputations and identities are threatened. By labeling residents' failure to evacuate before Katrina as "societal breakdown," you are missing something. The "failure" to evacuate was not seen as a failure at all by many who stayed behind, but rather as a successful demonstration of care for their family members, precisely countering the stigma of neglect and irresponsibility through which others interpreted their actions. Even while documenting stigmatizing narratives in media and public discourse, then, studies such as this one replicate stigma to some extent. In other words, what outsiders saw as breakdown or as careless, insiders saw as the ultimate act of intentional caring. Narratives of such insiders, survivors who did not evacuate and who did care for their families in the wake of the storm, illustrate both the stigmatizing discourses that constrain survivors as well as the rhetorical strategies by which they carefully negotiate their positions with respect to familial obligation. Narrators use the concept of family as a rhetorical strategy to negotiate and contest stigmatizing discourses in these two contexts of disaster and illness— contexts that affect both individuals and the groups to which they belong. The parallels in these studies show how stories about family are one of the narrative means by which people confront stigma. In both contexts, not only are people's lives thrown into flux, but the perceptions by which others evaluate their lives take on critical consequences. These are both cases where those with the power to distribute resources, whether through health care or emergency assistance, frequently view the recipients of those resources as undeserving. Thus, stigma creates practical obstacles for both of these groups. In our examples, people affected by illness and disaster confront the obstacle of stigma by constructing their plight as greater than themselves: they make connections to family histories to show how their diabetes is not only the result of individual choices, and they emphasize their care for family members to show how they made morally sound decisions during Katrina. Moreover, the recourse to family in these accounts is not random. In both cases, outsiders and dominant discourses construct "family" as a dangerous or unruly burden. As Gail discusses her family legacy of diabetes, she employs two representative rhetorical strategies of de-stigmatization: externalization, which involves positioning blame outside the individual, and reorientation, which involves offering a new way of view- ing traits that members of a group share. Healthcare providers, disaster responders, and researchers would benefit greatly from being mindful of how individuals recount their experiences in response to broader stigmatizing discourses. Ultimately, we believe that professionals working with people in contexts of stigma can work more effectively when they understand both the context and how those with whom they work are already navigating within it.

Jan Brunvand

Key terms: legend, contemporary legends "New Legends for Old" In The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. It might seem unlikely that legends -- urban legends at that -- would continue to be created in an age of widespread literacy, rapid mass communications, and restless travel. A moment's reflection, however, reminds us of the many weird, fascinating, but unverified rumors and tales that so frequently come to our ears: killers and madmen on the loose, shocking or funny personal experiences, unsafe manufactured products, and many other unexplained mysteries of daily life. Their lack of verification in no way diminishes the appeal urban legends have for us. We enjoy them merely as stories, and we tend at least to half-believe them as possibly accurate reports. And the legends we tell, as with any folklore, reflect many of the hopes, fears, and anxieties of our time. In short, legends are definitely part of our modern folklore — legends which are as traditional, variable, and functional as those of the past. People change details of legends to make them more applicable to their location, and to their society. What little we know about who tells the stories, when, to whom, and why invariably contributes towards understanding how legends function and what they mean. But too often our contextual and background info is limited to the name, age, sex, and address of informants, and seldom do we find scholarly studies that give close descriptlons of actual storytelling events. "The Boyfriend's Death" is an urban legend about a guy who tells his girlfriend wait in the car while he goes to get help to start the car, and he ends up getting hung and his feet hit the roof of the car, which is all his girlfriend hears. People alter this tale to make it more relevant and credible, changing those who rescue the girl from "some people" to the police, among other changes.

Charles Briggs

Key terms: pragmatics, context, texture, ownership, typing phrase, quotative, validation. "The Pragmatics of Proverb Performance in New Mexican Spanish." Performances of proverbs by Mexicanos in northern New Mexico are characterized by seven features in addition to the proverb text. These are examined with respect for the role they play in connecting basic cultural and linguistic patterns with the minute details of an ongoing social interaction. The processes of presupposition and contextualization are identified as crucial determinants of the way each feature will be realized in a given performance. Concept of ownership of proverbs is not present in Anglo-American culture. You have to have a certain status to say certain proverbs. -Linguistic features accompany the proverb text in performance and are instrumental to defining it -Importance of cultural context and ethnography -Interrelationship between text, texture, and context -You need contextual information, proverb collection alone is basically useless Key features: -"Tying phrase" that introduces proverb -Identity of "owner" -Quotative (a function word used in informal contexts to introduce a quotation, such as "like") -Proverb text -Special association -Meaning or hypothetical situation -Relevance to context -Validation — listener must affirm that they understand

Patricia Turner

Key terms: rumor clinics, rumor, legend as solidified rumor, conspiracy theory, contamination During World War II, rumor clinics were established in an effort to prevent potentially adverse hearsay of all sorts from gaining credibility. Many of the most widespread rumors reflected racial discord. While African-Americans heard that black soldiers were being singled out for particularly hazardous and even suicidal war assignments, whites heard that in the communities near armed forces training camps hundreds of white women were pregnant with black men's children. Racially based rumors did not vanish following the war, of course; in the absence of crisis, however, official concern diminish. Only in the 1960s, when racial unrest escalated precipitously, did municipal and federal authorities again sit up and take notice. Rumor clinics and hotlines were re-established to combat the proverbial grapevine, on which stories about acts of violence, both incidental and conspiratorial, abounded. After the crises of the sixties subsided, the clinics and hotlines closed down. Yet unconfirmed stories alleging bitter racial animosity still circulated within black communities. Many obvious and some not-so-obvious themes link these seven texts (conspiracies about white people/ KKK tryna screw over blacks). The overall theme is that organized anti-black conspiracies threaten the communal well-being and, in particular, the individual bodies of blacks. This concern predates the 20th century. Indeed, a long list of similar sentiments can be compiled starting with the earliest contact between white Europeans and black Africans. The recognized criteria for rumor: it is a brief, oral, non-narrative statement based on hearsay. Sort of murky distinction with legend sometimes. Allport and Postman, in fact, make the case that legends are often little more than solidified rumors. This may well be true of many items in the African-American rumor/legend tradition. As we shall see, some racial conflicts have generated rumors, others have generated legends, and still others, the AIDS controversy being a good example, have generated both. In some folk items, contamination is a much more prominent motif than conspiracy. Growing public awareness of the threat implicit in the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic caused various contemporary legends to arise connecting this fatal, sexually transmitted disease with an ethnically based contamination plot. Some informants, for instance, claimed that AIDS was developed from experiments having to do with disease, chemical, or germ warfare. Contamination means any item in which the physical well-being of individual black bodies is being manipulated for racist reasons. The modes of contamination implicit in the Church's, Atlanta child killer, and AIDS items differ in their immediate effect, but ultimately serve the same end: to curtail the growth of the black population. Approximately half of my informants claimed that the Klan's goal in its ownership of Church's was to put something (spices, drugs) into the chicken (either into the batter or flour coating, or, by injections, directly into the chicken) that would cause sterility in black male eaters. To those outside the rumor's public, the mechanism of contamination makes the accusation seem highly implausible. I encountered very few white informants who were familiar with the rumor. Upon hearing a summary, most responded by asking, "How is this mysterious substance supposed to distinguish between white male eaters and black male eaters?" When this question is posed to blacks, a common explanation is that most Church's franchises are located in black neighborhoods. Similarly, those who believe the Tropical Fantasy rumors note that the beverage is sold in inner-city ma-and-pa grocery stores, not at downtown soda counters. Hence, the KKK runs very little risk of sterilizing white male consumers. Other informants suggest that a substance has been discovered that impedes the production of sperm in black males but is harmless when consumed by whites. The contamination motifs that link Church's chicken, Tropical Fantasy, the Atlanta child killer, and the AIDS epidemic in African-American folk belief are metaphorically the same. The bodies of the individuals purportedly defiled by the chicken, the soft drink, the interferon experiment, or the disease stand as symbols of perceived animosity against the race. Moreover, issues relevant to black sexuality are implicitly or explicitly raised in all of the contamination cycles. Church's and Tropical Fantasy are said to sterilize. The powers that be wanted black genitals in order to extract a potentially useful drug. To curtail the growth of black peoples, scientists developed and disseminated a disease that could be sexually transmitted. Those who subscribe to these rumors reason that the dominant group is preoccupied with the minority group's sexual capacity. This is the one attribute people of color possess that whites cannot steal from them for their own use. But they try. They will extract a substance from a youngster on the brink of sexual maturity in order to devise a miracle cure. They will unleash an epidemic in order to refine a biological weapon. The popularity of these texts, and their connection to the centuries-old castrated boy legends, suggest that allegations of individual sexual impropriety intended to destroy the minority group are apt to erupt whenever the relationship between two groups is charged with mistrust. If the dominant culture is pushing something that holds symbolic significance for the minority group, the idea may emerge that that thing has been designed to contaminate. Also she's saying that rumors and legends are essentially bound to be created in response to dynamics of tension and/or oppression, that folklore can be a response to such circumstances.

Anna Birgitta Rooth

Key terms: the comparative method, parallels between Asian and American Indian creation myths, (8) myth-types "The Creation Myths of the North American Indians." Rooth uses the comparative method here and includes lots of maps "One of the consequences of the development of the comparative method in mythology was a refinement of typology. From all the data available, it was determined that there were identifiable myth types, cognates of which could be found in diverse cultural contexts and which could even be plotted on maps. Assisted by the visual display afforded by myth mapping, folklorists could get some idea of the geographic distribution of a given myth. The more widely diffused a myth was, the older it was assumed to be. Knowledge of the distribution of a myth made it possible to speculate about possible paths of migration of the narrative. If peoples moved to North and South America from Asia, then it was reasonable to assume that they brought their myths with them. So it is not surprising to learn that a number of studies have documented the parallels between Asian and American Indian myths." Among some 300 American Indian creation myths, there are only 8 principal myth-types (Of the 300, 17% are fragmentary and/or not classified, but other 83% fall into 8 types) The small number of myth types and the geographical relationships of those who share them show that these types are traditional forms of fiction with geographical boundaries, just like any other form of culture. These facts should be taken into account by those scholars who regard oral literature or traditional fiction as a spontaneous art whose expression can take any form anywhere at any time, and who, without any further investigation, regard the resemblances between myths as the result of archetypes in the ancestral memory. The very small number of myth-types of a global and popular theme (about eight myth-types in all of North America; seven of these also in Eurasia) as well as the congruence of detail-motifs in Asia and America, taken together, show that there is a relationship between the Asiatic and American creation myths.

Functions of personal narrative

LIST (legacy, intimacy, sharing, therapeutic) Invitation to intimacy Sharing values Passing on legacy Therapeutic retelling

characteristics of personal narrativef

Limited circulation (because only the experiencer can be the teller) Short life (if told in first person, dies with the teller) Unique content: -Funny experiences, childhood, strange encounters, first time doing something, life-shaping events -Generally told as true, but can veer into tall-tale territory -For example, "big fish" stories and amazing-find mushroom hunter stories

Performance-based approaches to folklore

Major shift in 1960s Performance is not just done on a stage, it can be an everyday conveyance of folklore. The tie to folklore is that you're accountable to tradition: you have to tell it right. Taking the performance of folklore into account means talking about: Audience — can be your circle of friends, can be a deity, can be the self, etc. Competence — how skilled you are at performing folklore. This relates to being an active bearer, but difference here is we're analyzing why/ how they're better. Emergence through interaction — the idea that folklore isn't autonomous from people; human interaction creates the opportunity for folklore to be told/ spread Accountability (to/ for tradition)

Pollution and purity

Mary Douglas's concept. There are lots of substitutions: Body part : whole body Body : group Pollution = matter displaced, boundaries transgressed. Like a shoe or a band-aid is not inherently dirty/polluted, but if you put them on your food it's a problem Purity = both physical and spiritual state

Theme

Meaningful messages associated with motifs. You might have to analyze many texts to ascertain theme (i.e., dumb blonde jokes have the underlying ____ of gender inequality, and it's a backlash against feminism). These have to be dug up; they're not just right there usually.

Structure of legends

Mono-episodic (cover just one event), abrupt/mysterious/sad ending usually

Holbek's 5 Moves

Move I: Failure/imprisonment of passive protagonist Move II: Donor sequence, activist protagonist matures Move III: Male and female protagonists meet and connect romantically Move IV (optional): Acceptance of romantic interest in new household, most often found in ones with active female protagonist Move V: hero in humble disguise through wedding These are clusters of Propp's functions He says fairy tales actually have 2 protagonists: 1 male, 1 female (they alternate between being active and passive, during different moves). Moves can be rearranged narratively unlike functions, order isn't important Move I: Propp's 1-8 (initial situation, failure/imprisonment of passive protagonist) Move II: Propp's 9-14 (donor sequence; activist protagonist matures) Move III: Propp's 15-22 (male and female protagonists meet and connect romantically) Move IV (optional): inserted between Propp's 22-23 (acceptance of romantic interest in new household, most often found in ones with active female protagonist) Move V: Propp's 23-31 (hero in humble disguise up through wedding) Beauty and the Beast Example: Move !: Beast gets enchanted (doesn't necessarily have to be narratively represented, but you know it happened) Not really a move II, the girl is already mature and beautiful Move III: Most of it, they interact and fall in love Not a move IV either Move V: They get married

Folk music and nationalism

Nationalism: loyalty to and communal identification with one's nation; shared sense of national cultural identity is key Lomaxes' nationalism: dignity of the common folk, strength in diversity -Folk music threatened by commercialism and urbanism -Folk music needed to be preserved, but also polished for general appeal -Folk = other (representations of Leadbelly) Authenticity is key to a sense of nationalism, but it's also constructed. When people say something is authentic they're trying to sell you something.

Trauma and the brain

Older emotional brain (brain stem/reptilian brain + limbic system/mammalian brain, controls basic functions) vs. newer prefrontal cortex (language, rational thought, observing passage of time, other "executive functions"). Right vs. left brain (creative vs. logical) In trauma and trauma flashbacks, prefrontal cortex and left brain go offline Lack of left brain = lack of sequencing, causational awareness. Sensory areas of the visual cortex are active even after traumatic event (you're convinced that the thing is happening now) Broca's Area (speech center) goes dark, which is why we say trauma is non verbal

Types of personal narrative tellers

Other-oriented: somebody who downplays his/her own experience or role in order to emphasize the extraordinary aspects of the experience; narrator here is a witness or a recorder. Self-oriented: emphasizes his/her own experience or role in what happened; usually funny or heroic

Types of intertextuality

Parody/satire: these have to be very explicitly linked, because it's essential that readers recognize the parodies Pastiche: it's an assembled text that isn't a straight retelling. Disney's Sleeping Beauty is a straight retelling of an existing text, whereas Shrek is pastiche Allusion: a brief reference to another text, often in the title Adaption/revision: more of a strategic retelling of a text These are often fluid and overlapping

Queer Theory

Queer (19th century sense) = odd, strange, different, appealing Queer (20th century sense) = gay, bi, or not straight; also non-gender-conforming (can encompass transgender/ transexual practices) Queer theory = extension of feminism, moves beyond gender to examine sexuality, primarily non-heterosexuality, focuses on: Excesses, silences, and extremes as coded communication Non-normative expressions of sexuality, gender and desire

Legends vs. other genres

Rumor (non-narrative, unlike legends) Gossip (about people known to the narrator) Conspiracy theory (alternative account of actual events) Personal narrative (first person, unlike legends) Family folklore (a narrative circulating within a family folk group, can be first or third person, and can maybe become legend if it spreads beyond family)

Folk speech

Slang, nicknaming practices, euphemisms, idioms ("Asian ghetto") Dialect, accents, syntax (often regional) Secret languages — pig Latin Folk etymologies — folk stories about how words came to be Whole phrases/ sayings

Motif

Specific details in a given text. Examples: characters that appear in various stories (evil stepmother); specific events (they lived happily ever after); objects (a golden scepter).

European legend themes

Supernatural and social outsiders Liminal spaces (where the forest meets the town, for example) ambiguity/ uncertainty (how do these stories actually end? Perhaps this ambiguity is because agricultural people see nature as fickle and possibly vengeful) Danger

Dance

The body making (intentional) patterns in time and space. This is a pretty wide net, includes yoga and martial arts

Pragmatics

The branch of linguistics that deals with how context contributes to meaning.

Paratext

everything that frames the text and makes it meaningful (book covers, author information, and other supplementary info) Frame tales are a special kind of this

3 cultural factors that influenced belly dance in America

exotic/foreign image Glamorous night-club image folk/rural image

fairy tale facts

getting mature, money, and married. Fairy tales are: -Fictional -About magic, transformation, and quests -Oral and literary; elite and mass/folk culture -About changes to protagonist: ---From youthful to mature ---From low-status to high-status ---From unmarried to married Fairy tales are NOT -Universal (not found in every culture), timeless or ageless (they respond to the preferences of people in a culture) -Just for children (a long history of fairy tales for adults) -Anonymous (usually someone tells them)

Exoteric (etic)

how we characterize other cultures' terminology and folklore

Esoteric (emic)

how we characterize our own terminology and folklore

symbolic interpretation

if allomotifs are functionally equivalent, they can be used to illuminate each other's symbolic meaning

transmission of legends

informal contexts, multiple media (over TV, through internet, etc.)

art songs

learned from printed scores (classical music)

Family ethic

moral principles held by family and expressed in family folklore Ex: money is less important than love

Types of folk song

o Functional songs (lullabies, work songs, children's game songs) o Lyrical folk songs (traditional songs that express a mood or feeling without necessarily telling a story, like blues/spirituals, drinking songs, protest songs) o Ballads (narrative folk songs)

forms of jokes

o One-liner o Question-and-answer o Narrative (anti-clerical jokes; Blason Populaire; shaggy dog stories) o Visual o Prank o List

Cabaret style of belly dance

style similar to styles performed in contemporary MidEast Sub-styles grouped by country/region: Egyptian, Turkish, etc. Popular in large cities and smaller towns It's the default of belly dancing

Folkloric style of belly dance

styles based on traditional or "folk" dances of the MidEast Emphasis on authenticity (which is problematic) Most popular at events by/for belly dancers, in part because the costumes are not very revealing Also seen at public festivals, because dancers trying to combat stereotypes about "sexiness" of belly dance

Native categories

the categories insiders would use to describe their own stories

Pre-text (or hypotext)

the earlier text that serves as a source for the text being discussed (or the hypertext)

Intertextuality

the idea that every text is shaped by and is in dialogue with other texts

Structuralism (narrative)

the study of narrative structure 2 main kinds: Syntagmatic structuralism: studying the order of events in the plot structure, i.e. Propp Paradigmatic structuralism = studying the fundamental paradigm of a narrative work, regardless of the order they appear in, i.e. Lévi-Strause

Three theories for studying humor

1. Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconcious (1905) o Pioneering study of jokes o Innocent vs. tendentious jokes (hostile; obscene) o Pleasure in jokes results from release of energy devoted to inhibition 2. Appropriate incongruity (1990s) o Opposition or incongruity that is resolved appropriately o Content > form 3. Benign violation (2010) o Excess violation or no violation means no humor o High attachment to moral principle negates humor o Tricky emotional component

Structuralism (linguistics)

A big field in linguistics. Centers on the distinction between "langue" and "parole" (language and speech). Ferdinand de Saussure, whose book founded this field, cared only about language, not accidents of speech.

STIs in history

Bacterial, viral, and fungal Ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern impact Syphilis and gonorrhea known in Europe for centuries if not millennia All of them were called "venereal disease" No bacterial STI cure until 1940s penicillin Personal misfortune/ deviance becomes a public health issue Tuskegee syphilis experiment: white doctors were infecting black men with syphilis and not treating them

Stigma (Erving Goffman)

An undesired differentness from normative social expectations. Examples: people with mental illness, pedophiles, people with STIs, single mothers, divorced people, homeless people, people in other sexual minorities, sex workers, hitchhikers, drug users, people who have had abortions

Taiko

Associations in Japan: ritual, festival, myth, military roots Japanese vs. Japanese-American masculinities: Harmony: moving together, in ways that are important when your group is persecuted Hybridity: it has modernized in some ways Serves as a connection between ancient and modern, men and women, Japanese and Japanese-American Gender is not natural, and dance is not natural, so why construct them as such? You need to focus on why people construct certain gender narratives or dance in a certain way: Asian-American men seen as small and weak and effeminate.

Roman Jakobson

Author referenced in Briggs reading. Said that in language, there is a sender (the person speaking), a receiver (the person spoken to), and the message. In this dynamic, there's a context (social relations for example), a channel (is it in writing, text, speech, etc.), and a code (whatever dialect it's in, how message is delivered). So beyond the referential function, this guy said there's a poetical function (rhyme, meter, etc.).

Paul Grice

Author referenced in Briggs reading. Said the unmarked form of language is the referential meaning (i.e., "I'm sorry" said in a normal tone). Marked form is the form you vary from the default to mark the additional meaning (i.e., "I'm so sorry" said sarcastically). Briggs says that the performer of the proverb observes how the receiver is acting and modifies their performance accordingly (in other words, do they get it?). When you deliver a proverb and people get it, that's the unmarked form. When you have to explain it, that's the marked form.

Legend functions

BOTE (belief, outlet for social anxieties, taboo topics able to be explored, entertainment and one-upsmanship Express, contest, and confirm belief Outlet for social anxieties Forum to bring up and explore taboo topics Entertainment and social one-upsmanship

Common contemporary legends

Bosom serpents — legend about someone who swallows an animal, often about a woman that makes her look pregnant. The animal has to be coaxed out. These date from the Middle Ages Poisoned garments — some versions involve vintage dresses that are from corpses, and they still have the formaldehyde Poison damsels — women who have somehow absorbed poison without dying, and now they poison others. This idea of a poisonous person relates to AIDS legends; you can't necessarily tell from looking at someone if they're dangerous Blood libel legend — especially present in Middle Ages, idea that Jews had to kill Christians and use their blood for matzah

Function

COVE (conformity, outlet, validation, education) What folklore communicates for its carriers and how it works within a group. In addition to entertainment, folklore general serves these four goals: 1. Education (pneumonic devices, stories that scare children into behaving properly) 2. Validation of culture and societal norms 3. Maintaining conformity and exerting social pressure 4. Providing a release, an outlet, and wish fulfillment (fan fiction is wish fulfillment, telling racist jokes is an outlet for people's "dark sides" without having to take credit for it, superstition gives you illusion of control over your life)

Verbal Folklore

Communicated in language (oral or written) Study of Language = linguistics study of folklore = folkloristics Commonalities between linguistics and folkloristics: Descriptive rather than prescriptive. Not talking about good and bad speech ("this is how you should talk in an interview"), just documenting. Interest in patterns, transmission, variation over time/space Metalanguage (language about language) interests linguists, metafolklore (memes about memes) interests folklorists.

Functions of belly dance

Flexible engagement (can be as low or high impact as you want, for fun or at pro level, and can be done alone or in a group) Opportunity to express oneself creatively Material culture of dance often intrigues people (costumes, hair choices, props, etc.) Multicultural dance — sense of rootedness, connection (exploring embodiment, as in Bock/Borland reading, and spiritual dimensions, as in Jorgensen reading) Rewarding: one's technique improves with time and practice, costumes can be chosen to flatter anyone

Personal narrative

Folk narrative relating a true personal experience, told in the first person, that has become traditional to the teller. This means that the teller repeats in enough that you can analyze the variation. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. A conflict is set up and resolved. Content: unique to the individual Context: informal situations, usually stories in a personal repertoire (a list of pieces that are usually performed by a singer/actor/etc. OR the body of work of an artist) Form: not highly structured Structure: often (mono)episodic like legends; variable in form and length; good tellers will emphasize story's climax, narrative tension Texture: use of formulas that become traditional Function: for whom?

Functions and messages of Obama/Biden memes

Functions: Entertainment (duh) Validation of a set of values: tolerance (as opposed to Pence's homophobia), intellect, playfulness, nerdiness Release valve for frustrations about election Criticism of power and hierarchy Social bonding (testing the waters to see if other people hate Trump too) Trickster Biden's messages: Trump is physically and intellectually unfit to be president (you have to replace the doorknobs for his tiny hands, etc.) Obama and Biden are just like "us" (folk groups circulating internet memes: nerds who get pop culture references to Harry Potter, etc.) Masculinity and affection/love are not mutually exclusive, and a simple (homophobic) reading misses the complexity of reality, mocking Pence Humor is an appropriate (perhaps the only) response to bigotry and wrongdoing Trickster stories emerge at transitional times (tricksters often appear when death enters the world)

Legend

Genre of folk narrative, usually told in third person. Believed tales that might have happened in the world of their tellers. Happen after the start of recorded history. Examples: George Washington and the cherry tree, urban ___s. Not every teller believes this, but it's stuff that could believed given the cultures' worldviews.

Myth

Genre of folk narrative. A sacred narrative about the creation of the world. It's everything before recorded history, in mythic time rather than human calendar time. Usually imbued with some kind of ritual and/or connected to religion, and generally cosmological (about origin of earth or universe). Examples: Some ancient Greek ones (the ones about Gaia, the Titans, etc.), the creation ___ in Genesis Primary function: validation of social norms. You strengthen tradition and endow it with a greater value and prestige by tracing it back to a higher, better, more supernatural reality of initial events.

Fable

Genre of folktale, and thus of folk narrative. Animal tales with a moral; these are different from legends because they could not have happened (animals don't talk)

Fairy tale

Genre of folktale, and thus of folk narrative. Narrative that involves magic.

Folklore

Informal traditional culture. It's unofficially transmitted, and it's characterized by variation. Because it is transmitted unofficially, it has to be relevant and respond to societal anxieties/needs/concerns, and it dies when it no longer speaks to these concerns. It also relates to group identity, and is shared among "folk groups."

Cultural appropriation

Insights from folklore studies: Tradition is invented, every single one has a start date Culture is dynamic, constantly changing and being reinvented How to determine cultural ownership? Considerations: Public vs. private Secular vs. sacred Power dynamic between donor and borrowing cultures

Lecture notes on Briggs reading

Linguistic features accompany the proverb text in performance and are instrumental to defining it Importance of cultural context and ethnography Interrelationship between text, texture, and context You need contextual information, proverb collection alone is basically useless Key features: Tying phrase — phrase that introduces proverb Identity of "owner" Quotative Proverb text Special association Meaning or hypothetical situation Relevance to context Validation — listener must affirm that they understand

Proverb

Metaphorical statement of traditional wisdom Ex: "Don't cry over spilt milk" Form = topic + comment In "time flies," "time" is the topic while "flies" is the comment. These are mostly fixed-phrase, so where's the variation? Answer: context and meaning change over time.

Fixed-phrase vs. free-phrase

One means it has to be the same exact wording in the same exact order ("once upon a time," "happily ever after," "on fleek," "face the music"); the other you have some freedom (jokes or urban legends that you can tell in your own words)

Synchronic

One of the approaches to myths. Involves disregarding cultural context and time. Can be thought of as one end of a spectrum with its opposite.

Diachronic

One of the approaches to myths. Involves taking a historical lens to something, and looking at how it's changed over time. Can be thought of as one end of a spectrum with its opposite.

Myth-ritual theory

One of the approaches to myths. The idea that there's a relationship between myths and rituals, and perhaps myths came from trying to justify rituals, or vice versa. Interesting, but hard to prove.

culture-reflector theory

One of the approaches to myths. The idea that we can look at myths and learn about those cultures very directly (which is sometimes the case but not always)

folktales are evolved myths hypothesis

One of the assumptions involved in the study of myths. Idea that folktales are just broken down myths put together, which is why you have elements of the supernatural (the Grimms thought this). This is largely considered BS.

Unilinear evolution

One of the assumptions involved in the study of myths. The idea that there's an innately correct direction of human evolution leading to civilization. This is Western-centric, racist, and biased. There's also the idea that people at the same rung of the ladder as other people are similar and have similar folklore (European peasants' folklore can teach us about Native American folklore). Also believed that civilized people had less folklore than savages or barbarians. This idea came about in 1800s, it's bullshit. Here are the rungs: Savagery — worst human traits Barbarism — some trappings of civilization Civilization — art, laws, language, etc.

The Finnish/comparative/historic-geographic method

Pioneered by the Krohns father-son duo. Goals: 1. Understanding age and distribution of a folkloric type (all the variants of a piece of folklore) 2. Reconstructing the "original" version (Ur-form). This is near impossible, though, so a lot of focus now is instead on why current iterations of folklore are relevant today. 3. Tracing the evolution of subtypes Pros: 1. Encourages scholars to think globally — the French didn't invent Cinderella, it exists all over the world. 2. Unique contribution to folklore studies 3. Helps isolate ecotypes and thus furthers study of worldview in context (i.e., these peoples' ecotype is very concerned with kinship) Cons: 1. Most projects become unmanageably huge 2. Makes assumptions about an "original" text, and wastes lots of time trying to find it 3. Superorganic in nature (weird/problematic idea that texts exist independently of their makers) 4. Doesn't contribute to study of meaning, just about transmission Based on the bogus "devolutionary premise," which is why it's trying to find the original text. Side note: Places that are/were colonized/oppressed care a lot about folklore as a way of asserting their strong sense of cultural identity. Finland falls in this category because it was part of Russia.

Contemporary/ urban legends

Set in present time/place (often urban setting) Features themes and elements of modern life (fast food, city living, fast paced lifestyles) Story is said to be true, often happens to a FOAF (friend of a friend). This is an appeal to authority — "this happened to someone I know." Can be disseminated by word of mouth or mass media Extraordinary things happening to ordinary people A focus on the upsetting or grotesque Shifts away from traditional culture and the rise of modernity cause folklore to warn about them.

Narrative prosthesis

The idea that the main character of a fairy tale is in some way incomplete (link drawn between lack of personal development and character's lack of limb), and that he/she has to be completed to be whole again (limb restored)

Editorial prosthesis

The idea that the text we have is imperfect, and we're trying to get at perfect/whole text

"Appropriate incongruity"

The idea that things are funny with just enough incongruity (i.e., Vice President Biden pulling silly pranks)

Ostension

The process through which people live out legend. Associated folklore genres: pranks, rites of passage, personal narratives, saying Bloody Mary in front of a mirror. Also trying to avoid a legend counts as ostension, such as not stepping on cracks. Subtype: legend tripping — seeking out places associated with legends

Folk simile

Using "like" or "as" in a folkloristic comparison (i.e., "as white as snow"), or just using any connective. Kelly Revak says we should use this term when it's unclear which box something goes in. Structure: subject, attribute, connective, vehicle. Example: John (subject) is as clumsy (attribute) as (connective) a bull in a china shop (vehicle). The connective doesn't have to be like or as though. Connectives: As... as (as slick as snot) Like (he eats like a pig) ...er than (slower than molasses in January) More... than (more fun than a barrel of monkeys) (adjective) enough to (verb) a (noun) (that's gross enough to gag a maggot) Worth (he isn't worth his salt) Know... from (he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground) So... that (he's so weak he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag) If... (if brains were gunpowder, you wouldn't have enough to blow your nose) ALSO if the connective is missing but you can add it logically, it's still a folk simile

Worldview

paradigm or belief system; encompasses morality, causality, aesthetics, etc. Folklorist Barre Toelken: "A language not only communicates, it articulates a ____." We all participate in multiple folk groups so we often have contradictory ______s.