Category: Folklore Mythology

By B. G. Hewitt

By Gregory McNamee

Following the version of the medieval Latin bestiaries, Gregory McNamee has written a publication instantly naturalistic, folkloristic, and literary, made from brief essays on forty-three animals of the world’s deserts. those essays speak about the creatures as they're and as they're imagined, and produce their common lives and histories vividly to the web page.

By Sadhana Naithani

In The Story-Time of the British Empire, writer Sadhana Naithani examines folklore collections compiled by means of British colonial directors, army males, missionaries, and ladies within the British colonies of Africa, Asia, and Australia among 1860 and 1950. a lot of this paintings was once finished within the context of colonial kinfolk and performed through non-folklorists, but those oral narratives and poetic expressions of non-Europeans have been transcribed, translated, released, and mentioned the world over. Naithani analyzes the function of folklore scholarship within the development of colonial cultural politics in addition to within the belief of overseas folklore stories. in view that so much folklore scholarship and cultural historical past focuses completely on particular international locations, there's little learn of cross-cultural phenomena approximately empire and/or postcoloniality. Naithani argues that connecting cultural histories, in particular when it comes to formerly colonized international locations, is vital to knowing these nations' folklore, as those people traditions outcome from either inner and eu impact. the writer additionally makes transparent the function folklore and its research performed in shaping intercultural perceptions that survive within the educational and renowned nation-states this present day. The Story-Time of the British Empire is a daring argument for a twenty-first-century imaginative and prescient of folklore reviews that's foreign in scope and that is familiar with folklore as a transnational entity.

By Peter Day

Within the glossy international vampires are available all varieties: they are often perpetrators or sufferers, metaphors or monsters, scapegoats for sinfulness or mirrors of our personal evil. What turns into visible from the scope of the fifteen essays during this assortment is that vampires have infiltrated near to each sector of pop culture and cognizance. in reality, the best way that vampires are depicted in every kind of media is usually a telling signifier of the fears and expectancies of a tradition or group and how that it perceives itself; and others. The volume’s essays provide a desirable perception into either vampires themselves and the cultures that envisage them.

By Richard Freeman

Every person has heard of vampires and werewolves, yet what percentage have heard of the rokuro-kubi, the tsuchinoki or the sagari? Japan has a wealth of ghosts and monsters, jointly known as yokai, that are completely unknown within the West. the weird and lovely folklore of Japan contains immense corpse-eating rabbits, flaming pigs that thieve human genitals, perverse water goblins, blood sucking bushes, a dragon that impregnates girls, cats who animate lifeless our bodies, a zombie whale and a tremendous flesh consuming sea cucumber that grows from a couple of discarded knickers!

By Gregory Schrempp

By Martin P. Nilsson

"In the wide literature on the subject of historic Greece, there's no paintings that serves the needs of this quantity. A Swedish proverb speaks of putting the church in the midst of the village, and that's accurately what Nilsson has right here performed. Homer and Hesiod shaped the foundation of the conventional schooling of the Greeks quite often, and the good gods and goddesses as they seem in artwork exhibit normally the formative impact of the epic culture. however, the difficult middle of Greek faith is to be present in its observances: those took their form between males whose concentration used to be first the fireside after which the city-state, males furthermore whose lifestyles and livelihood have been tied to plants and herds and the yearly cycle of nature."—Arthur Darby Nock, from the ForewordMartin Nilsson writes in regards to the well known non secular observances of the Greeks, as practiced either previous within the 20th century and in classical occasions, the rural fairs and customs, the rituals of relations and society. the folks religions of Greece that underlay and always erupted into the extra "elevated" Olympian mythology of Homer and Hesiod are defined intimately through a pupil with unprecedented knowing of the rites and customs of rural existence.

By Andrew Von Hendy

"... one of many richest, clearest, and acutest surveys to this point of the process theorizing approximately fantasy from the eighteenth century on. i do know of not more precious quantity at the subject. regardless of the postmodern connotations of the identify, Von Hendy is writing to not disclose the idea that of fantasy yet just to exhibit the array of ways that it's been used every now and then and from position to put. an outstanding work." -- Robert A. Segal, collage of Lancaster, writer of Theorizing approximately MythAndrew Von Hendy bargains an built-in serious account of the occupation of fable in modernity. he's taking as its start line a few the most important moments in the 18th-century reinvention of the idea that after which follows the key branches of theorizing as they seem within the paintings of theologians, philosophers, literary artists, political thinkers, folklorists, anthropologists, psychologists, and others.Von Hendy pursues every one of those 4 basic lines of idea during the twentieth century: the increase of neo-romantic theories extensive psychology, modernist literature, and later in spiritual phenomenology, philosophy, and literary feedback; the institution of folkloristic conception in ethnological fieldwork and in classical experiences; the expansion of ideological theories from Sorel to Barthes and Derrida; and the hot ascent of constitutive theories of fable as beneficial fiction. ultimately, Von Hendy examines the paintings of 5 theorists who try to come to phrases with the teachings of the ideological critique, but regard delusion as a confident phenomenon.

By Russell Frank

Newslore is folklore that reviews on and hinges on wisdom of present occasions. those expressions are available in many varieties: jokes, city legends, digitally altered pictures, mock information tales, press releases or interoffice memoranda, parodies of songs, poems, political and advertisement ads, motion picture previews and posters, nonetheless or lively cartoons, and brief live-action films.In Newslore: Folklore on the web and within the information, writer Russell Frank bargains a image of the goods of newslore disseminated through the net that won the widest foreign money round the flip of the millennium. one of the newsmakers lampooned in e-mails and on the internet have been invoice and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Osama bin encumbered and Saddam Hussein, and such media celebrities as Princess Diana and Michael Jackson. The e-book additionally appears on the folks reaction to the September eleven assaults and typhoon Katrina, in addition to the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.Frank analyzes this fabric through tracing every one merchandise again to the inside track tale it refers to looking for clues as to what, precisely, the thing unearths concerning the public's reaction. His argument all through is that newslore is a really important and revelatory gauge for public response to present occasions and a useful reveal seize of the most recent zeitgeist.

By Martha Sims, Martine Stephens

Dwelling Folklore is a complete, trouble-free creation to folklore because it is lived, shared and practiced in modern settings. Drawing on examples from varied American teams and reviews, this article supplies the coed a powerful foundation—from the field’s heritage and significant phrases to theories, interpretive ways, and fieldwork. Many academics of undergraduates locate the to be had folklore textbooks too complicated or unwieldy for an introductory point direction. it really is accurately this feedback that dwelling Folklore addresses; whereas finished and rigorous, the e-book is in particular meant to satisfy the wishes of these scholars who're simply starting their learn of the self-discipline. Its genuine power lies in the way it combines conscientiously articulated foundational thoughts with correct examples and a student-oriented instructing philosophy.