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2025 Spring

FOLKLORE AND MYTHOLOGY - HSS310/HUM510 Spring 2025


Course
Joanna Srholec Skorzewska
For information about registration please contact our admissions.

Folklore — the oral traditions of a people — informs the arts, politics, and many other areas of human endeavor. Myth is a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that seemingly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. The term mythology denotes both the study of myth and the body of myths belonging to a particular religious tradition. The study of folklore and mythology is truly interdisciplinary, involving anthropology, history, literature, music, sociology, and the arts. This course will introduce students to a wide range of oral, customary and material folklore genres, and to the study of mythology as the source of cultural and historical knowledge. Keywords: orality, literacy, memory, context.

 

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Here is the course outline:

1. Lesson 1 (Feb. 3): What's Folklore? What's Mythology?

How do folklorists define folklore? How do they collect, classify, and analyze it? What are the approaches towards mythology?

2. Lesson 2 (Feb. 10): Ancient Near Eastern Creation Myths

Ancient tablets containing some of the world’s earliest recorded tales, discovered in the 19th century, sparked a controversy over the origins of Judeo-Christian myth. Also, a leading folklorist suggests ways to consider such myths today.

3. Lesson 3 (Feb. 17): Ancient Greek and Roman Myths I

Titanic clashes, dueling deities.

4. Lesson 4 (Feb. 24): Ancient Greek and Roman Myths II

Horny deities, hapless humans.

5. Lesson 5 (March 3): Norse Myths

Visions of Doom: Seeresses, Trickster Gods, Berserks.

6. Lesson 6 (March 10): Ancient Mesoamerican Myths

An examination of Náhuatl and other ancient Mesoamerican myth, including justifications for human sacrifice. Also, one enduring and terrifying Mexican legend rooted in those myths.

7. Lesson 7 (March 17): Northwest Native American Myths

Tales of creators, tricksters and culture heroes.

8. Lesson 8 (March 31): Folktales I

Meaning and structure in folktales.

9. Lesson 9 (April 7): Folktales II

Meaning and structure in folktales.

10. Lesson 10 (April 14): Legends and Superstitions

We’ll examine a European place legend, an Appalachian ghost legend, and a contemporary teenagers’ legend-superstition as a way of defining this elusive folklore genre.

11. Lesson 11 (April 28): Ballads

An examination of a range of European, British and American ballads, which are a musical form of narrative oral folklore.

12. Lesson 12 (May 5): Proverbs, Riddles and Other Folk Speech.

The wisdom of many, the wit of one.

13. Lesson 13 (May 12): Folk Groups and Customary Folklore

An introduction to non-verbal folklore and case studies of multiple genres of folklore within a single folk group.

14. Lesson 14 (May 19): Visit to the Ethnographic Museum in Prague

We will have a guided tour at the Ethnographic Museum where we will get more familiar with various customs and traditions from the Czech lands and examine various artefacts related to them.
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