New Directions for the Study of American Folklore

Abstract

academic folklore conferences: folk singers, storytellers, students of jazz and hillbilly music, and writers of children's books. Next he traced progress in collecting, archiving, advancing theories, and publishing folklore. Then Thompson stressed the need to formulate a better definition of folklore, and he emphasized the relationship of folklore theory, method, and materials to other disciplines. Some of his observations were startling; he said that 'We have not at all decided what we mean by folklore... there is now no agreement by American folklorists as to what we are talking about.' Thompson further remarked that 'In some ways we seem to go in circles, so that the hard-won assumptions of one generation cease to be valid in another and we have to go back and debate the same problems that our ancestors thought they had settled.' Concluding, Thompson spoke positively; he said, '... we will doubltess have a great deal of debate... before we know definitely where we are going... [but] there is so much vigor in folklore studies that we may well be optimistic about their future in the United States during the new half-century.' Whether nearly two decades later this optimism seems justified is debatable. Many American folklorists deny that we now know