Alan Dundes Research Articles

Propuesta metodológica para el estudio de la presencia del folclore infantil en obras literarias.

En este artículo presentamos un método de investigación en tres fases para el estudio de la presencia del folclore infantil en obras literarias denominado ‘Modelo trifásico para el estudio del Folclore Infantil en la literatura’, teniendo en cuenta los referentes previos de Alan Dundes (1965), Maxime Chevalier (1978), Neil Grobman (1979) y Montserrat Amores (1993). En la primera fase de identificación (rastreo y cotejo) destacamos la utilidad de los informantes como colaboradores necesarios en esta tarea. En la segunda fase de nuestro modelo, fase de análisis, hemos adaptado la Técnica de Rejilla, propia del campo de la psicología, creando una herramienta novedosa para la investigación literaria denominada rejilla de análisis. Su aplicación nos permitirá realizar un estudio pormenorizado, tanto cualitativo como cuantitativo, de las muestras del folclore infantil encontradas en la literatura. Finalmente, en la fase de interpretación, proponemos la conjunción de tres teorías literarias distintas (transtextualidad, método biográfico y teorías psicoanalíticas) para reflexionar sobre el tema y extraer conclusiones.

Makna dan Fungsi Mantra Kejawen Aji Seduluran bagi Kehidupan Kolektif Masyarakat Kecamatan Pager Rejo Kabupaten Mojokerto Jawa Timur

This study talks about of Javanese spells which is still believed by the people of Pager Rejo Village, District of Mojokerto, East Java. This study aims to reveal the meaning and the function of the spell named Aji Seduluran which is still believed by those people. This study uses qualitative research method with two theories, the theory of Alan Dundes is used as the reference for the function of the spell, and the theory of Roland Barthes is used as the reference for the meaning of the spell. Some aspects that will be studied are used to reveal the function and the meaning of Aji Seduluran spell based on the tradition of the people of Pager Rejo Village. The data that have been collected are the spell and the pronunciation to the related people, and some explanations of the people about the origin and the function of the spell for the related people. The data source used in this study is the spell which is believed by the people of the Pager Rejo Village. The result of this study is revealing the meaning and the function of the spell itself. Keywords : Javanese Spells, Oral Poetry, Javanese Society DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23960/aksara/v19i2.pp89-97

“Here is our man”: Dundes Discovered, The Development of the Folklore Program at the University of California, Berkeley

Abstract This paper focuses on the recruitment of Alan Dundes to the University of California, Berkeley, and his work with William Bascom in founding the Folklore Program. Using primarily the William Bascom Papers and the Alan Dundes Papers housed in the Bancroft Library, the paper stresses the personal voice in the history of folklore, which draws on the spoken word of the participants in the making of academic history. Here, the term “spoken word” is used broadly to encompass correspondence, interviews, and personal reflections. The goal is to present the immediacy and the excitement of the participants who created this program in folklore.

FUNGSI SASTRA LISAN “TANDUK” MASYARAKAT GENAHARJO KABUPATEN TUBAN BAGI MASYARAKAT PENDUKUNGNYA

Abstract This study aims to investigate the function of “tanduk” oral literature for its society. In this case, the people in question are society Genaharjo of Tuban district. Through the use of the theory of functions Alan Dundes and William R. Bascom, it is understood that the “tanduk” has a function of oral literature that focuses as the teaching and interdependence among societies that emphasize the benefits of practicality. “Tanduk” oral literature function is the function of propaganda, the function of social solidarity and an antidote to individualism, and the function of education in the socialization of values. The overall function of shaping identity in order to establish harmony in social life.Keywords: function, Genaharjo society, tanduk oral literature

The Waters of Mendangumeli: A Masculine Psychoanalytic Interpretation of a New Guinea Flood Myth—and Women’s Laughter

Abstract This article corroborates Alan Dundes’s psychoanalytic interpretation of flood myths as expressing male envy of female fertility and birth. My data consist of two deluge tales collected in a Sepik River society in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and 1994. But I do more than simply test Dundes’s thesis. I also show that it is possible and, indeed, imperative to embed psychoanalytic analyses of oral tales in the local cultural context. I also update, in a sense, Dundes’s framework with insights from Lacanian and feminist anthropology. Last, I discuss how Iatmul women respond--both to the tale and its psychodynamic innuendo.

Introduction: New Perspectives on the Studies of Asian American Folklores

The ultimate goal of the differences between us and them is to achieve a harmony that preserves these differences.-Author's noteTHE PURPOSE OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE Journal of Folklore (JAF) is to advocate, to the academic and public sectors, that (1) the commonly classified (by the US census) are to be recognized and acknowledged as diverse within and integral to the traditionally defined American groups; and (2) as such, their are rightfully to be studied as legitimate fields of scholarship; and, subsequently, (3) relevant methodologies are to be developed to facilitate the study of the of Asian groups. Despite the fast-growing population and wide-ranging impact of Asian in everyday life in the United States, efforts to acknowledge the rightful place of Asian within the field of are long overdue.The importance of recognizing Asian Americans as groups as legitimate as those traditionally defined in folkloristics compels the authors herein first to define who the are and what constitutes their in both a folkloristic context and an social context, and, second, to explore what methodologies are best suited to the study of their folklores. In the Asian and their we are reminded that, as the folklorist Elliott Oring points out: [Folk groups] do not exist until someone claims that they exist. . . . Ethnic like other can exist only after a claim has been made for their existence (1986:25). The concept of Asian Americans as lacks clarity; it is, therefore, valid to question the completeness and inclusiveness of their academic representations. This kind of questioning of the academic treatment of newly recognized has been done by John Roberts for African Americans as a (1993:158-9); by Flores, for Latinos (1997); by Clarke, for the Yoruba (2004); and by Rivera-Servera, through proposing the idea of productive frictions, for other diversities (2012). Clearly, any discussion of the 'American community' must be inclusive (Flores 1997:184) of not only the Euro-American, the African American, and the Latino, but also the Asian communities. In fact, the authors in this volume believe that Asian have already defined who they are by their practices, as reflected in literary (Hagedorn 1993, 2004) and ethnic studies (Takaki 1987, 1993). One task in this volume is to further the effort of defining through (Dundes 1983), considering it as a paradigm shift (in Thomas Kuhn's sense) along the notion of folkloric identity (more discussion in the section called Challenges in this Introduction, and in Juwen Zhang's article in this issue of JAF). What we see as the marginalizing of Asian Americans and their is inseparable from the marginalizing of the many important and long-term contributions Asian Americans have made in areas of society.We realize that there are two problems in using terms like and folklore: (1) the terms ignore the diversity among various Asian and the diversity within each Asian group, and (2) the terms reinforce stereotypes like all Asian (or Chinese) Americans are the same in doing such and such. Thus we currently are forced to use such terms as folklores, folklore, groups, or folklores of Asian groups in various contexts-until better, more appropriate terms have been coined. Here, we rely on Alan Dundes's definition of folk being any of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor (1965:2; emphasis in original), Noyes's notion that a group has common practices (1995:449), and Ben-Amos's statement that folklore is artistic communication in small groups (1972:12). …

Alessandro Falassi (1945–2014)

Written on November 2, 2014 (All Souls' Day)Alessandro Falassi passed away on February 19, 2014, in his beloved Siena, italy. he is survived by his wife, chiara, and son, Giovanni. Falassi published widely (in italy, Spain, France, Germany, england, and the united States) on social history, anthropology, and folklore, focusing especially on ritual and festival. he was best known for his study of one of italy's most extraordinary historic festivals: La Terra in Piazza: An Interpretation of the Palio of Siena (coauthored with Alan Dundes; berkeley: university of california Press, 1975; winner of the 1976 chicago Folklore Prize).As an empathetic field researcher as well as a sophisticated theorist, he continued to produce significant publications on italian folklore: Folklore by the Fireside: Text and Context of the Tuscan Veglia (Austin: university of texas Press, 1980); La Santa dell'Oca. Vita, morte e miracoli di Caterina da Siena (Saint of the Goose: life, Death, and miracles of catherine of Siena) (milano: mondadori, 1980); Italian Folklore: An Annotated Bibliography (new york: Garland, 1985); La festa (editor) (milano: electa, 1988); En la Mesa con Rossini (Dinner with rossini) (barcelona: Galaxia Gutemberg, 1993); Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival (editor) (Albuquerque: university of new mexico Press, 1987); Tradizioni italiane: Codici, percorsi e linguaggi (italian traditions: codes, currents, And languages) (editor) (Siena: uniStrA, 1992)-to which i contributed an essay on italian folk song; Culture Shock! Italy: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (coauthored with raymond Flower), which has enjoyed four editions (Portland, or: Graphic Arts center, and Singapore: marshall cavendish editions, 1994-2008); and my favorite: Pan che canti vin che salti: cucina ricca e cucina povera del Chianti (bread That Sings, Wine That leaps: cuisine of rich and Poor in the chianti region), co-authored with riccardo Di corato and chef Pierluigi Stiaccini (mantua: i torchi chiantigiani, 1979). From 1988-1990, he directed the filming of italian festivals for the italian ministry of culture.Since 1980, Falassi made his academic base Siena's university for Foreigners, where he taught folklore and anthropology, serving as its director from 1985 to 1992. but cosmopolitan as he was, he also taught at the university of urbino, at the university of california berkeley, and uclA, as well as at the university of colorado and the university of texas, and in the Semesters at Sea around-the-world programs for the university of colorado and the university of Pittsburgh. …

Little Red Riding Hood: Victimage in Folktales and Cinema—A Case Study

Abstract In this paper we attempt to interpret Little Red Riding Hood’s most famous variants in light of its recent film adaptations. With reference to René Girard’s theory of sacrifice, we will argue that the latest one of these, Catherine Hardwicke’s 2011 adaptation offers the chance to see in Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” the result of a diachronical evolution in four steps of the misrecognizing narration of a collective lynching, a full-fledged scapegoating of an anonymous villager accused and persecuted as werewolf. We will find further support in Vladimir Propp’s and Alan Dundes’s contributions.

Narrative Cultures in the Mirror

This new journal, Narrative Culture, widens scope of studies to embrace traditional narratives across media and in various forms of cultural expression. Following this trend, I use plural form narrative to address studies across cultures. Almost thirty years ago, Alan Dundes recalled that anthropologists and folklorists need to engage in bold and imaginative forms of comparative method if they are to get beyond data-gathering or data amassing (139), and his remark remains true today. A comparative approach to stories, and their cultural contexts, is crucial in order to understand particular themes and to gain insight into workings of human imagination. At its best, intercultural comparison offers a chance to gain insights into vernacular cultures and to overstep boundaries of common sense so as to think out of box, ask fresh questions, imagine new problems.And yet comparative approach is not without its dangers. All too often, folklorists and anthropologists turn narratives brimming with conceptual chal- lenges into reflections of their own common sense. In Through Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll nicely explains how this principle works. As Alice stands in front of her drawing-room mirror, she speculates that image in mirror is a glimpse of an alien place she calls Looking-Glass House, where there's room you can see through glass-that's just same as our drawing-room, only things go other way (133). There, the books are something like our books, only words go wrong way. It follows (although Carroll leaves inference to us) that to decipher those books you simply have to put their words back in proper order so as to find your own script. According to this analogy, I call academic effort to find in alien settings reiteration of things already known.Instances of looking-glass scholarship are rather pervasive in disciplines that rely heavily on typologies, such as folkloristics (where drive to fit protean data into standard genres, types, and motifs is ongoing) and anthropology (where different cultures often illustrate predefined social types). In this essay I address an exemplary case of looking-glass scholarship. I examine how a short article by Claude Levi-Strauss, called Goodbye to Cross-Cousin, deals with a complex from a remote culture-The Tale of Genji, an eleventh-century Japanese literary masterpiece by Murasaki Shikibu.1 My subject is interaction (or lack thereof) between a hailing from classic tradition of Western anthropology and a literary work from Heian Japan.2 Sir Edmund Leach has put on record that is to Levi-Strauss's lasting credit that he has made it once again intellectually respectable to indulge in broad cross-cultural comparisons in an- thropology (xvi), and Levi-Strauss himself explained that his method is about using differences to think about commonalities (L'Homme 32-33). And yet, arguably, what he says about Genji resonates with a leitmotif of Western thought rather than with anything Japanese.Looking-Glass AnthropologySo my tale of two cultures deals with refracted meanings. In a sense this is inevitable because anthropology is an exercise in mirroring identities (and same goes for folkloristics). As Clifford Geertz memorably put it,Know what [the anthropologist] thinks a savage is and you have key to his work. You know what he thinks he himself is and, knowing what he thinks he himself is, you know in general what sort of thing he is going to say about whatever tribe he happens to be studying. (346)It is true that early anthropologists have set up stage for their speculations by means of a stable contrast between two essences, them and us. Take three short examples. Lewis Henry Morgan, who aggregated humankind into and modern societies, depicted lowest reaches of ancient society in terms of scant notions, promiscuous sexual mingling, and collective property (41, 384, 535). …

Enigma as a Literary Device in Native American Folklore: Jarold Ramsey’s Analysis of Two Clackamas Chinook Tales

This paper discusses Jarold Ramsey's classic article, The Wife Who Goes Out Like a Man, Comes Back as a Hero: The Art of Two Oregon Indian Narratives. It analyzes Ramsey's arguments against the backdrop of Alan Dundes's work in Native American folklore as well as more recent controversies in this field. Some scholars, such as Dundes, have attempted to vindicate Native American folklore against Eurocentric criticism by fitting it into Western literary molds. Ramsey, on the other hand, brings to light the distinctive aesthetic qualities of two tales from the Pacific Northwest by recognizing the ways in which these narratives often stray from the literary expectations of Western readers. In this respect, Ramsey's approach is preferable to that of Dundes, and it provides a model for the careful, aesthetically oriented analysis of the idiosyncratic features of indi- vidual folklore traditions.

Takers Keepers, Losers Weepers: Theft as Customary Play in the Southern Philippines

This article presents ethnographic findings from the north - west coastal region of Mindanao, the largest island in the Southern Philippines. I argue that street-level theft (pickpocketing, land squatting, and kidnapping) can be seen as emerging, at least in part, from custom - ary norms based in what Alan Dundes might term folk ideas. Time- honored behavior patterns conveyed by word of mouth include getting something for nothing ( pa-bukongay), being street smart ( pa-abtikay), and being first (pa-unahay). These locally resonant ideas influence the kinds of behaviors that are tolerated in children and adults, and they should be considered as important independent variables when attempting to understand definitions of and motivations for theft in this region. Other than the major forms of assault and battery, there are likely few wrongs as disturbing to local Filipinos as having a pocket picked, having someone squat on your land, or becoming the victim of kidnapping. Such unlawful behavior is quite distressing when one is the victim, even though (as I will demonstrate below) this kind of criminal activity is sometimes also viewed with amusement or as sport. These outwardly unrelated crimes are notable for two reasons: they occur relatively often along the northwest region of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, and they all involve a type of theft—of purse, of land, or of body. Furthermore, these thefts can be abrupt, causing

Mourners and “Murthers”: Stephen Dedalus's Riddle in NESTOR

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: foxJames JoycemourningJahan Ramazaniriddle Notes 1. See Hill (333, 338) and Zimmerman (66), who problematically invoke the story about Joyce's refusal to pray at his own mother's deathbed in order to confirm Stephen's guilty conscience. 2. Alan Dundes proposes another source for the fox in “Nestor”: “The Robber Bridegroom” of the Aarne-Thompson classification of folktales, type number 955 (see Ashliman). In this tale, a fox almost buries his new wife before his secret is discovered (Dundes 138). Dundes reads this subtext in Stephen's riddle and suggests that the exchange of the lover for the mother betrays an Oedipal system of desire.

Prologue: Defining Myth: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Storytelling and Myth

Storytelling, Self, Society, 7:85-90, 201 1 Copyright©Taylor &Francis Group, LLC ISSN1550-5340 print /1932-0280 online DOI:10.1080/15505340.201 1.560799 Ö Routledge Taylor &Francis Group Prologue: Defining Myth: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Storytelling and Myth JohnS. Gentile Human beings have always been mythmakers. - Karen Armstrong Approaching myth requires anembrace ofparadox. - Glen Slater andDennis Patrick Slattery Storytelling andmyth areinextricably intertwined. Often considered as "sacred narrative" or"culturally important stories" suchdefinitions ofmyth demonstrate that eventhough mythemes (essential kernels ofmyth) maybecarried byimages, suchas paintings andsculptures, myth itself presupposes andrequires narrative. Myth isnotoriously difficult todefine.1 "There isnoonedefinition ofmyth," as G.S. Kirk hassaid,"noPlatonic form ofa myth against which allactualinstances canbemeasured" (7). Myth resists stable boundaries andis,ultimately, anessentially contested concept.2 "It wouldbe niceto beginwitha clearandconcise definition of 4 myth,"' BruceLincolnadmits attheopening ofTheorizing Myth: Narrative ,Ideology ,andScholarship ,"butunfortunately that can'tbedone"(ix). Whileacknowledging thechallenges ofdefinition, I ultimately agreewith Wendy Donigher O'Flahery;whileitmaybe "impossible to define a myth," itis also "cowardly nottotry"(25). Myth- as a term, as a concept, andas a fieldof study - ismultivalent andambiguous, andlikeitsmany narratives holdstogether binary opposites that enrich itsstudy andenliven itsdiscussion. Perhaps myth's major paradox maybethat itcanmeaneither truth or(particularly incasualconversation ) falsehood. "Tobeginwith a definition," argues EricCsapoinTheories ofMyth, is "in an important senseto beginat theend" (1). Therefore, rather thanposita monolithic definition at theopeningof thisissue of Storytelling, Self Society on storytelling and myth - whichwouldriskpremature closure - I instead invite in other voicesto opena conversation. Herearejusta few Address correspondence toJohn S.Gentile, Chair, Department ofTheatre, Performance Studies and Dance, Kennesaw State University, 1000 Chastain Road, MD#3103, Kennesaw, GA30144. E-mail: jgentile@kennesaw.edu 86 GENTILE ofthescholars pastandpresent whocometothestudy ofmyth from a variety ofbackgrounds, disciplines, andperspectives; their braveattempts atdefinition maystimulate thethinking ofthereaders ofthisspecialissuebefore turning tothe featured essays.Someofthosedefinitions include: Walter Burkert : Myth isa traditional talewith secondary, partial reference to something ofcollective importance (23). Wendy Donigher Amyth isa story that issacred toandshared bya group of O'Flahery: peoplewhofind their most important meanings init;itis a story believed tohavebeencomposed inthepastabout anevent inthepast, ormore rarely, inthefuture, anevent that continues tohavemeaning inthepresent because itis remembered; itis a story that is part ofa larger group of stories (27). Robert Segal:I propose that toqualify as a myth, a story, which canof course express aconviction, beheld tenaciously byadherents. ButI leaveitopen-ended whether thestory must infact be true (6). Roland Barthes : Myth isa type ofspeech (109). CarlGustav Jung: Myths areoriginal revelations ofthepreconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings , andanything but allegories ofphysical processes (154). Jane Ellen Harrison: Theprimary meaning ofmyth inreligion isjustthe same as inearly literature; itthespoken correlative ofthe acted rite, the thing done . . . (328). Bruce Lincoln : Myth [is]ideology innarrative form (xii). James Hollis : Myth isthe dramatization ofconscious orunconscious values ofa group oranindividual (Trackingil). Myth isanenergycharged image, oridea, that hasthe power tomove anddirect the soul(What Matters 159). Alan Dundes:A myth is a sacred narrative explaining howtheworld and man came tobeintheir present form (1). Lawrence J.Hatab : Amyth isa narrative which discloses a sacred world (19). Mircea Eliade : Themyth relates a sacred history, that is,a primordial event that took place atthe beginning oftime, abinitio. But torelate a sacred history isequivalent torevealing a mystery (95). William G.Doty : Myths coalesce socialvalues orprojections that havebeen found worthy ofrepetition andreplication (Myth 19-20). Henri and Myth isa form ofpoetry which transcends poetry inthat it Mrs. H.A.Frankfort : proclaims a truth; a form ofreasoning which transcends reasoning inthat itwants tobring about thetruth itproclaims; a form ofaction, ofritual behaviour, which doesnot find its fulfillment inthe actbut must proclaim andelaborate apoetic form oftruth (16). PROLOGUE: DEFINING MYTH 87 Lucy Huskinson : Myth isa conscious interpretation ofunconscious communication andassuch itsnature isboth rational andnon-rational, archetypal image andineffable, numinous "content" (9). Edward F.Edingen Myths arenotsimply tales ofhappenings inthe remote past but eternal dramas that areliving themselves out repeatedly in ourown personal lives andinwhat weseeallaround us.. . . They areeternal patterns ofthe waylife happens below the surface, ifonly onecanseeit(3). James Hillman: Psychology shows myths inmodern dress andmyths show our depth psychology inancient dress (156). Claude Lévi-Strauss: Myths andrites arefar from being, as hasoften beenheld, the product ofman's "myth-making faculty," turning itsback onreality. Their principal value isindeed topreserve until the...

Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor , and: The Mirth of Nations (review)

Reviewed by: Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor, and: The Mirth of Nations Gary Alan Fine Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor. By Mikita Brottman. (Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press, 2004. Pp. xxiii + 174, acknowledgments, introduction, photographs, illustrations, bibliography, index.) The Mirth of Nations. By Christie Davies. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002. Pp. xi + 252, acknowledgments, introduction, bibliography, index.) During the period that Richard Nixon was under threat of impeachment, the Chicago Tribune suggested that one justification for removing him from office was his sour humorlessness. A sense of humor generally stands high among the cardinal virtues of selfhood. A scholar who questions the fundamental beneficent merits [End Page 497] of wit stands outside the boundaries of conventional wisdom. While humor in general is embraced, ethnic and racial jokes are generally smeared. Here the dark side of humor becomes visible as it casts a shadow over enlightened tolerance. A scholar who questions the destructiveness of ethnic humor has a tough case to push. The authors Mikita Brottman and Christie Davies are prepared for their respective challenges as they confront orthodoxy. Even if neither author fully makes the case, both shave away some of our moral certainty. Humor is a complex domain, not properly encapsulated into banal verities. Mikita Brottman's volume, Funny Peculiar, is subtitled Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor. Brottman, a candidate in psychiatry and an expert on the horror film, presents us with an interconnected set of six essays questioning the benefits of humor in its various forms. The first and longest of these essays (nearly a third of the book) is the one chapter that presents us Legman in the raw, whereas the other chapters rely on Legman's writings to illuminate the claimed dangers of humor as a form of aggression. Gershon Legman is an icon for folklorists, and we should be grateful to receive any treatment of his life, however incomplete. These forty pages do not constitute anything close to the full biography that this idiosyncratic and problematic scholar deserves. With Alfred Kinsey currently the subject of multiple biographies, films, documentaries, and novels, Legman deserves his moment of fame. Legman's relationship with academic folklore was troubled, a fate that he shared with many outsider scholars, from Vance Randolph to Ben Botkin to Zora Neale Hurston. Folklore is a discipline whose academic practitioners are enriched by the prodding of outsider scholars, even if they do not always recognize the gift. With his attraction/repulsion for the academic life, Gershon Legman served as an agent provocateur. Legman is known as a collector of erotica, but that label does not fully do him justice. He borrowed from Freudian theory while making it both coarse and true. Legman lacked the analytic nuance and complexity of such scholars as Alan Dundes, but he made up for this lacuna with a wider range of life experiences and greater recognition of the politics of sexuality. Central to Legman's sexual politics is the realization that joking involves subversion, anxiety, and aggression in a culture in which discourse about intimacy is discouraged and often punished. Legman sees jokes as a release for neurosis, or as Brottman puts it, "The Rationale makes the very notion of joke telling seem like a miserable and pathetic exercise, especially if we accept the premise that our taste in humor is the key to the depth of our anxieties, particularly regarding sex" (p. 46). The joke is father to the man. Humor and laughter expose deep secrets and are dangerous for that reason. What Brottman does not sufficiently recognize is the existence of a tacit agreement that the parties to humor should avert their ears from the deep subtexts. We act as if humor is all in fun, and it is this that makes it not only possible but also desirable. It is precisely the dual messaging, coupled with a means of social and psychological distance, that makes humor work. In subsequent chapters Brottman dissects laughter, clowns, stand-up comedy, and even humor therapy. While relying on a body of academic literature for each chapter, she underlines the aggressive and competitive features of humor without recognizing that aggression (or...

The meaning of folklore: the analytical essays of Alan Dundes

The meaning of folklore: the analytical essays of Alan Dundes

Fables of the Ancients? Folklore in the Qur'an * BY ALAN DUNDES

Fables of the Ancients? Folklore in the Qur'an * BY ALAN DUNDES

Fourth and Long: Presenting (and Resenting) the Sabbath

Harvey Cox. Common Prayers: Faith, Famdy, and Chruitian \i Journey through Jewiih Year. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Pp. x +305.Alan Dundes. The Shabbat Elevator ant) Other Sabbath Subterfuge: An Unorthodox Eitjay on Circumventing CM torn ant) Jewuih Character. Lanham, JVId.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Pp. xiii + 199.Francine Klagsbrun. The Fourth Commandment: Remember Sabbath Day. New York: Harmony Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 269.Herold Weiss. A Day Gladn&u: The Sabbath among Jew J and ChrLitiano in Antiquity. Columbia: University South Carolina Press, 2003. Pp. ? + 262.IN 1836 JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS, who was later to achieve fame primarily his pioneering exploration JVlayan ruins in Central America, found himself in Jerusalem Jewish Sabbath, he prayed among feeble remnant mighty people in synagogue near JVlount Zion. Since having left Kurope several months earlier, New Jersey native, who was then just over thirty, had not been anywhere where women sat with their faces uncovered, and so during inscrutable Saturday morning sermon it was not altogether unnatural (as he later -wrote in his highly popular Incidenti Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea and HoLy Land) to turn his gaze rough-bearded sons Abraham to smooth faces their wives and daughters. In women's section synagogue, Stephens spied many dark-eyed Jewess 'who appeared well worthy his gaze, and he boastfully reported that many Hebrew maiden turned her black orbs upon him as well. Although he had already enjoyed hospitality Jews Hebron, with whom he talked of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as old and mutual friends, this was apparently young Columbia graduate's first taste Jewish Sabbath.Stephens was invited lunch to home native Gibraltar who had two wives and who described himself as -wealthiest Jew in Jerusalem. Noticing that observance Sabbath in his host's home was so strict that it was not allowable to extinguish lamp which had been lighted night before and was now burning in broad daylight over our table Stephens began to experience some uneasiness about what to expect dinner. He -was pleased to learn, however, the admirable his host had (allegedly) invented for reconciling appetite and duty - an oven, heated night before to such degree that process cooking -was continued during night and dishes were ready when wanted next day.1 Stephens' host's claim to being -wealthiest Jew in Jerusalem may indeed have been accurate, but Gibraltar native -was certainly not first to invent contrivance that allowed process cooking to continue from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon - after all, third chapter talmudic tractate Shahhat takes its name (Kirah) from such contrivance.At around same time that Stephens -was in Jerusalem, his countryman and contemporary \Villiam McClure Thomson, -who had been sent to Middle East by American Board Commissioners Foreign Missions, spent Sabbath on outskirts Safed, to -which he came from Beirut and whose Jews - a strange assemblage from most nations Europe, as he noted in The Lanci and Book (first published m 1858) - constituted more than half town's population. Thomson, who had been born in Ohio in 1806 and had earned his B. A. at Aliami University before studying at Princeton's (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary, referred in his learned yet enormously popular book to absurd superstitions Safed Jews, as -well as their intense fanaticism . . . Pharisaic self- righteousness and Sadducean licentiousness. As prime specimen puerilities enjoined and enforced by their learned rabbis, Thomson pointed to subterfuge, as Alan Dundes -would call it, eruv, which he had evidently first seen in Safed during 1830s. …

The Morphology and Significance of Some Imami Shi'ite Traditions

The article seeks to explore a corpus of Imāmī Hadīth featuring an encounter between the Shī‘ite Imām Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (d. 765 AD) and the Abbasid caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 754.75). It does this by employing the methods of structural analysis initially devised by Vladimir Propp in his Morphology of the Folktale (1928) and further developed by later anthropologists and folklorists such as Alan Dundes. The article identifies the repertoire of motifs from which the traditions are composed and studies these in terms of their functional equivalence within the narratives. The wider thematic structure of the traditions is also investigated and is found to provide insights into the cultural significance of the corpus as an articulation of the Imāmī Shī‘ite view of the relationship between religious and political authority.

“The proof of the proverb is in the probing.” Alan Dundes as Pioneering Paremiologist

A tribute to my and friend. There is no doubt that (1934-2005) was one of the giants of international folkloristics whose voluminous publications and lectures delivered around the world touched thousands of scholars and of folklore. In addition, he introduced over twenty thousand eager to studies in his more than four decades of teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. Many of them were so intrigued by this popular Pied Piper of that they earned their M.A. or Ph.D. degrees in either at Berkeley or other universities, the result being that there are students practicing the art of studies at universities or in the public sector throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Under his directorship the Folklore Program at Berkeley became internationally known as the ideal place to pursue serious studies, with the Berkeley Folklore Archives serving as a model for gathering various materials from modern oral and written sources. Little wonder that many folklorists traveled to Berkeley to spend time with the master teacher and scholar, who always gave freely of his time and expertise to help others with their important work. While was obviously busy with his own projects, he always had the time to welcome visitors from near and far, thereby practicing what he preached throughout his productive and fruitful life, namely that folkloristics is the key to a better understanding of the human condition and that its practitioners should conduct their work on a comparative and international basis. following paremiological tribute to has been divided into eight sections, a conclusion, and a list of references cited, i.e., 1. Honoring with Three Festschriften; 2. Proverbs as Exemplifications of Folklore Theory; 3. Major Paremiological Contributions; 4. Proverbs as Expressions of Worldview; 5. Darker Side of Proverbs: Ethnic Slurs and National Character; 6. Proverbs as Collateral Folklore References; 7. Major Monographs Based in Part on Proverbial Matters; and 8. Interplay of Paremiology and Paremiography. 1. HONORING ALAN DUNDES WITH THREE FESTSCHRIFTEN When celebrated his sixtieth birthday on September 8, 1994, he was honored with three Festschrifien, a perfect number of honorific publications for the scholar who early in his illustrious career had published an intriguing paper on The Number Three in American Culture (1968). Naturally he was particularly touched by the volume Folklore Interpreted: Essays in Honor of (1995) edited by Regina Bendix and Rosemary Levy Zumwalt and comprised of celebratory essays by numerous former who by now for the most part are major players on the folkloristic stage in many corners of the world. These scholars knew the best, with Rosemary Levy Zumwalt speaking for all of them by characterizing Dundes' research approach as follows: No matter the paths that was to explore, his work was always grounded in the search for meaning (ibid.:6), For Dundes, the comparative approach for the study of is crucial (13), To the psychoanalytical theory is necessary for the analysis of folklore (ibid.:18), and, quoting the master himself, The study of is nothing if it is not an international discipline (ibid.:26). love and appreciation that these former have for their hero is summed up in Regina Bendix's collectanea of Dundesiana that contains heartwarming campus lore, anecdotes, and memorates of as teacher and mentor, whom they affectionately called The big D, Uncle Alan or even Papa Dundes (ibid.:51) among themselves. Obviously was also very pleased with the volume Psychoanalytic Study of Society: Essays in Honor of (1993) that L. Bryce Boyer, Ruth M. Boyer, and Stephen M. Sonnenberg edited in recognition of his Freudian approach to interpretation. …

Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities by Simon J. Bronner, with an Afterword by Alan Dundes, Editors

Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities by Simon J. Bronner, with an Afterword by Alan Dundes, Editors