SLAV 512 - August 28, 2003
INTRODUCTION
Course purposes - to do a survey of the major genres of Russian folklore
And as many minor ones as we have time for
You have heard about various skazki, byliny, pesni, legendy
This is your chance to read them
And we will need to deal with the issue of who does and who does not speak and read Russian and what to do about it.
Purpose 2 - to learn about folklore in general and how it works
a) Folklore theory - there are many important theoretical works about folk prose, such as tales and what tales are and what they do. For example, is it lit. for children or for adults? Is the folklore connected to ritual? Does it exist "for art's sake" or does it, in distinction from "high" lit. have a pragmatic function?
b) ORAL lit. They have spent so much time with written things that they may need to relearn the phenomenon of orality. We all do it - tell stories, jokes. But we do not study, unless you are a folklorist
c) Non-linear thinking. Closely related to the oral lit. issue. You get trained to write, esp. in expository prose. This means that you have to present material logically and systematically, in a structured linear fashion. You should no present material "by association," not jump about. Yet this is what folklore does and, you could argue, this is the way people naturally think. They have to be TAUGHT the other stuff.
Great non-linear tool is the computer, esp. something called hypertext where you take a linear text and establish links that allow you to jump around
Success of folklorists in the digital technologies field.
You will also do some writing and analysis. Make oral presentations in class. These train you to be a professional. They not only give you info. about a field, they teach you how to write articles, book reviews, give oral presentations in conferences and in class.
So, when you do your work, consider it as apprenticeship and professional training. I expect you to do polished work.
I treat this class as a seminar and our relationship as a master-apprentice one. I will assign you books to present to the rest of the class. When you do so, please do give a polished presentation. It need not be long or complex, esp. at first. What I would like you to do is share your work - present a PPT which we can then post. Or have lecture notes which we can post to the class page. Or print up your notes and give out to classmates. This way we can cover many more books than we would otherwise - one person reads and presents to the rest.
Find out about them, their interests and their expectations of the course
The three areas of folklore (or folklore/folklife, or ________ _ __________)
Material culture - artifacts THINGS
Social culture - sociofacts ACTIONS
Verbal/Oral - mentifacts WORDS
Russian folklore vs. ethnography
Examples of each category
Folklore is STUFF of culture
Artistic expression of belief
Importance of belief system
Inarticulate and unofficial
But if it is the above, how do you study?
Need to look at the products of that belief system
How important figuring out Russian belief is to them, no matter what area of Russian studies they do
Literature
Linguistics
Social sciences like history and government