SLFK 212 - January 15, 2004
Whole series of folklore courses
This course is about the human being, as seen from the East Slavic, meaning Russian and Ukrainian perspective.
Will deal with body issues and issues of marriage, birth and death
When is a human being an adult?
When does life begin?
When does it end and how should it end?
As you can see, these are very much real and contemporary issues
Often presented as having one true solution
Courses like this tells you that there are lots of cultural differences
Differences within our own culture over time
Issue of the body - what is an ideal body
In terms of beauty
In terms of health
Two often equated
Current debate - is there a universal ideal, applicable to all cultures?
Or is this something that varies from culture to culture
Changes within a culture over time
And, of course, as there is the issue of the body as it goes through the course of a human life
Assumptions of what the body can and cannot do
During pregnancy - exercise or no?
In old age
Issues of gender - what is man's work and what is woman's work
MD - male or female?
Heavy physical labor, like person paving street - male or female?
Cultural assumptions are extremely powerful
Russian and Ukrainian body ideal is different from ours
Mom dressing me when I was a kid in NJ
Mom insisting that I have a certain body type
Dressing is part of it, as they will see - clothing gives you a certain body type whether you have it or not
And think of US clothing - demands certain physical features from you
As a kid growing up - tremendous conflict between what I was being taught by mom and dad - and this is not just taught verbally, as they will see, but by a whole slew of subtle messages, messages that PERVADE the culture
And the ideals of American beauty I got at school
Once cultural messages have been conveyed almost impossible to get rid of
Messages to me - Slavic demand for bulk and US demand for lean body
Looking at human being/human body and how it moves through life
Look at life cycle rituals - marriage, birth, and death
These mark the stages in a human life
As in questions of when is a baby human?
When is a young person an adult?
They also convey powerful cultural messages
So much so that ritual can become a big political issue
Easiest to see on another culture and in the case of conscious social engineering
Commission on Soviet Traditions, Festivals, and Rituals
Changing rituals will change what people are like
Can either be seen as sinister - and it was
Or ridiculous - how can you engineer something like a ritual
And the commission was only partially successful
But just the idea that ritual can change people and their outlook on life is very important
Gives you a sense of the power of ritual
What I want them to get out of this - and this is on the syllabus
Some knowledge of Russia and Ukraine
Their strategic importance
Their commercial potential
So sensitivity to cultural variation in general
Growing up as a kid in the US and the difficulties thereof
I find folklore as a solution
Folklore for them, too, can be key to cultural understanding
Estrangement and ability to look at own culture critically
Distance from things that you take for granted
So that you do realize the importance of ritual
The power of body images
Ability to speak in any culture, your own or other, on this very basis, "gut" level
Important for commercial success - representing Mary Kay cosmetics in Moscow
Important for diplomacy
Critical thinking skills
Work with oral sources
Data gathering
Presentation of fieldwork in standard expository prose
Start reading Tian-Shanskaia - for next week pages 1-73
Show internet resources and the course web page
Here I will start with some background discussion
Folklore is key to cultural understanding
3 areas of folklore
Material artifacts objects
Social sociofacts actions
Verbal mentifacts words
Material - housing, clothing, food
Social - drama, in a way, actions such as ritual
Weddings, funerals - those are life cycle rituals and this is what we will do
There are also rituals of the year - Christmas, Easter, midsummer or Ivan Kupalo
This is another course
Verbal - songs and stories
As in wedding songs and laments
Funeral laments
Courtship