Folklore Flashcards
What was happening around IU at roughly the same time Stith Thompson was born?
The relocation of the campus to its present site
What is a ballad?
A story in poem form, often set to music
Which one of the faculty members used a research methodology most similar to that of Stith Thompson?
Alfred Kinsey
“Bringing folklorists together”: Why is this an important goal for Thompson?
Doing so allows folklorists who would otherwise be spread out among history, literature and music discuss new developments in their discipline
What is the significance of Thompson’s appointment as a Professor of English and Folklore in the 1930s?
He is the first person made a professor in the discipline of “folklore”
What is Thompson’s method, and aim, in folklore?
Collecting stories
If accuracy or truth isn’t the point of the senator’s comments about Bloomington being too dangerous a place for his daughter, what is?
That people often see other, unfamiliar places as somewhat threatening, and probably do not view their own surroundings as dangerous, although others might
How is Dorson’s college and graduate school career typical of early folklorists?
His interests were interdisciplinary: he studied the history of a kind of literature
How are Dorson and Thompson’s work in the field of folklore related?
They are SIMILAR because they worked to establish folklore as a serious, respected field of study. But they are DIFFERENT because Dorson did his own recording of stories in the field, and Thompson did not
What is one significant point about Dorson’s work in Arkansas?
It reveals that “folk” stories, although seemingly innocent or humorous, can have important political or social meanings, too
What were Dorson’s findings about stories among communities in northwest Indiana?
Communities have their own unique stories that are not universally shared with other communities
Consider Maultsby’s comment: “The white kids really object to the violence and anger [in rap music], but they’ve got to learn where it’s all coming from. Music doesn’t make conditions; it reflects them.” How does Maultsby’s remark reflect a basic tenet of folklore?
That music, like stories, needs to be understood in the context of the community that produced it
Maultsby’s work is like the work of Dorson because…
she does collecting and focuses on the context surrounding stories (in her case, songs)
A volume that classifies stories based on their similarities and differences is called…
a folklore index
For folklorists, the category into which a series of similar stories might be arranged is called
a type
The study of common, rather than elite, people, or “folk” is the study of
underculture
(T/F) According to the work of the IU Folklore Institute, “folk” pertains to rural, not urban, cultures
False
(T/F) We can learn about a culture’s perception of itself by studying its folklore
True
Why are fields of study called disciplines?
Because they have rules for doing research, and they train new scholars to use them
Which of the following statements best describes, or summarizes, the tension in the university between “tradition” and “innovation” discussed in the text?
Disciplines rely upon and build on old knowledge to create new knowledge
According to the text, why do faculty members and scholars specialize?
Because no one person can know everything in a given discipline, so it is subdivided
In what way is folklore interdisciplinary?
It borrows methodologies from other disciplines
This chapter says that the discipline of Folklore has changed since Stith Thompson became Professor of Folklore in the 1930s. How has it NOT changed?
For Thompson, folklore needed a scientific basis whereas later scholars were humanists who accepted anyone’s version of the truth
What is the best definition of “academic discipline”?
A field of knowledge and the associated methods of study associated with it
The systematic classification of organisms or entities based upon their relationship to one another is…
Taxonomy
Who are the unsung heroes of the music industry that Professor Maultsby talks about?
Less well-known black musicicans who recorded or produced music that shaped the record industry
