American Folklore

American Folklore
Author: Jan Harold Brunvand
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 812
Release: 2006-05-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135578788

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

American Regional Folklore

American Regional Folklore
Author: Terry Ann Mood-Leopold
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2004-09-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1576076210

An easy-to-use guide to American regional folklore with advice on conducting research, regional essays, and a selective annotated bibliography. American Regional Folklore begins with a chapter on library research, including how to locate a library suitable for folklore research, how to understand a library's resources, and how to construct a research strategy. Mood also gives excellent advice on researching beyond the library: locating and using community resources like historical societies, museums, fairs and festivals, storytelling groups, local colleges, newspapers and magazines, and individuals with knowledge of the field. The rest of the book is divided into eight sections, each one highlighting a separate region (the Northeast, the South and Southern Highlands, the Midwest, the Southwest, the West, the Northwest, Alaska, and Hawaii). Each regional section contains a useful overview essay, written by an expert on the folklore of that particular region, followed by a selective, annotated bibliography of books and a directory of related resources.

Handbook of American Folklore

Handbook of American Folklore
Author: Richard M. Dorson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 614
Release: 1986-02-22
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780253203731

Includes material on interpretation methods and presentation of research.

James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942)

James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942)
Author: Ronald L. Baker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2024-06-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1666964808

James Buchanan Elmore (1857–1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet details the life and work of Elmore as a “folk poet,” emphasizing the importance in the cultural understanding of the ethnographic insights he gave as a farmer in the midwestern region of the United States that experienced dramatic social change after the Civil War. In song and verse, folk poets write of community events and personalities associated with them and of manifestations of natural forces with effects upon society. Often about locations overlooked by national historians and anthropologists, these writings are valued for their interpretations as participants within the cultural expressions describing group feeling and thought. By many estimates, Elmore left the largest legacy of folk poetic material in the United States, but not until now has a folklorist analyzed this rich trove of documentation for understanding the shifting folklife of the Midwest amid cultural shifts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Baker illustrates that Elmore shows more similarities to folk poets such as South Carolina's Bard of the Congaree, journeyman printer J. Gordon Coogler (1865–1901), than with academic poets Wallace Stevens or even James Whitcomb Riley. Aptly nicknamed the Bard of Alamo, Elmore was his community's laureate—the voice of the-people—living in Indiana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and a recorder of folklife from the 1830s on the frontier until after the Civil War when industrialization swept through the nation.

The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story

The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story
Author: Jan Harold Brunvand
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2000
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780252070044

"Here he [the author] looks in detail at a dozen rampant and long-lived examples of this vigorous category of contemporary folklore, tracing their historyies, variations, sources, and meanings."--Jacket.

Jokelore

Jokelore
Author: Ronald L. Baker
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1986-09-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780253204066

" . . . extremely valuable . . . enthusiastically recommend[ed] . . . " —Western Folklore These hilarious and slightly off-color stories, although gathered in Indiana, reflect the ancient origin and universality of the joke. The chuckle, the grin, the uncontrolled belly-laugh evoked by Jokelore attest to the popularity of this ancient form of folk literature.

Encyclopedia of American Folklife

Encyclopedia of American Folklife
Author: Simon J Bronner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 2856
Release: 2015-03-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317471946

American folklife is steeped in world cultures, or invented as new culture, always evolving, yet often practiced as it was created many years or even centuries ago. This fascinating encyclopedia explores the rich and varied cultural traditions of folklife in America - from barn raisings to the Internet, tattoos, and Zydeco - through expressions that include ritual, custom, crafts, architecture, food, clothing, and art. Featuring more than 350 A-Z entries, "Encyclopedia of American Folklife" is wide-ranging and inclusive. Entries cover major cities and urban centers; new and established immigrant groups as well as native Americans; American territories, such as Guam and Samoa; major issues, such as education and intellectual property; and expressions of material culture, such as homes, dress, food, and crafts. This encyclopedia covers notable folklife areas as well as general regional categories. It addresses religious groups (reflecting diversity within groups such as the Amish and the Jews), age groups (both old age and youth gangs), and contemporary folk groups (skateboarders and psychobillies) - placing all of them in the vivid tapestry of folklife in America. In addition, this resource offers useful insights on folklife concepts through entries such as "community and group" and "tradition and culture." The set also features complete indexes in each volume, as well as a bibliography for further research.