Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Folklore and folklife studies'

This paper explores the way contemporary American Conservative Jewish communities express ideas of egalitarianism and feminism through active use of specific ritual garments (tallit and tefillin). It addresses the meanings that these garments currently have on individual, communal, and institutional levels. Additionally, it considers women’s changing roles regarding ritual and participation in these communities. It also considers that in this context, when women take on additional religious obligations they are simultaneously representing feminist and religious issues and actions, and the conversations between these ideas.

Both her feminine subjectivity and extensive time frame (ranging from 1914-1974), make the works of Anaïs Nin an important example of the depth and range of self-exploration, perhaps more so than in previous writers. Nin was committed to a creative process inclusive of psyche, the body and aesthetics derived from her own life experiences. This analysis of the mythic tropes that permeate Nin’s literary diaries and fiction demonstrates the ways in which Nin created a mythic style of her own, which contrasts with the aesthetics of T.S. Eliot’s mythic method. In fact, as a late Modernist, Nin particularly emphasized what this dissertation will call earth mother consciousness as a response to the wasteland of her time, and as a way to create a connection between literature and life. Thus, a better understanding of Nin’s literary achievements emerges through a study of a mythic perspective, which helps to secure Nin’s belonging in the literary canon.

This archetypal analysis shows myth playing a fluid role that reveals psyche in the process of writing a continuously changing sense of self into a personal myth of her own, revealing the extensive possibilities of an opulent feminine psyche. The literary diary, for Nin, is a genre that with its traces of the trickstar/trickster archetype, among others, reveals a mercurial, yet particular understanding of an internalized and embodied experience as a writer. Keywords: Anaïs Nin, modernism, mythology, literary diaries, women’s studies, feminism, personal myth, archetypes, trickstar, trickster, Jung, self-life writing.

This ethnographic study will analyze data collected through field-based observations, primary ritual texts, and locally conducted interviews of the yin-yang practitioners in the three small villages of Fanmagou, Qijiazhuang, and Wangdazhuang in northwestern China. The practice referred to as yin-yang in this region is part of an archaic folk religious system that can be traced back to at least the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Despite its deep cultural roots, it is becoming endangered due to the impact of national policies (governing religion and culture) and the general adaptation to modernity in China. Due to the localized nature of this cultural system, the main research method used will be qualitative ethnographic description, with a Geertzian "thick description" approach to interpretive analysis. The collected data is roughly divided into three categories: (1) transcriptions of interviews with yin-yang practitioners and other local villagers; (2) video tapes, photographs, and field notes of local religious rituals, specifically memorial and burial rites that are led by the yin-yang practitioners, and (3) my own translations of yin-yang scriptural texts that are used in leading the rituals themselves, as well as for the teaching and training of young yin-yang apprentices. The interpretive ethnography that is produced from these rich primary sources will also be considered for its curriculum applications in two primary higher education contexts: 1) As a rich primary source for courses in Chinese culture and language—conducted in either Chinese or English language context, and 2) As a source of engaging and culturally relevant texts for courses in content-based ESOL for Chinese students (in China presumably).

This dissertation treats the reception, performance, and mediation of myth in video games. Myths are included in video games as variants in relation to other myth-variants. This study does not focus on contemporary myths per se, but rather modernized forms of myths modified for a contemporary audience of players, users, and consumers who participate in video game culture. Different video games involve and invoke different mythologies. Thus, different theories about myths are drawn on to extrapolate meaningful applications in the world of each video game. Some case studies involve the creative uses of depth psychology, the hero pattern, otherworldly journeys, mythic-epic story structures, and/or explorations in specific mythological themes and motifs. Pluralistic, folkloristic, and close cross-cultural comparison is exercised on a case-by-case basis— pace universal and wide-range comparativism—to effectively account for comparison and context. Case studies include single-player video games involving different sub-genres, online multiplayer video games, and a massively multiplayer online game that includes field work reports and analysis.

The descriptive process and meta-theory that I propose stem from the playfulness that myths presented in video games afford: first, interpretatio ludi is the general process of transposing mythological traditions and systems into dynamic and playable models, or the invention anew of mythological systems tailored to a particular video game world and genre. Players virtually participate in myths as voyeurs, voyagers and (sometimes) builders. This raises important questions regarding artificial and emergent mythmaking occurring on the side of either player response, from the developers, or from instances of co-creation between both. I also present the “agonistic theory of myth” to account for the inherent and pervasive tendency of contestation between myth-variants, myths of divine conflict, and theories about myth(s).

A critical review of scholarship on myths and games is also included. This dissertation proposes that mythological studies and game studies can pursue significant collaborative research trajectories. The overall aim of this study is to develop a critical media-conscious approach to myths, and a myth-conscious approach to media.

Keywords: myth, video games, mythmaking, mythology, game studies, play, lore, virtual worlds, world-building.

As consciousness develops out of the unconscious, according to Jungian analyst Erich Neumann, it passes through necessary phases, both in the individual and on the collective level. Part of this process is demonizing that which was formerly unconscious, represented in myth and dreams as the archetypal Terrible Mother. In Mexico and the American Southwest, mythological representations of this archetype appear in the ghost story of La Llorona and the mythic historical figure of La Malinche. These myths are examined to show the emergence of consciousness of personal and systemic oppression. The tension that arises from this new level of consciousness gives way to what Carl G. Jung termed the transcendent function, a new paradigm of cultural consciousness beyond oppressor and oppressed. Using hermeneutic methodology, this research additionally explores the transcendent function and active imagination along with liberation psychology’s notion of liberation arts to facilitate healing from personal and systemic oppression.

The maroma in southern Mexico is an artistic performance that features acrobats as well as elements of theater, poetry, and music commonly performed by clown poets. The maroma's form and content is drawn from a mixture of medieval European street performances, pre-Hispanic indigenous acrobatic arts, and modern circus features. It is typically performed as entertainment in the context of the patronal saint fiesta, annual popular Catholic events that serve as significant spaces that furnish cultural elements for identity construction. The maroma was very popular in the capital of New Spain throughout the colonial period (1519-1822) but with the rise of the European modern circus was either incorporated or displaced. In the countryside, however, the maroma appears to have continued for a longer period of time. Currently, it is practiced among several ethnic groups, among them the Mixtecs in the Mixteca--a region that covers parts of the states Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla. In the last decade in the Mixteca, maroma groups and state cultural institutions have worked collectively to "revive" the maroma as the practice has been declining since the mid-to-late 20th century. This thesis is a preliminary incursion into the maroma as currently practiced in the Mixteca Baja. I argue that due to the effects of transnationalism and because the maroma has been present at patronal saint fiestas for a long time, significant spaces that furnish cultural elements for identity construction and negotiation, the maroma has become a symbol of a "pan-Mixtec" identity, an identity that unites all Mixtecs regardless of their specific town or region. Drawing from second-hand sources and fieldwork conducted in the towns of Huajuapan de León, La Trinidad Huaxtepec, San Juan Yolotepec, Santa María Acaquizapan, and Santa Rosa Caxtlahuaca, this thesis introduces the practices of maromeros and the work of state cultural institutions to represent a slice of the maroma revival in the region. Moreover, it strives to contribute to the maromero revival by providing information on the maroma in historical context, current performance and performers, and the revivalist activities the regional state cultural institution has taken thus far.

This thesis explores the distinct two-part polyphonic patterning in Lithuanian Sutartines to reveal how singers shape and/or experience their songs as musical weaves. The findings are based on original fieldwork as well as old ethnographic sources, which are (re)examined and interpreted through the lens of metaphor as a methodology.

This dissertation looks at the popular American folksong revival in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region during the Cold War and Civil Rights era. Examination of folk revival scholarship, local media reports and cultural geography, and the collected interviews and oral histories of Washington area participants, reveals the folk and blues revival was a mass mediated phenomenon with contentious factions. The D.C. revival shows how restorative cultural projects and issues of authenticity are central to modernity, and how the function of folksong transformed from the populist, labor oriented Old Left to the personalized politics of the New Left. This study also significantly disrupts often romantic scholarship and political narratives about the folk revival and redirects the intellectual attention on New York, Chicago, and San Francisco towards the nation's capital as an overlooked site of cultural production. Washington's "folk world" of music clubs, coffeehouses, record collectors, disc jockeys, performers, folklorists, and folk music aficionados drove folk music studies towards context and cultural democracy, but the local insistence on apolitical, traditional, and rural forms of folksong as the most genuine reinscribed racial and class hierarchies even as they enhanced Washington's status. Washington, D.C., shifted the loose folk revival "movement" into permanent cultural institutions and organizations, and the city gained a cosmopolitan reputation for authentic folk music that intermingled with its regional culture and identity as the nation's capital and site of public protest.

Descended from Celtic goddesses and the fairies of folklore, the literary character of Morgan le Fay has been most commonly perceived as a witch and a one-dimensional villainess who plagues King Arthur and his court, rather than recognized as the legendary King’s enchanted healer and otherworldly guardian. Too often the complexity of Morgan le Fay and her supernatural abilities are lost, her character neglected as peripheral. As a literary figure of imaginative design this thesis explores Morgan le Fay as a unique “window” into the medieval mindset, whereby one can recover both medieval understandings of magic and female magicians. By analyzing her role in key sources from the twelfth to fifteenth century, this thesis uses Morgan le Fay to recover nuanced perceptions of the supernatural in medieval England that embraced the ambiguity of a pagan past and remained insulated from continental constructions of demonic witchcraft.

This dissertation examines twentieth-century Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains through oral traditions (anecdotes, jokes, songs, poetry duels) as remembered by Muslims and Jews in the twenty-first century. Jews had lived in these predominantly Berber-speaking regions for over one thousand years; yet these rural Jewish communities had almost completely disappeared by the early 1960s, due to mass emigration, largely to Israel. Despite the totality of the rupture, Jews and Muslims retain vivid memories of their former neighbors. Drawing on my fieldwork with Muslims still living in Moroccan villages and with Jews in Israel who had emigrated from those same villages over half a century earlier, I use the anecdotes and songs that animate these reminiscences as my primary sources. My analysis is further informed by extensive research on Moroccan history and culture. My study reveals that Berber oral traditions functioned in the past—and continue to function in present-day reminiscences—as forms of creative acknowledgment of both difference and affinity between Jews and Muslims. Analyzing examples from this corpus illuminates aspects and nuances of the intricacies of daily life rarely addressed in other sources, facilitating a deeper understanding of the paradoxes and possibilities of Jewish/Muslim co-existence in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, and perhaps beyond.

Central to my theoretical concerns, therefore, are interreligious cultural production and boundaries. Berber cultural traditions in particular offer a unique framework (for both participants and researchers) for addressing issues of boundaries and difference, while simultaneously elucidating the shared cultural worlds of Jews and Muslims in which oral traditions played a crucial role, and out of which came creativity, humor, and community. It was the engagement with difference, rather than its erasure, that fostered community and a rich intercultural life.

I begin with an investigation of the phenomenon of Arabic-speaking Jews among Berber-speaking Muslims, which also illuminates Jewish participation in Berber oral—and other cultural—traditions. Rather than a unidirectional acculturation of the minority into the majority culture, Berber cultural forms engaged by Muslims and Jews reflect a dynamic interchange. I posit the idea of Muslim-Jewish “co-productions” for many of the shared Berber oral traditions, particularly for the poetic duels. In my analysis of the recounted anecdotes and poems, I explore how Muslims and Jews not only speak of each other but also through each other’s voices. Through adaptation of Bakhtin’s theoretical concepts of dialogism and polyphony, I show how speaking in one another’s voices allows Muslim and Jewish narrators to express multiple and often contradictory meanings simultaneously. Throughout my analysis, I investigate how boundaries did not always fall neatly or predictably into religious categories, nor did the complex socio-political stratification fit into a simplified majority-minority binary.

The nuanced views of Jewish-Muslim relationships that my project presents serve as a model for exploring such intercommunal relations beyond the temporal and geographic focus of my dissertation. My study serves as a corrective to simplified and polarized views of Jewish-Muslim relations prevalent in public spheres, media, and still, though to a lesser degree, in academia, and leads to an appreciation of the complexity and diversity of such relationships.

This production thesis utilizes an artistic-creative methodology through the workings of both heuristic and hermeneutical approaches to explore the function of story—how we are told stories and how we retell them—throughout an individual’s life. Furthermore, this thesis examines their role and effect on the mental-emotional realm. Through the craft of creating her own personal fairy tale by way of active imagination, the author offers an example of working with archetypal images (common to the author as well as the collective) to come into contact with unconscious drives and shadow impulses, confront their intentions, and ultimately come to resolution over their tensions, resulting in psychological transformation. This thesis offers a look into the importance of play, the imaginal realm, and the endless nature of meaning making and their relationship to healing.

This thesis is based upon my artistic interaction and response to the 5,000-year-old myth of the Sumerian deity, Inanna. The main element of this thesis consists of a body of artwork that evolved out of the interweaving of textual, psychological, and artistic research. The artwork is an artist's response to a particular juncture in the descent portion of Inanna's myth . . . the moment of her transformation. This amalgamation of artistic and textual artifacts documents the power of an ancient story, from a long-dead culture, to reach through time and touch an individual life. The written documentation draws from diverse areas of study such as alchemy, mythology, depth psychology, women's spirituality, and women's studies. Through readings, conferences, workshops, one-on-one conversations, active imagination, and art-making I have woven together a glimpse, perhaps a momentary perspective, of an encounter with a divine feminine archetype. I am a visual artist and my lens is that of a 21^st century woman and a maker-of-things. I gather, experience, and express my knowingness from this point of view and my thesis reflects my perspective.

This dissertation presents a collection of personal stories collected by the author from the lobster fishermen of Meteghan, Nova Scotia. This corpus is not a complete inventory, but it helps us to begin to understand the evolution of this Acadian village. The author wondered: Since fairy tales no longer exist in their current repertoire, why not give value to the life histories that exist? This research required an observational transformation in order to notice, preserve and present the treasure that is the oral tradition in this region.

The author presents the fishermen's stories based on the concept of the ethnotexte, generating the sense of a written discussion between all the participants. The author uses a minimal level of interpretation of her own, allowing the voices of the informants to shine. This allows the text to be more faithful to the experience, since without sound, there is already a deviation of a natural phenomenon, the performance. The protocol used for the transcripts balances between the fidelity of the recordings and the text's accessibility, while preserving the maritime vocabulary and archaic words.

The author presents eleven themes, ranging from old fishing techniques, to tricks and superstitions. Since fishing is the main industry in this francophone minority community, the author reveals the cultural importance found within the stories, like the testimonies of the old ways of living and fears for the future, which represent a poetic mix between tradition and modernity.

Having conducted extensive field work, the author concludes that Acadian folklore in the area is not threatened, but has instead evolved. The author has succeeded in letting these fishermen speak, which helps to illuminate the enigma of the modern Acadian identity. Although subject to the imposed imperatives of modernity, Acadians are pragmatic, and at the end of the day, they honor family and the stability of the village first.

This is a region rich in heritage. The importance of ethnology seeks not to find solutions but to preserve this information. With a sense of urgency to capture the oral histories, this kind of research enriches this community's culture.