Folklore and Anthropology: Virtual Special Issue 6, 2015

Virtual Special Issues of Folklore are selections of articles from our journal on a specific theme, hand picked by our editor Jessica Hemming, with a podcast introduction by our reviews editor Juliette Wood, and a list of featured articles and further reading.

Listen to the Podcast  Folklore’s 2015 Virtual Special Issue on Folklore and Anthropology, podcast introduction by Juliette Wood. And explore the featured articles chosen by the Editor, Jessica Hemming. All the featured articles are free to download by Folklore Society members: just log in to the Members’s area at https://folklore-society.com/wp-login.php

Excerpt from the Podcast:

Several articles reassess the role of earlier seminal scholars. Duff-Cooper re-evaluates Lang’s role in the history of social anthropology and continued relevance to some current concerns (1986). William Bascom outlines Bronislaw Malinowski’s contribution to the study of folklore, especially his stress on fieldwork and verbal culture. Malinowski, as Bascom points out, saw culture ‘in terms of the interrelationships between its different aspects and the influence of these on one another’ (Bascom 1983, 163-64), and Bascom’s summary of Malinowski’s work is an appropriate topic for a folklorist who himself contributed much to the importance of function in folklore and folk life studies. H. A. Senn makes much the same point in relation to Arnold Van Gennep. He stresses the contrasts between Van Gennep’s approach and that of French folklorists of his day and highlights his role as an early structuralist (Senn 1974).  

Download the transcript of the Podcast

Featured Articles from Folklore

Malinowski’s Contributions to the Study of Folklore, by William Bascom, vol. 94/2 (1983): 163-72.

Review Essay: Folklorists and Anthropologists, by Gillian Bennett, vol. 108 (1997): 120-23

The Early Movements of Anthropology and their Folkloristic Relationships, by Simon Bronner, vol. 95/1 (1984): 57-73

Red Riding Hood: An Interpretation from Anthropology, by Mary Douglas, vol. 106 (1995): 1-7

Folklore, Folk-Life, Ethnology, by R.U. Sayce, vol. 67, no. 2 (1956): 66-83

Arnold Van Gennep: Structuralist and Apologist for the Study of Folklore in France, by H.A. Senn, vol. 85/4 (1974): 229-43

Update: Folklorists and Anthropologists, by Jacqueline Simpson, vol. 110 (1999): 99-101

Further Reading: 

Presidential Address: The Welfare of Primitive Peoples, by Henry Balfour vol. 34/1 (1923): 12-24

Correspondence: Does the Folk-Lore Society Exist for the Study of Early Institutions? letter from H.J. Rose, vol. 17/1, (1906): 111-13.

Correspondence: Does the Folklore Society Exist for the Study of Early Institutions?, reply to H.J. Rose’s letter, by Charlotte Burne, vol. 17/2 (Jun. 24, 1906), pp. 233-35.

Anthropology and the Vedas, by Andrew Lang, Folk-Lore Journal Vol.1/4 (1883): 107-14.

Andrew Lang: Aspects of His Work in Relation to Current Social Anthropology, by Andrew Duff-Cooper, vol. 97/2 (1986): 186-205

Ethnological Data in Folklore: A Criticism of the President’s Address in January, 1898, by G.L. Gomme, vol. 10/2 (1899): 129-43

Ethnological Data in Folklore: A Reply to the Foregoing Criticism, by Alfred Nutt,  vol. 10/2 (June 1899) : 143-49

The Father’s Sister in Oceania, by W.H.R. Rivers, vol. 21/1 (1910): 42-59.

The Importance of Folklore Studies to Anthropology, by Marion Smith, vol. 70/1 (1959): 300-12.

Vampire Stories in Greece and the Reinforcement of Socio-cultural Norms, by Evangelos Avdikos, vol. 124/3 (2013): 307-26.

Animals Crossing: Analytical Observations on a Cross-Culturally Ubiquitous Mortuary Belief, by Gregory Forth and Svitlana Kukharenko, vol. 123/2 (2012): 152-78.

‘He Who is a Devourer of Things’: Monstrosity and the Construction of Difference in |Xam Bushman Oral Literature, by Mark McGranaghan, vol. 125/1 (2014): 1-21.

The Poetics of the Flute: Fading Imagery in a Sepik Society, by Borut Telban, vol. 125/1 (2014): 92-112.

The Discursive Character of the |Xam Texts: A Consideration of the |Xam ‘Story of the Girl of the Early Race, Who Made the Stars’, by Michael Wessells, vol. 118/3 (2007): 307-324.