The current study examined the non-skeptic view of paranormal belief, suggesting that belief in the paranormal does not indicate psychopathology. This study examines the non-pathological personality traits present in paranormal believers by using a broad personality test. One hundred and one participants completed the Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS) and the Personality Research Form (PRF) in order to examine the differences among the personality traits of high and low paranormal believers. High and low paranormal belief was determined by the participants overall score on the Paranormal Belief Scale. The results indicated that there were only two significant personality differences among high and low paranormal believers. High believers scored significantly higher on the PRF scales of Aggression and Defendence. However, there were no differences on any other scales. The current results indicate that high and low believers do not differ on traits considered non-pathological.

In this thesis the author uses oral histories to study vernacular architecture, analyzing the changes in the way people in the Catskills have used buildings, specifically farm dwellings, to make a living, first as farmers and then as proprietors of boarding houses. The Catskills region in upstate New York is well known for its dairy farms and also for its resorts, but little has been researched to trace continuities and discrepancies between the rural residents and urban visitors. Boarding on farms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries showed continuity between the two groups: recent immigrants who lived in New York City and rural families, whether long-established or recently arrived. The two groups used their living spaces in similar ways, one to achieve a healthful family vacation and the other to earn a living for the family on the farm. They made generalized use of unitary spaces (rooms), accommodating multiple activities and numbers of people in ways that were antithetical to the suburban middle-class' prescriptions for individual privacy, family privacy, and the specialization of spaces. Using oral histories and other primary sources, the author describes these similarities in space utilization as a commonality between urban and rural people in the Catskills, demonstrating that neither group is a passive consumer of architecture. Instead, they not only modify the rooms in the farmhouse but also continue to use or actively revive ways of using space that meet their goals, within the material resource at hand. Vernacular architecture is sometimes inaccurately equated with buildings that lack style. For architecture that may not seem to meet the criteria of the historians of style, people's words are the most eloquent interpretation of buildings and of the lives they sheltered.

This thesis works from my interest in how individual perspectives affect family narratives and constructions of family history. Narrative exists chiefly in story form, but it also exists in people's mind, helping them to understand material culture, customs, and other forms of folk expression. These folk ideas define us and bind us socially. The way we arrange things in our minds, make sense of life experiences and the narratives we about create these experiences, define our social ties, such as family. Before one can understand the collective or group perception of itself, one must understand how each component or person in that group look at it separately. These individual perceptions can be seen in the portraits and landscapes of people and places that each family member generates, receives from others, and gives status to within the family's collective concept of folklore and history. While the meaning that people derive from family narratives and history is individualistic, the organization of these folkloristic forms is structurally consistent. Most people order and develop family narratives and history in much the same way. In my thesis, I address how family narratives and perceptions of family history form from individual perspectives, but also look at how family members convey their point of view by using the same structural elements, which I call narrative and visual vignettes. These vignettes exist in all forms of expression and documentation, from short anecdotal stories to photographs. Each vignette is separate from the next, but if tied together in a sequence as a narrator or organizer deems appropriate, harmony or cohesion of family experience is created. As one looks at these vignettes and examines their connection to one another, one can see that the connections come from conscious ordering and editing. This limited recounting of past events generally provides only one perspective, making them more like opinions or editorials than complete chronicles of history. For this study, I surveyed previous scholarly works associated with family folklore. Following that review comes a broad discussion of family folk groups, the use of folklore in those groups, the establishment of my own definition of family folklore, and an analysis of the dynamic of family and the organizing principle of family narratives. Then I turn specifically to family narratives and the construction of family history, examining this through my own immediate and extended family. I highlight how family history is constructed from varying types of vignettes and discuss the presence of these vignettes in material forms (family heirlooms and pictures), written accounts (such as letters and manuscripts that my grandfather collected), and oral storytelling. Within these expressive forms, narrative works in two ways: as portraits of family members and as landscapes characterizing the environment or situations involving these members. As this study concludes, no substantial conclusion is made— only a discussion of how it can influence family folklore scholarship.

Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, like all colleges and universities, has some interesting history. In this case, for my thesis project, I looked at specific tales regarding several buildings on campus that one hears upon arrival to campus. The buildings I included are Potter Hall, Barnes Campbell, Rodes- Harlin, Van Meter, Florence Schneider, McLean Hall, and Pearce-Ford Tower. I explored the details of the traditional oral narratives and compared those details from personal or close to personal experience. Next, I analyzed the details that have stayed the same over time or changed. To accomplish my project I went to a few of the Welcome Week campus tours, conducted audio and video interviews, archival research, as well as video recording the annual ghost walk in October given by the Communications department. The project comprises mainly of a documentary film with a complimentary written component. What I found was that the stories show some correlation between the traditional oral narratives and the first hand experiences such as names, times, experiences, and location of the events. In conclusion, I have found that in oral tales, certain details stay the same, change, and also become transformed over time. Western, like all colleges, has events that touch people’s lives and because of that impact, as well as the uniqueness of these stories, it means that certain stories will continue to be told. For further research, I would include the rest of the stories that one hears at Western including Phi Delta Theta, Delta Tau Delta, Lambda Chi Alphas, Kappa Sigma Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Ivan Wilson as well as to continue doing further research on these oral narratives. I also would like to look at other colleges, larger and smaller, in order to get a larger sample of oral narratives at different locations over time.

This is a children’s literature review of recent Latino folklore. Three theoretical perspectives create the framework of this analysis: Funds of Knowledge (Moll, 1990), Reader Response theories (Rosenblatt, 1982), and Culturally Relevant Teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1992). This work is set within the context of bilingual education that promotes biliteracy. Four themes are identified: Latino Counter Stories of European Folklore, European Cumulative Rhymes Acculturated, New Adaptations of old Latino Folklore, and Folklore Characters in New Adventures. The first two categories include stories with Western European origins that have been adapted to a Latino perspective. In the second category all the stories are cumulative tales. The third category consists of stories of Latino origin that are retold, but modified from the traditional storyline. The last category is a mixture of both European and Latino folklore characters in completely new storylines. Students can expand their literacy while educators create an inclusive classroom by integrating Latino literature and student’s Funds of Knowledge into culturally relevant teaching. / text

Cultural production in nineteenth-century Britain and Russia was characterized by two important phenomena that affected the literary sphere and visual arts – a burgeoning interest in folklore and a perception of childhood as a privileged space. In my dissertation, I explore how these two spheres converged in the figure of the folkloric child. I also uncover the semiotic dimensions of the binary oppositions intrinsic to the discourse of supernatural children, such as human – monster, child – non-child, cultural insider – Other. In my comparative analysis of supernatural children in Russian and English folklore, I focus on two main categories of supernatural children – unbaptized spirits and fairy changelings – and note the various affective responses they invoke in the bearers of culture. Narratives that focus on unbaptized children are characterized by a sense of communal guilt, whereas in changeling tales, interactions between the human world and the Otherworld are characterized by battles for resources in a contested semiotic space. In the second half of my dissertation, I show how supernatural children influenced prominent literary texts of the nineteenth century. Analyzing the influence of folkloric children on Russian literature, I examine the works of Fedor Dostoevskii and Fedor Sologub, two major writers with shared interest both in uncanny children and in folklore. In their writings, the folkloric child signifies the cultural anxieties specific to nineteenth-century Russia, from commodification of traditional culture to encroaching westernization and loss of spiritual identity. For comparison, I turn to an analysis of the changeling myth in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. These two novels actively use motifs from the lore of changelings to develop the theme of colonialism and its influence on the lives of the colonized or peripheral Others. The study of Otherness that constitutes the body of this dissertation is informed by Yuri Lotman's theory of semiotic core/periphery, as well as by Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection and J.J. Cohen's examination of monstrosity and its cultural significance. / text

This document represents the investigative research on the solo piano music of Joaquin Rodrigo, a repertoire that dates from 1923 to 1987. A biographical sketch of the composer precedes a general overview of his twenty-three solo piano works. Discussion of musical trends that influenced Rodrigo provides a context for tracing his development as a composer. Analytic descriptions of two of Rodrigo's early piano works, Suite para piano of 1923 and the Preludio al gallo mananero of 1926, demonstrate how Rodrigo incorporated early 20th century compositional techniques into his own style. Although Rodrigo alludes to Spanish nationalistic ideas in his music prior to 1931, his predominate musical language is more congruent with European compositional trends, popular during this period. It is in the Serenata espanola of 1931 where the use of Spanish folklore becomes more pronounced in Rodrigo's musical language. Descriptive analyses of the Serenata espanola of 1931 and his Sonatas de Castilla, con toccata of 1950 demonstrate not only Rodrigo's mature language and fully developed pianistic style, but most importantly his use of folklorismo--incorporation of folklore, music, and culture. Although similar in certain aspects to the Spanish traditional style of Albeniz, Granados, Falla, and Turina, Rodrigo's approach is also distinctive. In order to appreciate the similarities and contrasts between the traditional uses of folklorismo and Rodrigo's use of folklorismo, a brief historical overview of 20th century Spanish Nationalism ensues. Rodrigo's contributions derive from a successful synthesis of Nationalism and unique pianistic style.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of History, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 14, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-09, Section: A, page: 3690. Adviser: Henry Glassie.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 326-336).