Included is a collection of speculative fiction by author Nicholas Becher that incorporates research from Cherokee folklore as well as experimental perspectives of place and tone. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The thesis investigates both how and why many of the best post-war poets have moved back to use myth and legend just when they seemed finally discredited. Chapter One briefly discusses the various scholarly theories of myth, and sharpens the critical terminology to be employed. It describes the personal myth-systems of Yeats, Graves and Lawrence and, conversely, the four systems most generally used by modern poets. The following four chapters study, in turn, four major approaches to the use of myth in poetry. Chapter 2 shows how Seamus Heaney' s work employs legend as archetype; the history of Ulster being erected as a timeless metaphor to illuminate the present Troubles. Chapter Three takes the poetry of Geoffrey Hill as an example of the development of newly created legend, culminating with that centred on King Offa of Mercia. Chapter Four examines Thom Gunn' s use of myth as archetype, showing how the timeless can be given contemporary force, either through existential philosophy or Californian psychedelia. Chapter Five explores Ted Hughes' creation of a new myth, a new reality, the crowning achievement. Chapter Six discusses why myth is still relevant, distinguishing its careful adoption into four modern stylistic traditions and its four major modes of relevance. Legend is seen as a form of place, myth as a form of time, and the best new poetry is recognised as utilizing both, a surprise invocation of the White Goddess.

CTRL+V is an investigation of one folklore jacket in many pieces, aiming to find out what that jacket is all about. / Program: Modedesignutbildningen

This research looks at the textuality of hiplife – the Ghanaian version of hip hop – by investigating the hiplife discursive and non discursive practices. The thesis is that hiplife is a major platform for Ghanaian youth cultural expression. I choose the qualitative methodology because it meets the subtle demand of an enquiry on expressive culture like hiplife. Using focus group discussion, interviews and participant observation to collect data from the whole country with emphasis on the four main cities, the research analyses transcribed data and comes up with various findings. These include the fact that hiplife started with the quest of Ghanaian youth for a syncretic culture, the combination of local and foreign cultures, mediated by DJs, artistes and sites. It also reveals that it is the rhythm of the Akan drum language that provides the rhythmic complexion of hiplife. Again, as a platform for youth expression, hiplife expresses new values – new social truths, a common destiny and protest against hegemony. Furthermore, hiplife appropriates the “looking glass” concept to circulate its cultural expression and ideologies in and out of Ghana. Such a visibility is also taken advantage of by the Ghanaian women to address their gender concerns.

A rhetorical theory of folklore was used to interpret how summer camp staffers use a folk drama as a means of identification and as a type of artistic expression. The performance was analyzed for ethnographic information using Kenneth Burke's theory of dramatism and for artistic techniques using Burke's theory of the psychology of audience. The dramatistic pentad contextualized the performance, and this information was analyzed for motives through the delineation of dramatistic ratios. The skit's syntagmatic structure was outlined using Burke's description of five aspects of form. The analysis demonstrates that meaning is emergent through both the content and form of the symbolic action of the folk drama. Identification is achieved primarily through the presentation of motives. The aesthetic experience is created primarily through the use of form. The interpretation demonstrates that the skit's content and form can not be understood apart from each other and that understanding content and form is but one aspect of the performance's meaning.

To date, the auction as a type of folklore performance has not been adequately researched. In order to place auctions in perspective as folklore, chapter one of this thesis reviews the history of auctions in the United States. Chapter one further presents the idea of the auctioneer as a folk occupational specialist. The second chapter is concerned with the skills of an active Kentucky auctioneer, who offers, during a series of interviews, insights concerning his performance skills. The third, and final, chapter attempts to construct a theoretical base for researching auctions as folklore performance. The criteria by which any given performance is called folklore are applied to the study of auctions. This thesis concludes with the writer's firm belief that a variety of techniques and scholarly orientations can be applied to the study of auctions.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att visa hur folklore och medeltid revitaliseras i samtida populärkultur. Detta undersöks med hjälp av en genomgång och analys av dataspelet The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt tillsammans med ett urval av mediematerial från dess marknadsföring. Analysen utförs med utgångspunkt i Erving Goffmans begrepp ramverk och nycklar och relateras till uppfattningar om autenticitet, nostalgi, historiebruk och Michael Dylan Foster och Jeffrey Tolberts begrepp folkloresque. Uppsatsen avslutas med en sammanfattande diskussion om hur folklore och medeltid samverkar med varandra och presenteras i dataspelet som medium.

Thesis (M.A. (Folklore Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / The purpose of this study is to investigate whether human conduct and behaviour can be “seen” through the actions of trickster tales. This study focuses on how Bapedi people’s actions can be manifested in the actions of these tales. A variety of trickster tales will be used in trying to investigate the above claim. There will be some folktales that will be sampled from a variety of existing Literature. The sampled folktales will be brought together for analysis at the end of this study. The other folktales will be gathered from respondents. A number of respondents will be sampled through the snowballing technique. Each respondent will be interviewed through the face to face interview to gather more information in as far as folktales are concerned especially trickster tales. Gender sensitivity will be taken into cognizance when sampling the respondents in order to make the study more representative. Interviewees will be sampled from youth to senior citizens. Information gathered will thereafter be brought together with those collected from existing literature for creation of manuscripts. There manuscripts will thereafter be analysed through contend analysis technique.

The research of this dissertation took place in San Francisco Quezaltepeque, a community of the much understudied region of el oriente in the Eastern Highlands of Guatemala. This ethnographic study in a municipio of Chiquimula privileges local understandings of peoples' concepts of social identity. In this community the generic labels 'ladino' and 'indigena' which in the anthropological literature are usually referred to as labels of ethnic identity are embedded with relevant meanings of other social identities. In Quezaltepeque labels of identity such as 'natural, sambo, misteado, verdadero ladino' and campesino which, although not exclusive in existence and usage of this community, defy the social and political significance of the pervasive and paradigmatic dichotomous model that has been used in studies of Guatemala. Constructions of social identity are particularly examined in the contexts of two institutions, the cofradia system and the Comunidad de Indigenas which currently keeps control of the communal lands of the municipio. The research takes place over a decade's spans (starting in 1993), a period in which social identity was much contested academically and socially in the country given the important political implications that such identities could spare. Therefore this work is not only contextualized in the identity politics of the 1990's but documents in part the changes in discourse that have taken place at the local level along this time. Finally, an overall intent is to draw attention to studies of populations in regions that have been much under the shadow of the interpretations generalized from the long decades of dedicated ethnographic search of the Western Highlands / acase@tulane.edu

Charles Perrault's Contes, published in 1697, is one of the most famous works in French literature. Its success has been such that the expression 'conte de Perrault' has become a generic term Much of what has been written about the Contes seeks to consider them as a collection of traditional folk stories. Drawing upon mythological, linguistic, ethnological, or psychoanalytical contributions, critics, from Saintyves to Bettelheim, have defined these tales as a mere representation of collective or individual significance. Another orientation (Propp, Levi-Strauss) focuses on the morphology and structure of the conte My thesis situates Perrault's Contes within their particular historical and literary context which is the end of the 17th century, a time of many crises. It examines the theme of genealogy which traverses the tales and its significance which is mainly ideological. I argue that genealogy is used in the Contes to represent (desired) shifts in the nature of the familial, political, and social structures This dissertation has as its theoretical framework socio-historical studies on the period. It also profits from psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytical reading illuminates the larger historical dimension by uncovering the ideological conflicts that the Contes express The thesis consists of five chapters. In the first I address the problem of the genre. The ambiguity involving the genre of the conte raises the question of genealogy In the second chapter I study the break in the characters' genealogical line, and their invention of fictional origins The third chapter explores the question of paternity, the absence of the father leading to the invention of a fictive father The law and its transgressions are the focus of the fourth chapter. A word was in fact necessary on the expression 'Ma Mere L'Oye' and its phonological analogy with the law. Here the emergence of the unconscious questions the established order In the concluding chapter I propose an in-depth analysis of a particular tale, La Barbe bleue, chosen not only because it may be the only 'conte' Perrault invented, but also because it illustrates in condensed form all the preoccupations of the dissertation / acase@tulane.edu