Folklore Program (FOLKLORE) < University of Wisconsin-Madison

FOLKLORE 100 — INTRODUCTION TO FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Surveys folklore in the United States and around the world, with a comparative emphasis on ways in which individuals and groups use beliefs, songs, stories, sayings, dances, festivals, and artifacts to address issues of identity, authenticity, and authority, in complex societies.

FOLKLORE/AFROAMER/AMER IND/ASIAN AM/CHICLA 102 — INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE US ETHNIC AND AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES

3 credits.

Introduction to comparative ethnic studies, examining race, ethnicity, and indigeneity within the United States. Includes perspectives from African American, American Indian, Asian American, and Chican@ and Latin@ studies.

FOLKLORE/MUSIC 103 — INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC CULTURES OF THE WORLD

3 credits.

An introductory ethnomusicology course providing a variety of ways to approach musics typically not covered in music history courses. Active engagement with these musics within their larger world contexts.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Engage with various musics on students' own terms
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Speak and write clearly about what is heard.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Recognize and contextualize the several genres of music that represent each cultural area selected for study in the course
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Think rigorously about how positionality, including your own, affects listening and knowledge practices
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Have learned something about yourself -- strengths, weaknesses, biases, desires, tendencies, curiosities
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/RELIG ST 104 — SACRED PLACES AND JOURNEYS

3 credits.

An introduction to the study of religion through the lens of sacred places and journeys, including pilgrimage.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Spring 2021

Learning Outcomes: 1. Apply key theories in the study of religion to varied religious phenomena in research and essay writing
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Articulate the influence of positionality in the study of religion
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Articulate how places become perceived, constructed and used as sites of sacrality in different religious, spiritual and secular contexts
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Articulate the complex ways that migration and politics affect the perception and use of sacred sites
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Discuss religious matters in a respectful but detached (non-proselytizing) manner
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/GNS 200 — FOLKLORE OF CENTRAL, EASTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPE

3 credits.

Folklore of Central, Eastern and Northern Europe and among emigrants from these regions in North America. A survey of genres of folklore, history of research, and modes of interpretation, past and present.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Gen Ed - Communication Part B
Breadth - Humanities
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2023

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize and understand key concepts important to the study of folklore as related to the cultures of people in and from the countries of Central, Eastern and Northern Europe.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Articulate and apply methods folklorists use to document, describe, and discuss culture.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Produce folkloristic products in the form of essays, oral presentations, and digital products.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/AFRICAN 210 — THE AFRICAN STORYTELLER

3 credits.

The oral tradition and the written word; the composition of stories, relationship between performer and audience, and transmission of tradition in various African societies.

FOLKLORE/ANTHRO/INTL ST/LINGUIS 211 — GLOBAL LANGUAGE ISSUES

3 credits.

Focuses on language and its culture, example topics include: extinction and revival, language and nationhood, how widely and deeply languages differ, language and worldview, writing systems and literacy, language discrimination and inequality.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Either Humanities or Social Science
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2023

Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify ways that geographic, social, and political events, movements, and trends shape the sociolinguistic context of the world’s languages
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Demonstrate an understanding of subfields of global sociolinguistic inquiry, including language contact, variation, change, and death; language revitalization; the intersections of language, race, and ethnicity; the intersections of language and gender, and sexuality
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Critically evaluate specific examples of language use in a variety of linguistic and cultural contexts
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Design and conduct a sociocultural linguistic research project, including: identify a research question; collect appropriate resources and data; conduct data analysis and interpretation; draw conclusions, and summarize results
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 215 — ELEMENTARY TOPICS IN FOLKLORE

1-3 credits.

Exploration of various topics in the study of folklore, folklife, myth, foodways, or music.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: Yes, unlimited number of completions

Last Taught: Spring 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Demonstrate an understanding of general themes and concepts in the folklore topic being covered.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Articulate the ways folklore affects and is affected by the society in which it functions.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 220 — THE FOLK TALE

3 credits.

Types of heroes, social functions, and tellers; tales from four cultures.

FOLKLORE 225 — HORROR AS EXPRESSIONS OF NATIONAL ANGST

3 credits.

Explore horror as cultural phenomenon and how it represents various forms of cultural/national angst.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize, describe and analyze cultural phenomena; specifically horror narrative and the communities that watch them, and put it into context
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Analyze the connections between horror narrative and the wider workings of culture
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 230 — INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Folklore of ethnic, regional, religious, and occupational cultures, emphasizing how diverse peoples (African Americans, American Indians, Appalachians, Chicanos, Germans, Irish, Jews, Mormons, miners, service workers, etc.) use traditional festivals, artifacts, songs and stories to express their experiences within American life.

FOLKLORE/MEDIEVAL/SCAND ST 235 — THE WORLD OF SAGAS

3 credits.

The Icelandic sagas viewed in their social, cultural, and literary contexts. An introduction to one of the greatest bodies of vernacular literature of the early Middle Ages.

Requisites: None

Course Designation: Breadth - Literature. Counts toward the Humanities req
Level - Elementary
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize, describe and analyze shifting geographic, cultural, and ethnic/racial factors in the Northern European region during the Viking Age, and put it into context
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Identify and distinguish between different types of sources used in the study of the Nordic region during the Viking Age
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Demonstrate a general understanding of major scholarly approaches, concepts and current research findings concerning the Nordic region during the Viking Age
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Synthesize information, engage in discussion and research, and argue persuasively about key topics in the Nordic region during the Viking Age
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Analyze the connections between images of the Vikings Age and the wider workings of modern culture
Audience: Undergraduate

6. Guide, mentor and support peers to achieve excellence in practice of the discipline
Audience: Undergraduate

7. Work in multi-disciplinary teams to analyze the cultural material from various disciplinary points of view
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 315 — INTERMEDIATE TOPICS IN FOLKLORE

1-3 credits.

Exploration of various topics in the study of folklore, folklife, myth, foodways, or music.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: Yes, unlimited number of completions

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Synthesize the written and material information to demonstrate an understanding of the knowledge from the course
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Recognize, describe, and analyze cultural concepts, putting them into context.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 317 — THE IRISH TRADITION

3 credits.

Survey of Irish folklore and folklife, including narrative, music, dance, customs, material culture, and foodways, in both Ireland and beyond.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2023

Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify and characterize major genres of folklore and folklife in the lives of Irish people inside and outside Ireland, past and present.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Apply folkloristic scholarship to specific ethnographic field data or archival materials through preparation of interpretative essays and other products.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Recognize and articulate the ways in which Irish history reflects or illustrates wider processes of colonization, disenfranchisement, migration, nation-building, and cultural diversity at work in other parts of the world today.
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Engage with contemporary scholarship on Irish folklore and gain skills in academic research on the topic.
Audience: Graduate

FOLKLORE/AFROAMER/ASIAN AM/DANCE 319 — AFRO ASIAN IMPROV: FROM HIP HOP TO MARTIAL ARTS FUSION

3 credits.

An Afro Asian perspective provides a lens through which intersections between Asian American and African American dance and martial arts are studied and practiced. Asian American and African American movement genres provide tools to explore dance fusion, choreography, and improvisation, to create dances informed by African American and Asian American legacies of struggle, innovation and transformation, while cognizant of historical forces of oppression and racism. Building connections through respectful communication with others are learned through dance practice, discussion and writing about concepts learned through readings, videos, and guest artist visits. Engagement with dance as a cultural vehicle for creative problem-solving and risk-taking occurs through guided class or smaller group activities.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Ethnic St - Counts toward Ethnic Studies requirement
Breadth - Humanities
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Articulate perspectives on the diversity of the human condition through critical andinterpretive skills to analyze the past, present, and future of human movement in a complex world
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Prepare for participation in a multicultural society through developing a consciousness of self and other and building empathy towards others’ perspective, thinking critically and questioning assumptions of certain valued or devalued histories, and analyzing how these differences have promulgated disparities in contemporary American society
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Demonstrate skills in writing and speaking about dance in its historical, contemporary and cultural contexts
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Articulate Afro Asian perspectives on the intersections of Asian American and African American cultural, social and historical knowledge, and communicate important ideas through dance and story-telling performance
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Practice Asian American and African American foundational movement toolboxes as a basis for improvisation and dance choreography supported by concepts of theater and culturally-based learning traditions
Audience: Undergraduate

6. Engage in imagination-led and creative problem-solving movement activities
Audience: Undergraduate

7. Build connections with others through class practice, discussions, working groups within and outside of class
Audience: Undergraduate

8. Use the skills you learn to lead a calmer, more focused, responsible and productive life
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE 320 — FOLKLORE OF WISCONSIN

3 credits.

Introduction to folk cultural groups and folklore forms of Wisconsin.

FOLKLORE/DANCE/THEATRE 321 — JAVANESE PERFORMANCE

2 credits.

Technique and practice of classical Javanese dance in its musical, historical and cultural contexts.

FOLKLORE/RELIG ST 326 — THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE MODERN WORLD

3 credits.

Explores evidence of belief in the supernatural in the modern world as it appears in the context of folk religion, folk medicine, legends, folk drama, ritual and custom, and media accounts and presentations. Surveys scholarly approaches to the topic. Course not available to students with credits for Folklore 415 before Fall 2023.

Requisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement or graduate/professional standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize and explore different types of supernatural narratives, practices, and beliefs from around the world and throughout history.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Analyze the roles that supernatural narratives, practices, and beliefs play in human societies, and in the lives of individuals.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Analyze “the supernatural” in relationship to historical memories, cultural anxieties, folk traditions, spiritual beliefs, physiological sensations, political conflicts, environmental disasters, and existential imperatives.
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Engage with the course themes via analytical and creative written responses, experiential learning experiments, and the active documentation of folklore.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/LITTRANS 327 — VAMPIRES

3 credits.

Explores the development of the vampire legend in folklore, rumor, literature, cinema, television, and popular culture and in relation to topics such as colonization, race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Literature. Counts toward the Humanities req
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Summer 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Describe the evolving characteristics of vampire traditions from early nineteenth-century European folklore through European and American literature, film, and other media.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Describe the interplay between folklore and authored cultural works over time, with examples drawn from the circulation of vampire concepts between informal and authored products.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Interpret representations of the vampire in relation to historical and cultural situations, with particular reference to colonization, race, gender, sexuality, and class.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/MEDIEVAL/RELIG ST/SCAND ST 342 — NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

3 credits.

Mythology, literature, ritual, traditions, medieval folklore, and religion from Nordic areas and Scandinavia.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Literature. Counts toward the Humanities req
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize, describe and analyze cultural phenomena, specifically pre-Christian Nordic Religion, and put it into context.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Demonstrate an understanding of the major theories, approaches, concepts and current research findings concerning medieval Nordic mythology and religion.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Synthesize the written and material information and use insight and creativity to demonstrate an understanding of the knowledge base from the field.
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion.
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Retrieve, analyze, and interpret the professional and lay literature providing information to both professionals and public.
Audience: Undergraduate

6. Guide, mentor and support peers to achieve excellence in practice of the discipline.
Audience: Undergraduate

7. Work in multi-disciplinary teams to analyze the cultural material from various disciplinary points of view
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/LITTRANS/MEDIEVAL/SCAND ST 345 — THE NORDIC STORYTELLER

3 credits.

Exploring the oral nature and performance traditions of folklore, ethnography, tales and ballads, literature and culture from Nordic areas and Scandinavia.

Requisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement

Course Designation: Breadth - Literature. Counts toward the Humanities req
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Spring 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Recognize, describe and analyze cultural phenomena, specifically Nordic Narrative, and put it into context.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Demonstrate an understanding of the major theories, approaches, concepts and current research findings concerning Nordic Narrative and folklore studies.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Synthesize the written and material information and use insight and creativity to demonstrate an understanding of the knowledge base from the field.
Audience: Undergraduate

4. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion.
Audience: Undergraduate

5. Retrieve, analyze, and interpret the professional and lay literature providing information to both professionals and public.
Audience: Undergraduate

6. Work in multi-disciplinary teams to analyze the cultural material from various disciplinary points of view.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/LITTRANS/MEDIEVAL 346 — IN TRANSLATION: THE ICELANDIC SAGAS

3-4 credits.

Gain an understanding of saga literature as a genre and of the cultural history of Iceland in the Viking Era and the Middle Ages, based on the interplay between pagan codes of honor and Christian ethics.

FOLKLORE/LITTRANS 347 — IN TRANSLATION: KALEVALA AND FINNISH FOLK-LORE

3-4 credits.

A look at the Kalevala, the Finnish creation myth and national epic of Finland, and how it affected Finnish national identity and the eventual Finnish independence from Russia.

FOLKLORE/RELIG ST 352 — SHAMANISM

3 credits.

Survey of shamanism as a religious tradition and sociocultural force in Siberian, Asian, and Native American societies. Exploration of shamanic rituals, roles, cosmology. Cultural and political uses of shamanism in traditional and modern contexts.

FOLKLORE/RELIG ST 359 — MYTH

3 credits.

The relationship between myth and tale, history, culture. Myth research; methodological approaches; world mythologies; myth and modern times.

FOLKLORE 399 — DIRECTED STUDY IN FOLKLORE FOR UNDERGRADUATES

1-3 credits.

Directed study as arranged with a faculty member.

FOLKLORE/MUSIC 402 — MUSICAL CULTURES OF THE WORLD

3 credits.

Explores the performance, transmission, and consumption of traditional and popular musics outside of the standard Euro-American context. Employs musical-analytic and critical approaches to trace transnational musical circulation.

FOLKLORE 415 — ADVANCED TOPICS IN FOLKLORE

1-3 credits.

Exploration of various topics in the study of folklore, folklife, myth, foodways, or music.

Requisites: Junior standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Advanced
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S

Repeatable for Credit: Yes, unlimited number of completions

Last Taught: Spring 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Communicate effectively through written essays, oral presentations and discussion.
Audience: Undergraduate

2. Demonstrate advanced knowledge of the methods and practices of the folklore field and practices.
Audience: Undergraduate

3. Produce writing that applies concepts learned in the course to analyze knowledge discussed in the course and articulate theories in a critical setting.
Audience: Undergraduate

FOLKLORE/DANCE/THEATRE 421 — JAVANESE PERFORMANCE REPERTORY

2 credits.

Introduction to Javanese theatre performance in a Javanese epic tradition. Includes use of Javanese gamelan music as accompaniment for dance drama.

FOLKLORE/GEN&WS 428 — GENDER AND EXPRESSIVE CULTURE

3 credits.

Examines the relationship between dominant images of gender representation as they emerge in expressive culture in various societies.

FOLKLORE 430 — TOPICS IN AMERICAN FOLKLORE: ETHNIC STUDIES

3-6 credits.

Topics in historical or contemporary folklore and folklife pertaining to persistently marginalized racial or ethnic groups in the United States.

FOLKLORE/AMER IND/ANTHRO 431 — AMERICAN INDIAN FOLKLORE

3 credits.

An introduction to the genres of American Indian Folklore. Special attention is given to creation stories, trickster tales, and the relationship between folklore and historical memory.

FOLKLORE/AMER IND/ANTHRO/GEN&WS 437 — AMERICAN INDIAN WOMEN

3 credits.

Examines and interprets the roles of American Indian women in traditional societies, and in contemporary North America.

FOLKLORE 439 — FOODWAYS

3 credits.

Explores artistic, social, sensory, and spiritual expressions through food that convey personal, group, and place-based identities, ethnicity, gender, and class in work and play. Reviews range of food writing and scholarly perspectives including culinary historical, structural-functional, and performance.

FOLKLORE/SCAND ST 440 — SCANDINAVIAN AMERICAN FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Examines the verbal, musical, customary, and material folklore of Scandinavian Americans, with emphasis on the upper Midwest.

FOLKLORE/SCAND ST 443 — SAMI CULTURE, YESTERDAY AND TODAY

4 credits.

Interdisciplinary study of Sami (Lapp) people of Scandinavia past and present. Indigenous modes of expression and worldview, contemporary cultural and political activism. Extensive discussion of connections to Native American and Inuit experiences; rise of U.S. and other indigenous peoples' movements.

FOLKLORE/SLAVIC 444 — SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Oral traditional literature of Eastern Europe: ritual and lyric poetry, epic, and folktale.

FOLKLORE/MEDIEVAL/SCAND ST 446 — CELTIC-SCANDINAVIAN CULTURAL INTERRELATIONS

3 credits.

Examination of shared traditions and historical connections between the North and Northwest of Europe. Readings of medieval and pre-modern Scandinavian, Scottish, Welsh and Irish sagas, histories, talkes. Discussion of the role of folklore in modern Celtic and Scandinavian societies.

FOLKLORE 460 — FOLK EPICS

3 credits.

Oral nature, structure, performance traditions, and epic ideology, from various world areas.

FOLKLORE/GEN&WS 467 — WOMEN AND POLITICS IN POPULAR CULTURE AND FOLKLORE

3 credits.

How popular culture and folklore have been used by women as rhetorical tools that promote deliberation and debate, broaden political engagement, and advance particular social identities. Global content, with examples from around the world.

FOLKLORE/GEN&WS 468 — FEMINISM, FOLKLORE AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

3 credits.

Explores feminism, folklore and comparative literature from a variety of perspectives drawing from scholarship in feminist philosophy, folklore, anthropology, critical cultural studies, and postcolonial theory.

FOLKLORE/L I S 490 — FIELD METHODS AND THE PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Combines a fieldwork practicum with scrutiny of the cultural, political, and ethical dimensions underlying the documentation and public presentation of folklore through festivals, exhibitions, publications, audio-visual productions, and digital archival collections.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Humanities
Level - Intermediate
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Understand how to employ folkloristic fieldwork, archival methodologies, and community engagement in documenting and presenting local communities.
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

2. Explain key concepts of folklore studies in the context of wider public humanistic research.
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

3. Create a final project demonstrating critical thinking, civic knowledge, and collaboration with coordinating communities.
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

4. Understand how to coordinate effectively with community organizations to undertake multidisciplinary arts and humanities grant-funded project planning with public programming goals such as festivals, exhibitions, publications, audio-visual productions, and digital archival collections.
Audience: Graduate

FOLKLORE 491 — PRACTICUM IN PUBLIC FOLKLORE

1-3 credits.

Work as an intern with a public agency or a private non-profit organization involved in public folklore projects.

FOLKLORE 510 — FOLKLORE THEORY

3 credits.

Symbolical, psychoanalytic, Marxian, structuralist and performance theory models for analyzing expressive culture. Topics include play, ritual, festival, food, customs, class and the symbolism, structure and politics of narrative.

FOLKLORE/MUSIC 515 — PROSEMINAR IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

3 credits.

Introduction to ethnomusicology, including historical survey of major works in the field, classification of musical instruments, measurement of tuning systems and concepts of scale, mode and rhythm in non-Western music.

FOLKLORE/MUSIC 516 — ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS FOR MUSIC AND SOUND

3 credits.

Focuses on the tools (material, methodological, and ethical) for doing ethnographic fieldwork in musical contexts.

Requisites: Graduate/professional standing

Course Designation: Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Spring 2023

Learning Outcomes: 1. Demonstrate familiarity with a body of (ethno)musicological and anthropological literature on ethnographic methods.
Audience: Graduate

2. Decipher and explicate difficult texts with increased confidence.
Audience: Graduate

3. Design and carry out ethnographic research projects.
Audience: Graduate

4. Demonstrate an awareness of power dynamics and your own position as researcher.
Audience: Graduate

5. Facilitate discussions effectively.
Audience: Graduate

6. Track key terms across (ethno)musicological and anthropological literature, describing how ethnographers’ relationships with these have changed over time.
Audience: Graduate

FOLKLORE 518 — THE SCOTTISH TRADITION

3 credits.

Study of the Scottish literary tradition from the Middle Ages to the present day, with an emphasis on folk culture and its influence.

FOLKLORE/ANTHRO 520 — ETHNIC REPRESENTATIONS IN WISCONSIN

4 credits.

Representation and self-representation of ethnic cultures in Wisconsin. For example: museums, mass media, ethnic theater.

FOLKLORE/COM ARTS 522 — DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

3 credits.

Explore everyday communication in social media. Learn digital recording technologies for documenting everyday communication and the use of digital content in social media.

Requisites: Junior standing

Course Designation: Breadth - Either Humanities or Social Science
Level - Advanced
L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S
Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement

Repeatable for Credit: No

Last Taught: Fall 2024

Learning Outcomes: 1. Evaluate the reasons we value everyday artistic and expressive communication
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

2. Analyze the affordances of different social media platforms
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

3. Evaluate the formal elements best suited to the affordances of different media platforms
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

4. Apply that understanding in the design and production of digital text, photo, sound, and video communications that document everyday artistic and expressive communication
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

5. Analyze ethical implications of documenting human behavior
Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad

6. Apply scholarly theories on digital media to digital platforms and digital platform content
Audience: Graduate

FOLKLORE 530 — TOPICS IN FOLKLORE

1-3 credits.

Topics in Folklore in various cultures and time periods.

FOLKLORE 540 — LOCAL CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN THE UPPER MIDWEST

3 credits.

Addresses different aspects of community life and culture in the Upper Midwest; topics include ethnic groups, religious life, cultural landscapes, oral narrative, music, and material culture.

FOLKLORE 699 — INDEPENDENT STUDY IN FOLKLORE (GRADUATE)

1-3 credits.

Advanced directed study projects as arranged with a faculty member.

FOLKLORE/MUSIC 915 — SEMINAR IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

3 credits.

Topics in ethnomusicology within a cross-cultural framework; melodic typology, scale and tuning systems, mode, rhythm, ornamentation, improvisation techniques, oral and written traditions of composition, notation systems, and function of music society.

FOLKLORE 970 — SEMINAR IN FOLKLORE

3 credits.

Thorough study of significant folklore topics. Content will vary with each offering.