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Irvine Valley College / Fall 2011 Marjorie C. Luesebrink, M.F.A., Professor course syllabus and study questions Fable and FolktaleOnline Literature Class Fall 2011 // Ticket #62505
Website: <http://califia.us/Folklore> Instructor Contact: at school<mluesebrink@ivc.edu> at home <luesebr1@ix.netcom.com>
The first class unit will consist of an introduction to Fables and Folktale and an orientation to the process of an Online Literature Class environment. Thoughts for Posting Responses: Family legends and myths are often full of meaning. Think about a myth that exists in your family. Write it out and post it for the class this week, or e-mail it to me and I will post it (if you are having trouble posting to the Discussion List).Be sure to begin an e- notebook to save your assignments; the collected assignments in the notebook will be a partial record of your Weekly Post Assignments. Reading Assignment : Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars, Witches, pp. 1-50Recommended: Website Materials.
This unit will focus on the kinds of folk material we find in all cultures and on the reasons why we continue to be enchanted by the oral legendstock that has persisted over centuries. Oral tales are as old as Language itself. From the earliest pictographs in caves, to the mysterious narratives of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, to the Urban Legends of today, we have always wanted to transform the truths of our lives into universal stories. The legendstock of Folklore can be divided into several categories. Fairy tales, nursery rhymes, "tall tales," ghost stories, chants, jokes, songs, "old wives' tales," spells, parables, urban legends, and, of course, fables are all part of this age-old tradition. These folk creations may circulate in cultures for centuries before they are captured in print. Tales enchant us for several reasons. They beguile us because they are always new, because they are often told in an atmosphere of intimacy, because they are sometimes more daring and exciting than what appears in print, and because they necessarily speak to our deepest hopes and fears in a sensory, imaginative way. Thoughts for Posting Responses: You are encouraged to begin as soon as possible participating in the class discussion forum. This forum will allow you to communicate with classmates, ask questions, and share your own family myths and legends, jokes and "old wives' tales." Each of us has a favorite folk tale from childhood or a persistent family myth that invites investigation. In the first weeks of class, you will be interviewing family members and examining old stories that you particularly liked. As we explore different strategies for classifying and analyzing folk material, you will use these folk stories to help you choose your "subject" for your Final Research Paper. You will be able to apply each of the analytical techniques we study for a deeper understanding of the tales. Reading Assignment : Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars, Witches, pp. 50-100 Recommended: Website Materials.
Oral tradition is characterized by certain features that may no longer apply once a tale or legend is immortalized in written language. The most important of these is that it is always changing. No tale is ever the same, even if the teller is. The environment changes, certainly, but the tale changes, too, by virtue of voice inflection, word choice, patterning and arrangement, and even, and most frequently, as the details and events of the tale shift and alter according to the audience. Second, each tale has a "persistence curve." The popularity of a tale will undergo a cultural structuring as it either survives, or fails to survive, in a particular culture. Third, tales have recurrent patterns or "morphologies" that manifest across cultures and through time. Folklore scholars differ as to the reasons that a piece of folklore comes to be frozen and immortalized in writing. Once a tale is written down, however, the characteristics of it change, and it undergoes an entirely different, even double, history from then on. Thoughts for Posting Responses: Take another look at the tale you wrote out as your assignment for the first class. The transformation of a story from "oral" to "written" form often eliminates important meaning. Write a commentary on your tale. Try to describe what you think got "lost" when you wrote it down. What details did you suppress? What important "private" information was understood by your family in the details or the manner of telling? Share these discoveries with your class members on the Discussion List..Reading Assignment : Harris: Cows, Pigs, Wars, Witches. -finish.Recommended: Website Materials..
This unit will investigate the features which characterize the oral tradition and the history of a tale as it is transformed into a written document. Most experts agree that tales in the Oral Tradition spring out of important messages in a culture--that is, tales don't arise from a vacuum. In order for an oral narrative to survive, it needs to fulfill at least one important cultural function. We can trace some tales back to an effort to describe the natural world. Other tales are cautionary, designed to act as informal guides to the audience. Some tales seem to be "directed" by a need for a culture to describe itself in ways controlled by the "elite" (this is Zipes' theory). And, large numbers of tales persist even when we have forgotten the origin and meaning. What experts don't agree on is what, exactly, accounts for the staying power of myth. Literature, religion, sociology, astronomy, magic, economics, psychology, science, and status all figure in the impetus to create folk material. Thoughts for Posting Responses: Each of your weekly posts has been about stories that have been important to you and your classmates. This week, look again at the tale you have written down to see what kind of origin it might have had. Is it a story that explains the history of your family? Does it set out some important warning or advice? Is it a story that re-affirms the reality of the world or its magic? If you have trouble figuring out the origins of your family myth, discuss it with other class members in the Discussion List.Reading Assignment : Boroff, Marie trans.: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--Introduction and pp. 1-20Recommended: Website Materials.
September 19 - September 25 and September 26 - October 2 This session will begin an investigation into the ways in which we can analyze Folk Material. Literary analysis is the one we are most familiar with - especially classifications of tale types and motifs. Long before Folklore became an academic subject, the material of very popular folk stories and legends was studied by literary scholars. One cycle of legends which has fascinated listeners and readers for centuries in the King Arthur story. The King Arthur story seems to have circulated in many versions that were sung and told first, and later written down, also in several versions. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an early example of the Arthur tale-type, and it contains many of the motifs we are familiar with in heroic literature and movies. Thoughts for Posting Responses: During these two weeks, look at the tale you have written down to see what kind of tale type and motifs exist in it. Does it have public or private symbolism? Is it contemporary or are the roots very ancient? Write an analysis of the origins of your family myth.Reading Assignment : Boroff, Marie trans.: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--pp. 20-53Recommended: Website Materials.
In this session we will identify the tale types and motifs that are found in other quasi-religious tales and stories of the origin of the world. If you have not gotten the change, now is the time to go to our online study of the ancient skies and other Website materials on Astroarcheology. The ways in which the desire of the earliest cultures to align themselves to the sky and discover its mysteries gave rise to countless stories. The persistence of "sky details"--in even the most unlikely places (the Amazon jungle!)--encourages us to take a closer look at the primitive folk material of many countries. If, as many scholars believe, some of the early folk tales are remnants of pre-history cosmic/star lore, what accounts for the persistence of these tales? How do we see the characteristics of oral material shaping these narratives? Thoughts for Posting Responses: Write a proposal for your Final Research Paper. You may send this to me by e-mail or your can post it to the Discussion List (always a help to have some classmates give feedback at this point!). You can see the guidelines for the Final Research Project on the Website. This proposal needs to be only one page - but you should be working toward a thesis. Reading Assignment : Zipes: Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion--pp. 1-13Recommended: Astroarcheology
VII. One Religion all Religions: One Face all Heroes October 17 - October 24 Several important scholars have identified common threads in the symbolism and ritual of religions worldwide - these have close ties to our folklore sources. Lecture VII. will investigate a few of these, including the mixed symbolism of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. One of the earliest and most influential scholars in the area of folk material was James Frazer. He actually traveled throughout Europe in the late 19th Century, observing rural peasant cultures who still practiced May Day celebrations with the "Straw Man" and the "May Pole." He also visited ancient cultures that had, at that time, been little influenced by the ideas of Western Europe. His "Golden Bough" theories, especially as they applied to Christianity, were highly controversial at the time - but much of his research has been confirmed by later Biblical scholars.The concept of folk material as the last home of spiritual hopes that have been crowded out of official religion became part of the coda for studying folk material in the 20th Century. Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade were leaders in this new way of looking at our roots in oral culture. The persistence of themes, forms, and images across cultures and time periods lent credence to the argument that folk material was a welling up of a universal soul of mankind, a pan-language of our hopes and aspirations. Feminists argued that the problem was the term "mankind"--since half of the world's hopes and aspirations lay in folk material that had been routinely ignored or actively suppressed. Thoughts for Posting Responses: Add to your work for your Final Research Paper, by posting a folk tale (or a link to one) that you have found that might have been part of a "universal religion."Reading Assignment: Zipes: Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion--pp. 13-44 Recommended: Website Materials.
VIII. The Socio-Economic Interpretation of Folktales October 31 - November 6 In the next two weeks we will begin investigating other methods for analyzing folk material - the socio-economic approaches. Jack Zipes is one of the leaders in this field. While all tales do not lend themselves to these techniques, a surprising number do! Harris makes some interesting assertions in his book about Cows and Witches. He argues that many times the myths made by cultures are oblique self-explanations. These myths-as-culture-models, he argues, serve to give an imaginative justification to habits and mores that have arisen out of environmental and economic forces. If we follow his reasoning in the analysis of other folk material that we have encountered, we might have to see the Trojan War as a trade disagreement, and Paul Bunyan as a statement about resource management. Such thinking leads naturally into other observations about folk material and the societies that create it. Another way of analyzing folk material is to see it as suffused with political statement. Zipes looks at everything from Charles Perrault's innocent classic tales to "The Wizard of Oz" and sees conspiracy behind every arras, sitting next to every cinder-fire. It would be easier to dismiss his views if we did not have the present reminder of the Disney material--a nearly endless recycling of folk material in children's movies. In the case of the U.S., the "elite" that Zipes talks about may not really be the media, but instead some ambient set of values assigned to the consumer classes. Thoughts for Posting Responses: From your work for your Final Research Paper, share some interesting piece of research you have found with us.Reading Assignment: Zipes: Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion--pp. 45-70 Recommended: Website Materials.
IX. The Politics of Storytelling Our contemporary culture uses many familiar folk elements in the construction of the "story" that we tell ourselves to understand our society. Contemporary life and the political scene are no exception. Lecture IX. will investigate the political arena for folk stories and myths. Elections are hotbeds of folklore. Politics shows up, too, in the details of folklore, the concepts that are endorsed. This lecture will take a look at the political aspects of legend and tale. Thoughts for Posting Responses Add to your work for your Research Paper, by renting or going to see a Disney movie or any film based on folk material. Write one page of analysis that uses the Zipes' yardstick as an evaluation tool. Then, interview other members of your family about your own family myth. Note the differences between their versions and your own. Reading Assignment: Zipes: Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion--pp. 71-96 Recommended: Website Materials.
X. The Psychology of Hope: One Face all Heroes and November 21 - November 27 During this unit we will look at the psychological theories that use fairy and folk material to investigate the inner self. Freud, Jung, Maria Von Franz, Eric Erickson, and others have used folk models to assist us in locating the source of our angst and using concepts such as folk archetypes to progress toward a deeper understanding of our personalities. Finally we come to probably the most popular theories of folk material - Freud was a leader in this - and we see Freudian/Jungian interpretations of everything from Snow White to Elephant jokes. Vladimir Propp, a Russian theorist of the early Twentieth Century, sees the patterns of folk tales as a part of our subconscious understanding of the drama of life as it is lived in the interior of each one of us. Undoubtedly, we will have talked about the interior nature, the almost supernatural affinity we have for tales, all the way along. Thoughts for Posting Responses: In the Discussion List, write about a tale you have found that might have been part of a "universal religion."Reading Assignment : Von Franz, Propp.Recommended: Website Materials.
XI. Urban Legends In the last Lecture, we will toss caution to the winds and jump into the world of sewer alligators and secret chocolate-chip cookie recipes - with Urban Legends. Many people see the hidden dreams and desires of a culture, and its secret fears, reflected in the Urban Legend. A very interesting manifestation of the Urban Legend is occurring on the web, right now, with the circulation of jokes, riddles, and even virus warnings. Thoughts for Posting Responses: Final Research Project Due. Reading Assignment : Recommended: Website Materials.Research Paper Due - Sharing of Papers Online - Discussion of Papers Be sure to see the Help Pages for preparing your Research Paper Project
XI. Review and Sharing of Projects December 5 - December 9A short review of the lectures and presentations of students' projects. Discussion of all final assignments, etc. Take-Home Final due Research Project due - both on Friday, December 9, 2011. Link to the Take-Home Final Help pages for preparing the Take-Home Final Essay
Enjoy the Magic! |
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Reminders:
Your Fable and Folktale class is an Online Literature Class. One of the benefits of this class is that you can read, study, and discuss important elements of Fable and Folktale in your own time or at home. We have more space for Discussion and more time to explore important ideas!However, you have some key responsibilities. You will need to take the initiative to read all the materials and keep up with the class. An Online Class dictates that your class will not meet on campus in lecture halls or classrooms, but will instead take place entirely on your Blackboard Site, on this site, in the class Discussion List, and by e-mail. This site includes all class materials, a section for each lecture topic, and the link to our Blackboard Site Map. It is very important that you read and keep up with all of the materials that you receive by e-mail, read all the posts in the Discussion List [much important information is exchanged as a result of student questions!], and post within the time frame of each week! If, for some reason, you cannot post or keep up with the class, please let me know as soon as possible. As you may have guessed, online classes are not for everyone. You will need to have a basic familiarity with computers and listservs; you will need to provide your own time schedules and motivation; and you will need to be eager to share your discoveries with your classmates in writing. Here are the essential things you will need to know: Orientation Material IVC no longer requires classes to have Mandatory Physical Orientation. I have provided a "Online Orientation" page for you to get familiar with the features and requirements of the class: <http://califia.us/Folklore/orientation.htm> Please read the recommended pages and write to me with questions. I will either answer them individually or on the Discussion List! Lectures Each major topic in our curriculum is accompanied by a weekly lecture. See Lectures. You should plan specific time each week to read the lecture and the texts associated with that topic (including the links provided). A longer description of the Lectures along with questions to help you write your Weekly Post is in the Course Syllabus.
Discussion List Your class participation takes place on the Blackboard Discussion List for the class. You will want to keep up with the list weekly, if not daily. You should read each post, respond to the ones you can, and initiate your own discussion with topics. The Discussion List is our classroom. It is essential that you participate on a regular basis! You must post a MINIMUM OF ONCE A WEEK TO PASS THE CLASS. For assistance with what kind of responses to post, see the Course Syllabus.
Books and Reading Your reading will consist of printed texts and web articles and stories (both on this site and on other folklore resources sites). The Reading List is quite extensive. As you can imagine, this is necessary because we do not have regular classes to cover this material. Please purchase your books and begin reading as soon as possible! Books on the Reading List are available at the IVC Bookstore or on Amazon.com. [To order a book on Amazon, simply enter the author, find the title, and proceed to the ordering section.]
Weekly Project Assignments You are responsible for posting to the Discussion List at least once a week. In these posts, you may discuss the topic of the week or you may introduce information you have found in your research. Each lecture topic in the Course Syllabus will have suggestions of issues you might want to discuss, but they are just guidelines. The contents of your Weekly Project Assignments may form a part of your Final Research Project. [See Assignments.]
Exams You will not have a mid-term in this class. Instead, you will have a Take-Home Final. This final will consist of an essay about the material of the lectures. It can be e-mailed to me. You may start on this essay at any time. [See Assignments.]
Written Evaluation You will be evaluated on the quality of your posts to the Discussion List. Begin by reading the posts of your colleagues and responding with thoughtful, in-depth posts of your own. You must post each week in timely fashion to PASS the class. The time frame for each week runs from Sunday night to Sunday night. You should post for the week before midnight on the last Sunday. In order to pass the class, you must write a Research Paper. Please read the Guidelines for Requirements for the Research Paper and Assistance for Writing your Research Paper carefully! In order to get an A or B in the class, you will need to complete the Take-Home Final Exam. Please read the requirements for the Take-Home Final carefully. Attendance Because of the nature of this Online class, the grading and class attendance policies may be unfamiliar to you. Please see Grading Policies. Please be sure that you are posting regularly (and responding to others' posts) so that I know you are still attending class! If, for any reason, you find that this Online Literature Class schedule is not working for you, please go to Admissions and Records and drop the class! I will have no way of determining your status if I don't hear from you - so you must take the initiative to make sure you are dropped.
“If you have a
documented disability and need assistance and/or academic accommodations,
please contact the DSPS office at 949.451.5630 or visit them in Room
SC-171. Please discuss your accommodations with me during office
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I am always, available, too, in office hours or by appointment: 949.451.5328 If you have any questions, please Contact me: at school <mluesebrink@ivc.edu> or at home <luesebr1@ix.netcom.com>. |
