Folklore Program
The Folklore Program at the University of California, Berkeley trains intellectual leaders in folkloristics for the twenty-first century. We seek to provide a deep, critical, and theoretically-informed reading of folklore scholarship from the seventeenth century through the present. We urge students to develop a particular field of expertise in folkloristics. At the same time, we advise our graduate students to develop strong grounding in another discipline or multidisciplinary perspective, such as race and ethnic studies, performance studies, science studies, rhetoric, narrative theory, ethnomusicology, materiality, womens and queer theory, and others, in order to bring new perspectives to their work in folkloristics.
We are truly international in scope, seeking to challenge the Eurocentric roots of folkloristics by bringing in critiques and alternatives from outside the Euro-American orbit, particularly through study with leading folklorists from around the world, who come to Berkeley each year as visiting faculty members.
In addition to the M.A. in Folklore, we offer the option of concurrent enrollment in a PhD program in a humanities or social science discipline and the M.A. in folklore.
Anthropology 160: Forms of Folklore
Folklore shapes social identities and notions of community. This course focuses on how all of us construct notions of difference—racial, ethnic, gender, sexuality, class, and nation—through folklore. The course project turns each student into a contributor to the field of folklore by collecting traditional knowledge from his or her milieu and placing it in the Berkeley Folklore Archives.
Announcements
May 6, 2009
Professor Stanley Brandes receives 2007/2008 Distinguished Service Award
The Division of Social Sciences has extended an invitation to all faculty, staff, and graduate students to a reception honoring Professor Brandes and recipients of other Division awards.
The reception will take place at
THE HOWARD ROOM, MEN’S FACULTY CLUB
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009
4:00 6:00 P.M.
April 8, 2009
Famous Folkorist Alan Dundes Featured in California Magazine!
Alumni magazine article on the UCB Folklore Program's famous founder, Alan Dundes and his revolutionary contributions to the field of folklore.
April 8, 2009
Congratulations to Renata Limón
The Berkeley Folklore Program's First Alan Dundes Graduate Fellow
February 27, 2009
Congratulations to Ted Biggs
- winner of the 2009 Jeanne Steager Memorial Prize in Folklore.
January 5, 2009
Spring 2009 Special Folklore-Specific Courses
on alternative medicine and theories of traditionality and modernity have been scheduled and will be taught by visiting faculty member Katharine Young, PhD. Learn all the details of these two exciting offerings.
April 8, 2008
Congratulations to Stanley Brandes
- winner of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship. Dr. Brandes, a professor of Social Cultural Anthropology, was one of just 190 fellowship winners chosen from a pool of more than 2,600 applicants in the arts and sciences. More information about Professor Brandes and the Guggenheim Fellowships.