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. For information on how to apply for concurrent enrollment click here.

Announcements

* Congratulations to Ted Biggs, winner of the 2009 Jeanne Steager Memorial Prize in Folklore.

* 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 here.

* 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 is available here; learn more about the Guggenheim Fellowships here.

* Congratulations to Professors Charles Briggs and Clara Martini-Briggs, 2007 winners of the J.I. Staley Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes in the field of anthropology, for "Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling During a Medical Nightmare," a book they co-authored. For more information, read the full story courtesy of the Berkeley News Center.

* The Alan Dundes Graduate Fellowship, established in memory of long-time Program Director and renowned folklorist Alan Dundes began with its first award in Fall 2008. You can learn more about the Fellowship as well as how to contribute to the fund here.

Spring 2009 Archive Hours