The Folklore Graduate Program

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Folklore Students

Our students come from a broad range of humanities and social science backgrounds as well as from  communications, data science, the physical and natural sciences. They are drawn from universities in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Previous coursework in folkloristics is not required, although strongly encouraged. Our students have gone on to careers in universities, museums, government agencies, journalism, business, law, NGOs, non-profit organizations, education, public folklore programs, cultural heritage organizations, art practice, among other areas. 

Folklore at Berkeley

Berkeley's internationally recognized Folklore MA Program offers students rigorous training in the discipline. Folklore, conceptualized as informal cultural expression circulating on and across social networks, emerges from the productive dialectic between an individual and the groups to which they belong. The study of folklore, folkloristics, enables interrogations of the complex relationships between "traditionality" and "modernity", the historical emergence of informal cultural expressive forms, the dynamics of their circulation(s) on and across social networks, and the importance of folklore and related concepts such as "tradition" and "heritage" in shaping political and social projects.

The Program provides a solid grounding in folklore theories and methodologies through core courses and seminars, and offers students a chance to specialize in one of the many related areas in which Berkeley offers particularly strong training.