Each semester since Fall 2006, I have taught an undergraduate introductory course called World Arts and Cultures (FOLK F121). This is a retitled and reworked version of the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology’s long neglected Introduction to Folklife.
The catalog describes the course this way: “Surveying the customary arts of the world’s peoples offers a means of comprehending the human condition today. This course explores how culture is made manifest, especially in such media as landscapes, architecture, material culture, and expressive performances. A sampling of world arts, it also provides an introduction to folklife studies.”
On my syllabus, I elaborate as follows: “The study of folklife is about exploring customary ways of living, especially during times of change, when inherited ways of life are something people become self-conscious about. It is this self-consciousness that causes people to label particular customs as traditions and then to react to them in particular ways that might emphasize everything from glorification, celebration, and revitalization to quiet abandonment or outright rejection. In considering customary ways of life and their broader human significance we will adopt a global perspective and consider the larger social forces that underpin social change in the contemporary world.”
On the syllabus, I go on to pose and answer the following question: “But what will we study, really? The course will particularly emphasize phenomena of longstanding interest to folklife scholars, including such things as human relations with the cultural environment, architecture, foodways, dress and body art, games, and community celebrations. In emphasizing such things as landscape, material culture, customary beliefs and festival, the course seeks to compliment introductory courses in folklore, which tend to emphasize traditional verbal arts (riddles, verbal arts, folktales, jokes, proverbs, etc.). This division is itself a custom in American folklore and folklife studies. The course also compliments introductory courses in ethnomusicology, which tend to focus specifically on contemporary world musics. “
The course addressed IU’s S&H distribution requirement.
In the past I have taught (and in the future I will again teach) undergraduate courses on Native American folklore, material culture studies, museum work, and other topics. At present, my focus is on improving the World Arts and Cultures Course.
