Seminars
Post-mid semester
Post-mid semester
13-03-2024
The Coloniality of Folklore
6 perspectives from which we can understand folklore-
Power in folklore
Charles Bricks
Idea of Decoloniality.
The Coloniality of Folklore: Towards a Multi-Genealogical Practice of Folkloristics
Multi-Genealogical.
Banshee of Shoghor- mourns for a father who has passed away.
4 stories
Negative through Enlightenment rationalism and positive through Romantic nationalism.
“The British folklorists”- the recorded primary
“Voices of Modernity” –traditionality vs modernity
Followed Grimms- used scholarly terms to document whatever they have gathered. Helped folklore to not get eroded by modernization.
Nationalism- Post-colonial.
Tells you how there are different disciplinary formations inherent within folkloristics.
These things led to the departure of folklore from colonialism.
Postcolonial Studies- Dipesh Chakraborty
Modernity- aspect of modernity went along with colonialism.
Decolonial Studies- Enrique Dussel, Walter Mingolo
Modernity-Man. Writing History. Emplotment
Emplotment- linguistic structures used in folktales and how it depicts cultures, the languages used to document folktales.
John Locke- Travel Literature
Tamil Folklore
German Folklore
Jewish deicide- Jews as a people are collectively responsible for the killing of Jews.
Post war transformation neglected all the German folklore- having fascist agendas.
The folklore of Germans was seen as fascist.
Americo Parades
‘With his pistol in his hand’- Chicano Folklores- Mexican border identity-
Collected different tales from the borderland.
Theodor Benfeys- believed India was the centre of folktales.
Why did the British try to learn about us?
The main concern is that they wanted to rule us. They came for religious conversion. They need to understand the problem of the common people.
Folk practice- Chaturvarna system, sati practice.
Brahmanical colonization- Murugand- son of Shiva.
Truth itself defines and forms which is proven through folklore.
Multiplicities of roots- multiplicities of understandings.
No bias over which version is better. They are existing simultaneously and are contributing to folkloristics.
Caste-based politics.
Tribal politics, Dalit politics.
Understanding of folkloristics should be connected to larger questions of society.
How folklore should not be so narrow as it is.
18-03-2024
Tell it to the walls-
Told her complaints to the 4 walls and her physical weight reduced.
Cathartic element.
2000- Ramanujan’s predictions- I hear the nets of television…
“I don’t know if that will kill the folk narratives…”
Folktales being adapted to television.
Relevance of folktales and impact on an individual.
Help one form a sense of moral and traditions- a way of a particular culture to preserve their cultural traditions.
Plays an important role on how a child perceives and develops a critical viewpoint towards the folktale.
Everyone irrespective of caste or class has a nonliterate subcontinent inside of them. They are still influenced by oral traditions. The oral media replaced by written media. They impact each other. What is conveyed in oral traditions is complemented with writing.
With the arrival of printing press, written manuscripts available to everyone.
Primary orality- limitations of time and place
Secondary orality- multimedia, without the limits of face to face communication
Epics- Ramayana, Mahabharata. Some Telugu women’s songs on Ramayana. Look at the Ramayana from a feminine point of view. They look at the birth of Rama and how his mother was suffering throughout the labour and the sufferings of Sita.
Oral commentaries make epics more relatable to a culture and the current politics of a culture.
TV serials on epics- very popular. The telling of the folktale requires more and more infrastructure. The sociology of information becomes increasingly complex. The aspect of censorship is prevalent. Only the primary oral traditions are out of reach.
Lot of political agendas are infused. Institutionalization and censorship. Politicization of folklore. Television.
New version of Mahabharata- whitewashing of characters that were otherwise dark-skinned in colour. Religion and politics are mingled. Krishna and Shiva were dark-skinned and how they are white-skinned.
Many counter-traditions that surround them.
Alan Dundes- metafiction
Meta folklore-
The oral literary criticism is as important as literary criticism.
From a bative viewpoint, a contextual background is provided.
A proverb about a proverb.
Eg. A proverb is like a horse: when the truth is missing. We use a proverb to find it.
Yudhisthira was depressed. The sage comes and tells him a tale of Naladamayant. He gambled and lost everything. The story within affects the story without.
The emotions and thoughts are considered as substances and they are a part of a destination.
Sukshma (thought) and Sthula (body or matter)
Isadora Duncan-
“If I could tell you what it meant, I wouldn’t have to dance it.”
The king wanted to hear the tale from a storyteller. He showed inhibition in telling the tale. The listeners used to sit below him.
‘hmm’, ‘waah’- words of appreciation
Russells- In every subtle emotion, each and every point that is beautiful, they clap- a very important component of any rendition.
He brought a lower caste person as a listener to the storyteller. Narrating his story to the person below it.
Sometimes the tale goes in search of the audience.
Vruthakatha- “…then only the ritual will be completed.”
Early Texts
· Mahabharata and Ramayana-tells a story about itself.
· Complex interplay between written and oral traditions.
· Characteristics of oral Tales.
· Textual Community.
Reason for the Presence of difficult words in Mahabharata.
How tales have multiple existence.
Ramanujan- “language of an oral tale is not a standard dialect but the colloquial substandard dialect because it is told by ordinary men and women.”
Earlier texts were written to an appreciative audience.
Textual community- share a common understanding. Collective experience of storytelling. Develop their own understanding of texts and document variations.
Tales have relatives all over the world. Variations in tales.
· Stories and we come across different version. We could not have known that they were taught all over the world.
· International indexes of types and numbers.
· Ramanujan came across international indexes and worldwide parallels through the folklorist Edwin Kirkland. Highlights the systematic efforts to document folktales from diverse cultures.
· Discerns connections and contrast.
· Importance of cultural sensitivity.
· Critiques the Eurocentric bias- misinterprets non-European narratives. Reinforcing dominant interpretations and marginalizing marginal narratives.
· Agam and puram.
The tale might not be the same but the motifs remain the same.
Stories for Small Children
Akam and Puram
Cultural Context and Audience Reception
Ambiguity and Interpretation
Psychological Explorations through Narrative Patterns
Concrete Relational webs
Beginning and Ending Formulas
Folktales for children- “Once upon a time”, “…They lived happily ever after.”
Boundaries between real world and inner world- emphasizing its fictive nature and separating it from everyday lives.
Impact of Media on Oral Narratives
Dissemination of Oral Traditions
Standardization and Homogenization
Loss of Intimacy and Authenticity
Commercialization and Commodification
Origin of Folklore Studies in India
Colonialism- missionaries and administration
Pre-occupation of regional language departments
Living and growing part of Indian Culture- Indian folklore adapts to contemporary context even when folklore abroad may be irrelevant.
Role of Folklore
Construction of cultural ideals-
Praise those who follow the norms and denigrate those who don’t- create social cognition
Conveying Justice-
Magnifies the consequences of human actions- encourage ethical behaviours
Information Transmission
Cultural Relativism and Universalism-imposing universal categories
The Origin of Indian Folklore
Panchatantra
Aphorisms glorify shrewdness and cleverism
Pithy observation on truth.
Altrusim is not usually found.
Initially in Sanskrit, then translated to languages like Persian and then was travelled to other parts of the world.
Brahmin teacher teaching 3 sons.
The tales are told by Vishnu Sharman- In some versions, he is considered to be the author.
Kadhasaritsagara
Indian folktales, fairy tales and legends retold by Somadeva.
Three serious issues raised by Ramanujan in his introduction to ‘Folktales from India’:
· The precise composition of classical Indian civilization and the preponderance of Sanskritic learning with it.
· The field of folklore studies is overwhelmingly dependent on tracing motifs structures and tale-types through a wide variety of cultural forms.
· The place of folklore in today’s explosion of media communication.
18-03-2024
Tale centred around women
The other text gives examples in form of tales.
Passing of cultural heritage. How these tales act as mediums through which there is commentary on present social situation.
Ramanujan has specifically talked about storytelling- act of narrating or recounting tales, myths or narratives that hold cultural, social or personal significance.
Women and storytelling
In Indian classical literature, we have a chaste women.
Freudian psychoanalysis-
Escape of superego to reconcile with the reality of their lives. A woman should remain loyal to him and should not seek her sexuality outside.
A princess whose groom dies.
Killing of the snake- oppression of sexuality.
Gender and Folklore
How cows are a symbol of divinity. The profane mare- sensuality, insatiable mare.
The Tantrik mare- how instead of a cow as a mother, they have a mare mother.
Symbolism can have many complexities. How women’s tales are very different in these aspects. Black Swan and White Swan. How in the terms of chastity, we want a woman who is pure and chaste but also someone’s sexuality is very profound.
How folklore provides an alternative power space. How the space also becomes an alternative space for women to be able to speak.
In women’s tale, snake becomes a positive force.
These are very close-felt emotions of women that find very little space in the women’s world.
Passive submissive woman- finally gains whatever she has gone through.
Assertive woman.
Female counterpart –how is she portrayed?
How she comes to be a labelled as a witch and as a daughter?
The witch- contrast between the 2 aspects. She becomes more assertive with her power.
Kaali as demonic. Represents what is generally considered taboo for women. Associated with black magic.
Durga- aspirational goddess.
Everything that Kaali represents. Saraswati- white, calm, yellow. Parvati-flashy.
Internalization of patriarchal ideologies. Bengali worship of Kaali is very region-specific.
Making the Kali temple bigger- mark of association with the community becoming better.
Tales told by women divert from traditional literary norms.
Alternative narratives serve as revisionist narratives.
Women’s tales as a counter-system- a different way of looking at things?
From where did this ideology emerge? (4rth page)
Contextual, interpretive.
Trivialization- motifs considered trivial by dominant cultures.
Folklore has been based on supernatural. Shift towards individual agency.
Social structure looking at women’s tales.
“Genders as genres”- The world of women is not the same as men.
Counter-system, not counter-narrative.
What does he mean when he says genders as genres.
Wish-fulfilment.
Ramanujan-diaglossia-we don’t need to be having one approach but multiple approaches.
10-04-2024
Applied Folklore- 1940-50
Popular Antiques
Folklore Studies
Tradition Poulaires
Volkskunde
Folkloristics
Folklofe
Characteristics of Folklore
· Symbolic
· Learned or generated in people’s firsthand interactions
· Traditional; exhibiting continuities and consistencies in thought and behaviour through time and space.
Folklore is imbued with cultural values. These traditons may be perpetuated.
What is Applied Folklore?
We define folklore as the utilization of the theoretical concepts, factual knowledge and research methodologies of folkloristics in activities or programs meant to ameliorate contemporary social, economic and technological progress.
Applied-
practical, utility, application of theories in everyday, experiences, values and wisdom
3 interpretations or applications of “Applied Folklore”
· Utilization of Folk Wisdom and Knowledge
· Application of Folklore
· Concepts in Teaching and Research
· Ameliorating the Condition of Folklore
1. Sustainability
2. Entertainment
3. Medicine
4. Permaculture, Crop Rotation
5. How traditional folk practices can be used in modern days
Stories related to Legend of Rainbow Serpent
Stories related to White Buffalo
The Tale of the Great Tree in Africa:
· Interdisciplinary approach
· Cultural Studies
· Language and Communication
· Social Sciences
· Environmental Studies
· Anthropology
· Digital Humanities
· Ethnography
Multifaceted nature of folklore.
Ethonography-
Impressive fieldwork & participant observation
Allowing people to explore folklore in natural, culture and social settings.
Anthropology- folklore as a dynamic cultural phenomena
Kinship systems, collective identities.
Digital Humanities-
It’s not just getting archived but also circulated. Effortless application.
The moral obligation
Moral obligation of folklorists to use their expertise to improve the welfare of the folk communities that they study. This obligation sparks debate between activists concerned about exploiting folk knowledge for personal gain and scholars who aim for detached research.
Scholars/Activists
· Theories, May or May Not
· Scholars propose theories, activists will try to bridge the gap between theory and praxis.
Richard M. Dorson’s Arguments
We cannot afford much diversion from our primary responsibilities as scholars to seek and record the truth about man and his ways.” He wrote.
Scholarly work should remain in the scholarly area.
Beyond being an edu-cator, “I hesitate to give advice on how to make the world better or happier, or freer, through folklore.”
I contend that it is no business of the folklorist to engage in social reform, that he is unequipped to reshape institutions, and that he will become the poorer scholar and folklorist if he turns activist.”
Why did Dorson Say What he Says?
· Long history of abuse of misuse of folklore
· Nationalism, Colonization and Totalitarism
That casteism did not exhibit before the British period.
How Britishers influenced the caste system.
Nicholas Dirks- Castes of the Mind-
There is a part of caste system that is intricately connected to colonization.
Different languages have different terms. You don’t know what caste means.
Nazism and totalitarianism- the role that narratives have to play.
· Nazi Germany’s exploitation of Aryan myth
· Soviet Russia’s Glorification
· Red China’s Indoctrination of children in its government philosophy through folk songs, game and poetry.
· Colonialism and Folklore in British India.
· Nationalism and Folklore in Fascist Italy.
Botkin’s Arguments
W.F.H Nicolaisen’s argument
At the applied folklore conference in 1971. He contended that “the basic notion of applied…appears to be the utilization of the results of pure research, theoretical study..”
Conceptions of Applied Folklore
· Ethical Utilization
· Informed Instrumental Activities
· Utilization of Research for Policy and Action
· Balancing Change and Stability
· Application to Various Realms