folkology

[nataliek at UALBERTA.CA]

I can't resist.  I must take Will Ryan up on his suggestion, even  
though it be only implied, and urge all fellow folklorists to become  
folkologists, renaming our folkology in the process.  Thoms changed  
the name of our field over 150 years ago.  Isn't it time for another  
change?

Natalie Kononenko

Quoting William Ryan <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>:

> As current president of the Folklore Society I am disappointed that
> Paul should find the word 'folk' in any way deprecatory. But he is not
> unfortunately alone. When the word 'folklore' was coined by W. J. Thoms
> in 1846 in an article in The Athenaeum, as a suitably good ?Saxon?
> term, as he called it, for what had previously been called popular
> antiquities, it had an unfortunate consequence. Although the early
> membership of the Folklore Society included very many eminent scholars
> of the time (a founding member in 1878 was the Russianist at the
> British Library W.R.S. Ralston), the fact that the new word did not end
> in -ology, and that its advocates also included would-be witches,
> people who saw fairies at the bottom of their garden, and people who
> would now be called neo-pagans, did eventually add a non-academic tinge
> to 'folk' when used as an adjective (or even worse 'folksy').
> Nevertheless, among serious scholars of the subject 'folk' still has
> terminological status in its original sense, even if it would be a bit
> difficult to pin it down out of specific context. And in the
> non-anglophone world 'folklore' as a loanword (late 19th c. in Russian)
> has, I think (not checked thoroughly), none of the pejorative
> connotations that it has acquired in English.
> With particular reference to 'folk dance' a quick look at Google
> suggests that 'folk' and national' can be synonymous but that
> 'national' is fairly rare in this context and can be ambiguous, e.g.
> the various National Dance Companies which tend to combine ballet, folk
> and pop. The two websites given by Paul do indeed show the difficulty
> of using words which have both technical meanings to specialists and
> looser general meanings for non-specialists. I don't think the Moiseev
> and similar companies (Riverdance?) can be described as performing
> 'folk dances' - I see them as kitschy commercial hybrids.
> Will Ryan
>
>
>
> Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
>> John Dunn wrote:
>>
>>> Two comments on recent discussions.
>>>
>>> 1. Nationalistic/national.  I suppose that the haka, the alleged
>>> Maori war dance now performed by New Zealand rugby union players
>>> before international matches, is an example of 'a nationalistic
>>> dance'.  It is possible that other peformances answering to this
>>> description may be found in some of the video-clips that accompany
>>> the oeuvre of Oleg Gazmanov.   But am I the only person who thinks
>>> that 'national' in the original context doesn't sound right either?
>>> I would assume that this a is a reference to what are normally known
>>> in English as 'folk dances'.
>>
>> Perhaps, but I think "folk dances" is probably too narrow.
>>
>> If the original was ????????????, that reminds me of the famous   
>> question on passports and similar documents: "???????????????" --   
>> which of course is not "nationality" (???????????) but "ethnicity."  
>>  And an "ethnic dance" need not be a "folk dance" (????? ????????)   
>> -- to my ear, the latter implies a certain level of, oh, shall we   
>> say "informality," "unofficialness," or something, verging toward   
>> deprecation. Not that I myself have anything against folk dances,   
>> or indeed any form of folk art. But they don't generally enjoy the   
>> status that some other forms do.
>>
>> Here's a very Eurocentric treatment:
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_dance>
>>
>> You may also like the discussion here (scroll past the chaff at the top):
>> <http://www.folkdancing.org/folk_vs_ethnic.html>
>>
>> Speaking of entrenched translations, in the arms-control context we  
>>  have the stock phrase "national technical means," which denotes   
>> anything (hardware, software, etc.) a signatory can use /other   
>> than/ human assets to perform a particular task of interest (e.g.,   
>> detecting an incoming bogie). Here, "national" does refer to the   
>> nation, and of course these tasks are performed officially if   
>> surreptitiously by the government.
>>
>
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Natalie Kononenko
Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography
University of Alberta
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
200 Arts Building
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
Phone: 780-492-6810
Web: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/uvp/

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