Alan Dundes Educator Quotations

There is more to folklore research than fieldwork. This is why in all of my other upper-division courses I require a term paper involving original research.

Their term project consists of a fieldwork collection of folklore that they create by interviewing family members, friends, or anyone they can manage to persuade to serve as an informant.

Americans do believe in progress and there is almost certainly a kernel of truth in the joke.

They do not merely collect texts; they must also gather data about the context and the informant and, above all, write an analysis of the items based upon the course readings and lecture material on folklore theory and method.

The class has become over the years fairly large, running to three hundred or more, but I always insist upon reading all the student folklore collections myself. Although this is a tall order, I look forward to it because I learn so much from it.

We should beware of stereotypes as they tend to cramp thinking, but on the other hand, stereotypes exist and they are often transmitted via folklore.