folklore

Not Your Grandmother’s Halloween: Merrill Kaplan on Holiday Traditions

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What scares you?

Merrill Kaplan, Associate Professor of English and Director of Scandinavian Studies, takes time out of the spooky season to discuss the cultural and historical significance of Halloween, comparing its traditions to those of other holidays. She describes to host David Staley the evolution of folklore studies, which emphasizes the importance of understanding current cultural meanings and individual agency. They look at her term “paganesque,” debunk common misinterpretations, and highlight the appearance of folklore in modern contexts, including social media. Prof Kaplan sees social media platforms like Twitter as having transformed folklore, becoming ways to share stories, jokes, rumors, and other forms of folklore.

So, a ghost, a skeleton and a chicken walk into a bar…

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Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́: Why Would Anybody Write an Ode to Palm Trees?

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Dr. Adélékè Adéèkó, Humanities Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University, discusses his book Arts of Being Yorùbá. Dr. Adéèkó delves into the cultural significance of Yorùbá proverbs, praise poetry, and fiction. He explains how these forms of expression define Yorùbá identity and addresses their use in modern forms like pictorial magazines. The conversation also touches on orature, a term coined to describe oral literature, and its impact on written texts. Dr. Adéèkó reveals his interest in 20th-century literary theory and how he integrates Derrida’s deconstruction into his work.

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Dorothy Noyes: Folklore, Exemplarity and Politics

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Dr. Dorothy Noyes

Professor Dorothy Noyes studies folklore from its different views in American and European contexts to its role in representing marginalized cultures and the interplay between high and low culture. Profs. Noyes and Staley discuss the idea of exemplarity and the significance of interdisciplinary collaboration in academia, drawing from her experience at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and sharing insights from her book projects on exemplarity in liberal politics.

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