Folklore Concepts

Dan Ben-Amos is Professor of Folklore and Comparative Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of numerous titles, including Sweet Words, Folklore in Context, Jewish Folk Literature; translator of In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov (with Jerome Mintz); and editor of Folklore: Performance and Communication (with Kenneth S. Goldstein), Folklore Genres, and volumes 1 through 3 of Folktales of the Jews. He is also editor of the Rafael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology at Wayne State University Press.

The Project / Henry Glassie
The Contours of the Book / Elliott Oring
Foreword / Dan Ben-Amos
1. The Idea of Folklore: An Essay
2. The Encounter with Native Americans and the Emergence of Folklore
3. Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context
4. Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres
5. The Seven Strands of Tradition: Varieties in Its Meaning in American Folklore Studies
6. A History of Folklore Studies – Why Do We Need It?
7. The Concept of Motif in Folklore
8. "Context" in Context
9. Two Benin Storytellers
10. "Induced Natural Context" in Context
11. The Name is the Thing
12. A Definition of Folklore: A Personal Narrative
Bibliography
Index