Transcript title

Intro to Folklore Mythology

Credits

4

Grading mode

Standard letter grades

Total contact hours

40

Lecture hours

40

Recommended preparation

WR 121Z.

Course Description

Surveys and compares representative texts from world mythology and folklore. Explores common mythological and folkloric themes and genres. Examines mythology as an interdisciplinary field that incorporates anthropology, sociology, history, literary studies, psychology, and religion.

Course learning outcomes

1. Compare how oral and written traditions shape, interpret, and transmit narratives of cultural struggle and power.
2. Recognize recurring mythological themes and motifs in traditional world myths and modern culture and mythic allusions in art, drama, literature, and film.
3. Identify different scholarly approaches and key concepts in the study of mythology and folklore.
4. Differentiate between narrative folk genres, including myth, legend, folk and tall tale and between the functions of story types like nature myths, creation myths, pourquoi (why) tales, wonder tales, and animal tales.
5. Examine myth and folklore across cultures through common stories and story types from around the world, including cosmologies, creation stories, the hero’s journey, trickster tales, and ghost stories and stories about afterworlds.

Content outline

1. Introduction to and reading of genres related to mythology and folklore, which may include cosmologies, creation stories, the hero’s journey, trickster tales, ghost stories and stories about afterworlds, fairy tales, tall tales, and legends
2. Historical, social, institutional, and psychological contextualization of texts
3. Critical approaches (e.g., psychological [Freudian, Jungian], anthropological, sociological, literary)
4. Theories of orality, comparisons of oral vs. print transmission of narrative
5. Comparisons of tale types between cultures/time periods and analysis of meanings of differences and similarities

Required materials

Required materials may include a textbook or textbooks, writing instrument, method for saving digital work, and/or a notebook.

General education/Related instruction lists

• Cultural Literacy
• Arts and Letters