Exotic dreams in the science of the Volksgeist : towards a global history of European folklore studies / Diarmuid Ó Giolláin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ó Giolláin, Diarmuid, 1955- author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Series:

FF communications ; no. 325.

FF Communications, 0014-5815 ; no. 325

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Europe.

Folklore--Study and teaching--Europe--History.

Folklore.

Ethnology--Europe--History.

Ethnology.

Folklore--Methodology.

Folklore--Study and teaching.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

420 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Helsinki : The Kalevala Society, 2022.

Summary:

The emergence of folklore studies is usually attributed to specifically European circumstances in the late eighteen and early nineteenth centuries. This book argues that influences from and the consequences of the expansion of powerful states beyond the bounds of Europe informed folkloristics as much as did conditions within. The Noble Savage and the idea of heroic societies. Herder's voracious ethnographic reading. The scientific description of peoples over the Eurasian expanse of the Russian Empire. The development of Indo-European and Finno-Ugric philology. The world-wide gathering of material cultural artifacts. Such reflection on and observation of non-European peoples and their cultures resounded through Europe and were a key influence on the elaboration of a folkloristic discourse. 'Domestic' (i.e. European) ethnography was, despite surface differences, part of a general ethnography. The book's argument is illustrated with chapters on the development of the ethnological sciences in France, Italy, and Ireland within their different political, social, and cultural contexts. -- Summary from book.

Contents:

1. COORDINATES. Empires and the Frontiers of Europe

Provinces, Colonies, Nations

Myth, Oral Tradition, Poetry, Primitivism and Heroic Societies

Ossian and the Discovery of Oral Poetry

Herder, Cultural Relativism and Literary Liberation

Nation, Language, Ethnicity

Language, Philology and Mythology

Race and Evolution

Ethnographic Exhibits: Science, Education, Entertainment

The Emergence of the Ethnological Sciences

Folklore and Anthropology in the Settler Societies of the Americas

2. FRANCE. The Language Question and Regional Identity

Regional Languages: An Outline

Folklorists and Regional Languages

Regions, Regionalism and Centralism

Early Interest in French Popular Culture

Folklorists, Philologists and the First Folklore Journals

Arnold Van Gennep

A New Scholarly Society

The Rise of French Anthropology

France, the Arab World and the Conquest of Algeria

Van Gennep in Algeria

Juridical Ethnology in Algeria and France

Ethnography, Expositions, Museums

The End of the New Folklore Research

3. ITALY. Political Unification and Linguistic Disunity

Discovering Popular Culture Before Unification

Unification, Social Conditions, Culture and Delinquency

Anthropology and Post-Risorgimento Folklore Studies

Explorers, Imperialists and Italy's First Colony

Loria's Expedition To Lapland and Turkestan

New Guinea: Colonialists, Traders, Explorers, Missionaries, Anthropologists

In Eritrea

Italian Museum Ethnography

Collecting in Caltagirone

Ethnography in the 1911 International Exposition

The First Congress of Italian Ethnography

Lares

Folklorists and Anthropologists between the Wars

4. IRELAND. Conquest and Its Consequences

Land, People, Social Conditions: Statistics and Travellers

Anglo-Irish Interest in Native History and Culture

Thomas Crofton Croker

After the Union: Famine, Land, 'Home Rule'

The Growth of Scientific Research Into Irish Culture and History

Douglas Hyde

Hyde in New Brunswick

Hyde and the Malecite

Hyde and Irish-American Culture and Politics

Saving the Irish Language and De-Anglicizing Ireland

The Gaelic League

Haddon, Evolutionary Anthropology and Folklore

Ethnographic Collections and Representations

Irish Ethnographies in the New Century

CONCLUSION. Colonial Legacies in 'Colonized' Europe?

Colonial Folklorists and Postcolonial Folklore Studies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (343-389) and indexes.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9789529534043

9529534043

OCLC:

1366058596