M.A. Reading List - Area Studies: Folklore and Mythology

The Scandinavian Area Studies emphasis in the Master of Arts program in the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington is intended to allow the student to focus on a specific area emphasis in addition to the establishment of a level of competence and understanding in the central literature core of the Department's program. As with the graduate student's overall program, the M.A. reading list is ultimately the responsibility of the individual student and should be finalized in consultation with the student's advisory committee. The reading list consists of literature from the national literatures of Scandinavia and an area studies list in the student's specific area of emphasis: (l) Folklore and Mythology, (2) History or (3) Politics.

Area Studies Emphasis: Folklore and Mythology

Primary Sources:

John Lindow, Handbook of Norse Mythology. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001 [e-book at UW Libraries]

Austė Nakienė, English Summary in Nuo tradicinės polifonijos iki polifoninės tradicijos [From traditional polyphony to the polyphonic tradition: the evolution of Lithuanian music in the 20th and the 21st centuries], 341-351. Vilnius : Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2016.

Henning Sehmsdorf and Reimund Kvideland, eds. All the World’s Reward. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999 [e-book at UW Libraries]

Henning Sehmsdorf and Reimund Kvideland, Scandinavian Folk Belief & Legend. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991 [e-book at UW Libraries]

Folklore texts in language of specialization, and/or English translations of folklore texts from country of specialization, as discussed with advisor.

History of Folkloristics (and how to write histories of the scholarly discipline)

Chapter introductions in Sehmsdorf and Kvideland, All the World’s Reward (see above).

Pertti Anttonen, “Oral Traditions and the Making of the Finnish Nation.” In Folklore and Nationalism in Europe during the Long Nineteenth Century. Edited by Timothy Baycroft and David Hopkin. Pages 325-350. Boston, MA: Leiden UP, 2012. [e-book in UW Libraries]

Dace Bula, “Introduction,” and chapters by Lina Būgienė, Barbro Klein and Ulf Palmenfelt, in Mapping the History of Folklore Studies: Centers, Borderlands and Shared Spaces, pp. ix-xiv, 29-42, 85-110, 242-256. Edited by Dace Bula and Sandis Laime. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.

Kristin Kuutma, “Introduction: Constructing a Disciplinary History,” in Studies in Estonian Folkloristics and Ethnology: A Reader and Reflexive History. Edited by Kristin Kuutma and Tiiu Jaago. Pages 9-15. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2005.

Folkloristics Methods and Theories

Thomas A. DuBois, Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

John Miles Foley, How to Read an Oral Poem. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.   

Terry Gunnell, Barbro Klein, John Lindow, Elliott Oring, Fredrik Skott, Timothy Tangherlini, Ülo Valk, & Haim Weiss: Discussion. Why Should Folklore Students Study "Dead" Legends?  Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 2013, 171-209 [download pdf]

Janika Oras, ed. [Finnic Oral Poetry Traditions special issue]. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, Vols 67-68, 2017  [link to online journal]

Henning Sehmsdorf and Reimund Kvideland, eds. Nordic Folklore: Recent Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Two additional books or sets of journal articles, as discussed with adviser. 

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