For more information about Folklore and
Folklife,at UPenn, contact Professor Dan Ben-Amos at dbamos@sas.upenn.edu.
For assistance with the Folklore and Folklife
website, contact Linda Lee at lindalee@sas.upenn.edu.
Welcome to Folklore & Folklife at
Penn!
The Graduate Program in Folklore
and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania began in 1962 under the
direction of MacEdward Leach, a medievalist who taught in the English
department, and whose sound recordings from Jamaica, Newfoundland, and
the Southern Mountains launched the Folklore Archive. Over the next
four decades nearly 250 students earned the PhD in Folklore from Penn.
In 1999, the Department of Folklore and Folklife was restructured as a
Graduate Program and a Center for Folklore and Ethnography. The
Graduate Program, chaired by Dan Ben-Amos, is among a select group of
academic programs in the United States offering graduate degrees (the
M.A. and the PhD) in folklore. The Program also offers a large number
of undergraduate courses, enabling students at the college to minor in
folklore.
The Center for Folklore and Ethnography, directed by
Mary Hufford, supports ethnographic, community-based research and
teaching at the University. Through workshops, service learning,
archiving, public events, and publications, the CFE engages students in
the study of vernacular creativity and meaning making, and the bearing
of these on the renewal of community life and place.
The offices, seminar room, archive, and resource
library for the Program and Center are on the fourth floor of 3619
Locust Walk, near the center of campus.
Admissions to the graduate program in folklore and
folklife are presently suspended. However, we continue to offer
graduate and undergraduate courses in folklore and folklife. If you are
interested in applying to a related program at
Penn, and would like to explore the possibility of a concentration in
folklore, please write to Prof.
Dan Ben-Amos, the program chair.
