Alan Dundes Public lecture in Folklore: Witness Trees Revolt: Folklore’s Invitation to Narrative Ecology – April 2, 2018

Mary Hufford Presented the Alan Dundes Public lecture in Folklore: “Witness Trees Revolt: Folklore’s Invitation to Narrative Ecology” University of California, Berkeley. April 2, 2018. This public lectures honors the memory of Alan Dundes, who founded the program in folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.

Narrative Ecology

In 2018, folklorist and LiKEN Associate Director, Mary Hufford, continues to explore Appalachian forest commoning as an aspect of what she calls “narrative ecology:” the study and stewardship of socio-ecological systems that depend on genres of storytelling for their reproduction. She January through May, as Visiting Professor of Folklore, UC Berkeley, Hufford taught two courses: 1) an undergraduate course, “Ecocritical Fairytales,” an approach to the classic fairy tales that explores evolving attitudes toward nature (especially the forest), and the human body (especially bodies of women) over the past four centuries, from the Grimms and Perault, to modernrevisions by Disney, Dreamworks, Sondheim, Angela Carter and others; and 2) a graduate seminar, “Theories of Traditionality and Modernity,” which explored the emergence of public folklore in the late 20th century, and its continuing development as a praxis of the commons.