Livre - Locating Irish folklore

Folklore is variously subject matter and critical discourse, amateur enthusiasm and academic discipline, residual agragarian culture and popular urban culture of the present, as well as a resource for local historians and for committed nation-builders. As an introduction to folklore from an Irish perspective, this book plots the development of the notion of folklore and locates it historically. Locating Irish Folklore examines a pivotal role folklore has played in identity formation but also questions the usefulness of the concept today in an era of unprecedented cultural circulation. There are few cultures which offer as much scope for an analysis of this sort as Ireland. The author usefully locates the Irish experience within a comparative, interdisciplinary framework, using European folklore and ethnological research and Latin American cultural theory among otheranalytical perspectives. The first of its kind, this book is a key text for the study of folklore in Ireland and will be of interest to anyone working in the area of Irish Cultural Studies ethnography or anthropology.