Wednesday, October 11, 1:00 pm–3:00 pm
session will be recorded and available for later viewing online
Sponsored by the Folklore and Science Section
Chair: Simon J. Bronner (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
1:00 pm
Theory of Mind: Historical Developments and Implications for Folklorists
Brandon Barker (Indiana University Bloomington)
1:30 pm
The Sexuality Barrier in Studying Children's Folklore
Jay Mechling (University of California, Davis, emeritus)
2:00 pm
Minding Folklore
Simon J. Bronner (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
2:30 pm
optional discussion time
Responding to the view that the study of folklore follows a philosophical empiricism in which only knowledge of extrinsic evidence gained from observation and collection of the social body is valid, panelists explore perspectives centered in cognition and individual experience toward the goal of formulating a distinctive folkloristic theory of mind. Drawing on American Pragmatism, psychoanalysis, religious and ritual studies, and cognitive/brain science, panelists discuss the ways that (1) the evidence of folklore reveals mind and (2) psychological explanations resolve puzzles of folkloric generation, persistence, and change.