American Folklore Scholarship

An overview of North American folklore scholarship and its practitioners.

Examines the split between literary folklorists and anthropological folklorists.

"American Folklore Scholarship is rich reading, outlining the intellectual genealogy of American folklore and delivering many interesting historical tidbits. Folklore teachers will want to use this book in their introductory theory classes, while doctoral students will want to memorize the book before their qualifying exams."
—Folklore Forum

". . . a welcome overview of the discipline in North America and the practitioners who established it."
—American Anthropologist

In this classic text, Zumwalt examines the split between literary folklorists and anthropological folklorists. The former looked at literary forms for folklore; the latter looked at the life and unwritten culture of the people. This struggle shaped the study of folklore in the U.S.