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This first volume of a two-volume Handbook treats a challenging, largely neglected subject at the crossroads of several academic fields: biblical studies, reception history of the Bible, and folklore studies or folkloristics. The Handbook examines the reception of the Bible in verbal folklores of different cultures around the globe. This first volume, complete with a general Introduction, focuses on biblically-derived characters, tales, motifs, and...

In this book, eight diverse contributors explore the role of tradition in contemporary folkloristics. For more than a century, folklorists have been interested in locating sources of tradition and accounting for the conceptual boundaries of tradition, but in the modern era, expanded means of communication, research, and travel, along with globalized cultural and economic interdependence, have complicated these pursuits. Tradition is thoroughly embedded...

Retold African American folktales of animals, fantasy, the supernatural, and desire for freedom, born of the sorrow of the slaves, but passed on in hope.

"Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled 'yokai,' these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories....

The devilish has long been integral to myths, legends, and folklore, firmly located in the relationships between good and evil, and selves and others. But how are ideas of evil constructed in current times and framed by contemporary social discourses? Modern Folk Devils builds on and works with Stanley Cohen's theory on folk devils and moral panics to discuss the constructions of evil. The authors present an array of case-studies that illustrate how...

No detailed description available for "Studies in Jewish and World Folklore".

In 'The Ring of Truth', Wendy Doniger expertly unfolds the cultural and historical significance of rings and other kinds of circular jewelry through timeless stories taken from mythology, religious traditions, and literature.

With this collection, Howard Schwartz retells 36 Jewish fairy tales that are at once otherworldly and earthy, pious and playful. Drawn from sources as diverse as Morocco and India, Spain and Eastern Europe, Babylon and Egypt, the stories are characterized by their infusion of traditional Jewish characters with the archetypal forms found in all fairy tales, or by their treatment of Jewish religious themes. The book combines the playfulness of fairy...