Call for Papers: TRANSNATIONAL FOLKLORE: Rethinking the Nineteenth-Century History of Folklore Studies

A workshop to be held at the Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis at LMU Munich on May 22 and 23, 2025, in collaboration with the Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara and with the support of BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology.

Organised by: Frauke Ahrens (Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, LMU Munich), Fabiana Dimpflmeier (Department of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara), and Christiane Schwab (Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, LMU Munich)

The historiography of folklore studies has been traditionally conducted within national frameworks – not least because the interest in popular traditions and nationalism were deeply intertwined, with each fuelling and shaping the other in significant ways. However, as folklore developed as a field of study with its own institutions and methodologies throughout the nineteenth century, it was also shaped by transnational exchange. By the end of the century, along with the formation of folklore societies and journals in many countries across Europe and beyond, international congresses were held in Paris, London, and Chicago. Numerous individual scholars, e.g. the Italian Giuseppe Pitrè, the German Reinhold Köhler, the American Thomas F. Crane, or the Spaniard Antonio Machado Álvarez, among many others, fostered a web of transnational relationships which supported the construction of a shared theoretical and methodological framework of folklore research.

As part of the project “Actors ‒ Narratives ‒ Strategies: Constellations of Transnational Folklore Research, 1875‒1905,” funded by the German Research Foundation, we are planning a workshop to explore ‘transnational folklore’ in nineteenth-century Europe and beyond. Together with fellow scholars in European ethnology, folklore studies, sociocultural anthropology, history, and related fields, we aim to investigate how transnational processes influenced the development, professionalisation, and systematisation of folklore theories and practices. Challenging established histories of folklore, our goal is to reveal alternative framework analysis and approaches by examining the new insights offered by a transnational perspective in understanding folklore knowledge production and circulation.

Topics covered may include:

1. Transnational Practices and Knowledge Formats. How was transnational folklore research organised? In what ways did it manifest through personal connections, cross-border methodologies, publications, events, and other forms of intellectual and practical collaboration?
2. Agendas and Logics of Regional and National Folklore Research within Transnational Frameworks. What significance did transnational collaboration hold for regional and transnational processes of institutionalisation? What were the motives and goals behind establishing and maintaining transnational contacts? How did transnational projects contribute to delineating disciplinary boundaries and strengthening folklore research as an independent discipline in different national/regional contexts?
3. Actors of Transnational Folklore Research. Who were the key players in folklore studies whose relationships and knowledge practices transcended nation-state borders? What were their motifs, strategies, and socioeconomic and biographical preconditions that enabled them to operate on a transnational scale? And what factors may have posed challenges to them?
4. Narratives in Transnational Folklore Research. Which narratives determined transnational cooperation and/or were produced and reproduced within it? How did these narratives function as instruments of shared knowledge horizons, interests, and problems, creating a ‘disciplinary identity’? How has transnational collaboration been affected by different perceptions of the role and methodology of folklore studies?  
5. Impact of Early Transnational Endeavours. How can research on transnational folklore studies change the way we look at the development of the discipline in different national/regional research contexts? In which ways might it broaden the historiography of folklore studies and add new facets to established narratives of the field’s history?
6. Doing Transnational Historiography. How can we investigate the history of folklore research beyond national concepts and methodologies? What sources lead us to transnational networks, actors, and endeavours? What are the difficulties in researching transnational folklore and how can we overcome them methodologically and theoretically?

To participate in the workshop Transnational Folklore: Rethinking the Nineteenth-Century History of Folklore Studies, please submit an abstract no longer than 300 words (including paper title, name of the presenter, affiliation, and e-mail address) by January 12, 2025 to: transnational.folklore@ekwee.uni-muenchen.de. Notifications of accepted papers will be sent by January 31, 2025. Accommodation will be provided for participants presenting a paper.