Why do humans hold onto traditions? Many pundits predicted that modernization and the rise of a mass culture would displace traditions, especially in America, but cultural practices still bear out the importance of rituals and customs in the development of identity, heritage, and community. In Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture, Simon J. Bronner discusses the underlying reasons for the continuing significance of traditions, delving into their social and psychological roles in everyday life, from old-time crafts to folk creativity on the Internet. Challenging prevailing notions of tradition as a relic of the past, Explaining Traditions provides deep insight into the nuances and purposes of living traditions in relation to modernity. Bronner’s work forces readers to examine their own traditions and imparts a better understanding of raging controversies over the sustainability of traditions in the modern world.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Beginning with Tradition
1. Defining Tradition: On the Meaning and Politics of a ‘Handy’ Concept
2. Explaining Tradition: On Folk and Folkloristic Logic
3. Building Tradition: On Control and Authority in Vernacular Architecture
4. Making Tradition: On Craft in American Consciousness
5. Adapting Tradition: On Folklore in Human Development
6. Fading Tradition: On a Dying Language and Lore
7. Personalizing Tradition: On Storytelling by an African American Father and Son
8. Symbolizing Tradition: On the Scatology of an Ethnic Identity
9. Sporting Tradition: On the Praxis of American Football
10. Virtual Tradition: On the Internet as a Folk System
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Simon J. Bronner is Distinguished University Professor of American Studies and Folklore and director of the Pennsylvania Center for Culture Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. He is the editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of American Folklife, Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities, Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920, and other volumes, and the author of several books, including Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition, Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies, Following Tradition: Folklore in the Discourse of American Culture, and The Carver’s Art: Crafting Meaning from Wood.
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