*Italy*

I have always been fascinated by the lifestyles in Italy, so I think if I had the money and the time, I’d love to explore that more in depth. I really enjoy the idea that they seem to have huge families who love to come together and laugh and eat and enjoy each other. I guess it seems like they have much less stressful lives than “Americans” do, possibly because of their “relaxed” attitude I seem to admire so much. I do have a few friends who have family in Italy, so I think I would start there. I would want to ask my friend questions about her family and rituals and traditions that are important to them, that are also specific to being Italian. If possible, I would love to get a first-hand account of Italian life by living in the house with the family. I would interview the family members about why the Italian culture is important to them, and what they believe others should know about their culture. I would bring a camcorder to record different situations that occurred while I was staying with them, like the preparation of a traditional Italian meal and all the conversations that go on at the dinner table. I’d ask general questions about their traditions as well as more in depth follow up questions about things I found really interesting. According to the book, since I am not Italian, but find their culture really amazing, I’d consider myself an outsider (Sims and Stephens, p. 219). Knowing this, I would find out as much from my friend before taking on this challenge so I would have a foundation to start with. I think this would be worth doing because learning about different cultures is very important because it seems like there are similarities between all cultures in one way or another. In order to be more open-minded and more educated in general, I think people should have an understanding of all that is within the world around them. Another important reason to do this would be that continually learning about something helps keep it alive to people. I think sometimes people make jokes about things when they don’t understand them, and if people know more about cultures, it gives them a chance to learn something new. In this case, maybe learning why Italian families take so much pride in family and food, and being loud and alive, others may feel more comfortable putting themselves in new situations and end up learning more about themselves and others. This blog entry is my response to the Chapter 7 Reflection Question.

Folklore + Freud??

I think the interpretation I find myself gravitating towards is the psychoanalytic interpretation. This may be because I am a psychology major, so anything dealing with psychological perspectives kind of draws me in. I guess I think that the way it is explained, how “a culture’s folklore presents a look at its collective psychological concerns,” really makes sense (Sims and Stephens, pp. 187). I think that is true, that the way you do things, through ritual and tradition, telling stories, all have a broader meaning that could deal with personalities, child-rearing, developmental stages, etc (Sims and Stephens, pp. 187). Obviously different places and people will have different traditions and ways that they do things, and this interpretations shows that their folklore reflects upon many of their internal characteristics. I also thought it was really interesting how the authors mentioned that psychoanalysts can study certain texts to find “metaphors for puberty, sexual maturity, seduction and death,” (Sims and Stephens, pp. 187). The examples that were explained really made sense to me and I think they apply to a lot of other parts of folklore as well. It seems as though this approach involves the most in-depth look at the symbolism in folklore, which might be why I like it so much. It is almost as if different parts of our development, whether physical, emotional or mental, can be explained symbolically and be accepted as such through the use of folklore. Similarly, I do think that a lot of what people do has a much deeper meaning than it may seem on the surface. Gary Allen Fine explained this well when he said, “folklore provides a socially acceptable outlet for meaning that cannot be displayed otherwise. If the meaning was overt, the text would have to be repressed,” (Sims and Stephens, pp. 191). I think this approach is the best way to look deeper into folklore and bring out a lot if information that would not be explained as well with the other approaches. This blog entry is my response to the Chapter 6 Reflection Question.