Tales, Legends, and Demons in Contemporary Culture and Ukrainian Folklore

About

This course introduces students to a multi-layered tradition of Ukrainian folklore, its peculiarities of meaning-making of the uncanny experiences, supernatural encounters and creatures. Through the study of narratives and their reimagining in contemporary media, the course examines how this tradition, backed by vernacular Christianity, have shaped cultural meanings and social values throughout history into nowadays.

The course situates Ukrainian folkloric creatures and beliefs within broader cultural studies framework, focusing on folklore as a dynamic system and essential tool for meaning-making, inherent to every tradition. Particular attention is paid to how supernatural beliefs are experienced and reinvented in nowadays as narrative response to social changes, crisis, and cultural continuity, and how they are reactualised in contemporary culture and social media.

The course combines close reading of folkloric texts, perception of pop art and contemporary events, development of the analytical tools for critical analysis, and guided discussions. The final aim of the course is to foster methodological awareness in understanding of the ongoing relevance of folklore in modern cultural contexts

Course leader

Alina Oprelianska Junior Research Fellow and a PhD student at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, Estonia

Target group

bachelor´s, master's and PhD students, life-long learners

Course aim

- To equip students with knowledge of Ukrainian supernatural folklore and its existence in nowadays.
- To cultivate interpretative strategies for meaning-making of folkloric and everyday supernatural.
- To develop conceptual vocabulary for meaning-making and writing in Cultural Studies.

Fee info