Sabra Webber’s Folklore Unbound provides readers with a wealth of folkloristic information in a short, densely packed volume. The brevity of the work belies its breadth; Webber is not overstating the case when she says, “almost every sentence is meant to hint at a much longer conversation” (xi). While perhaps a bit too intense to serve as an introduction for a true neophyte, Folklore Unbound is an excellent presentation of the history and current theoretical orientation of the field of folkloristics.

Webber opens her introduction to folklore studies with explicit praise for Alan Dundes’s impact on the field in the 1960s; the book’s initial case study is his work with American football and homoerotic play, and as the volume goes on, Dundes’s presence looms large over the discipline. The book is divided into seven chapters, which progress in an unexpectedly non-chronological way; discussions of postmodernism and performance come before any mention of the historic-geographic method, which pleasantly staves off the typical presentation of the comparative method as “old fashioned” or passé. Chapters are subdivided into numerous brief subsections, which present a diverse array of case studies both past and present, opinions and debates, and significant themes and concepts.

Chapter 1 investigates the beginning of folkloristic study in Britain, discussing the overall themes of loss and national pride that pervaded research at that time. Examples include the folklore/fakelore debate over the Macpherson’s Ossian, Edward Clodd’s controversial 1896 presidential address to the British Folklore Society, and the general theory of cultural evolution. The frenetic pace of the book is set here; entire studies are introduced, explained, and left behind in just one or two paragraphs, leaving readers (this reader, at least) with a sense of grand scope and somewhat shallow depth. Scholars and scholarship cited are both familiar and unfamiliar (to this folklorist, at least), presenting a recognizable and yet enjoyably informative background from which to move forward.

In the second chapter Webber takes on the shift from modernism to postmodernism, a cultural process that developed as the field of folkloristics was coming into its own. Webber provides a general overview of postmodernity and highlights a few ways that such a perspective speaks to the discipline of folklore studies: in questions of professionalization, of dis-ease with the status quo, of the “purity” of language. Going forward, readers are reminded of the ongoing danger of falling back into colonizing the cultures we study.

Chapter 3 takes on both verbal and material forms of lore and begins to provide readers with greater substance; where chapter 2 is a mere ten pages, chapter 3 doubles that length. The first half of the chapter deals with the definition of lore in verbal terms, discussing both the nature of genres (emic and etic) and the benefits of seeing past genres, using case studies of hard-to-summarize, unwieldy folk forms such as the céilí and the passeggiata from a variety of scholars including Henry Glassie, Ray Cashman, Dwight Reynolds, Giovanna Del Negro, Harris Berger, Nick Spitzer, and the author herself. In this way, readers become familiar with a vast array of folklorists whose work could be further pursued, one of the greatest strengths of this book.

The fourth chapter, entitled “The Folk Soul vs. The Primitive Mind,” moves from the focus on lore in chapter 3 to a detailed discussion of the people who perform that lore and the various ways, both successful and unsuccessful, that folklorists have tried to understand and approach them. Examples include the work of Franz Boas and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as early examples of “hybrid” scholars (who were both informant and academic). The chapter ends with an excellent discussion of the growing practice of reflexive ethnography.

Chapter 5, aptly entitled, “Performance,” and chapter 6, “Comparative Folklore,” are two of the strongest chapters in the book. The broad subject of performance is dealt with thoroughly and capably; examples range from a single family’s Thanksgiving dinner to the staged performances of the Chinese Hui minority, illustrating the scope of the concept of “performance” within folkloristics. Webber leans toward the small and intimate, noting, “A folklorist’s attention is drawn to communal performances that are rarely staged and may have little to do with outsiders” (78).

The subsequent discussion of comparative studies provides a clear introduction to some mainstays of folklore studies—motif and type indexes, as well as syntagmatic and paradigmatic structural approaches—but also includes examples of contemporary comparative scholarship, highlighting that the method is still useful today (a perspective that is often lost when the Finnish method is relegated to an early step in the history of the discipline). The final chapter, “Challenges for the Future,” looks at some of the upcoming questions the field will face as it moves forward.

The combined brevity and breadth of Folklore Unbound are at the heart of both its strengths and weaknesses. My own view of folkloristics as an academic discipline was both reassuringly supported and happily expanded by this slim volume, but as a true introduction it may be more hectic than helpful. The book moves from detailed case study to broad generalization and back within mere paragraphs, and the chapter and subheading titles are more abstract than organizational.

The prevalence of subheadings (ten-page chapter 2 is divided into seven sub-sections) should ideally serve to help systematize the dense material Webber presents, but they’re so variable in form and function that they don’t necessarily fulfill that goal. Some designate a particular case study: “The First Fakelore or the Homer of Scotland?: James Macpherson’s Ossian”; some present a theme or concern: “Purity and Danger” or “Fear of Going Native”; and some name the topic of a specific illustration or example: “‘That’s Not What I Said’” or “Yoga and Rice”. Given the brevity of the book, the chapter titles and subheadings could be a bit less abstract, providing readers with a clearer roadmap through the contents. The strength of the book, however, lies in its totality, not in its individual pieces.

Upon completion of Folklore Unbound, the reader is left with a feeling of intense immersion in an exciting, historic, international, and deeply meaningful field of study. The book assumes some level of prior academic experience; upper-class undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in other fields will find this book to be an excellent overview of the discipline of folkloristics. I highly recommend it.

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[Review length: 1057 words • Review posted on January 20, 2016]