For nearly 70 years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has played a crucial role in developing policies and recommendations for dealing with intangible cultural heritage. What has been the effect of such sweeping global policies on those actually affected by them? How connected is UNESCO with what is happening every day, on the ground, in local communities? Drawing upon six communities ranging across three continents--from India, South Korea, Malawi, Japan, Macedonia and China--and focusing on festival, ritual, and dance, this volume illuminates...

This volume introduces a new concept to explore the dynamic relationship between folklore and popular culture: the folkloresque. With folkloresque, Foster and Tolbert name the product created when popular culture appropriates or reinvents folkloric themes, characters, and images. Such manufactured tropes are traditionally considered outside the purview of academic folklore study, but the folkloresque offers a frame for understanding them that is grounded in the discourse and theory of the discipline.

Fantasy fiction, comic books, anime, video games, literature, professional storytelling...