Course Description

GLS 592: Appalachian Folkways

Instructor: Susan Hance

A course designed to take an in-depth look, with some “hands on” experience, at Appalachian life related to the following:

• Folk Medicine in the Southern Appalachians: disease, beliefs, treatment, healers.
• Daily Living: soapmaking, weather signs, planting, churning, making butter, preserving food, dressing wild game
• Food: Cooking traditional foods, how and why
• Crafts: wood carving, basketry, spinning, weaving, quilting, pottery
• Entertainment:
• Music and dance: dulcimers, banjos and other traditional instruments, singing, dancing
• Storytelling: origins of the oral tradition; learning to tell a story
• Gender Roles: who does what? Is it changing?
• Exceptional Schools: We will explore the methods of thought that came out of these efforts.
• The Black Mountain College Experiment
• John C. Campbell School
• Hindman Settlement School
• Other Settlement Schools

Students will be given information on opportunities for further study such as the National Storytelling Festival in October and other classes, performances and festivals.

For students who took Appalachian Literature, this will provide new and expanded knowledge of the culture.

Last Update: July 16, 2008