Alan Dundes
|birth_place = New York City, U.S.
|death_date =
|death_place =
Berkeley, California, U.S.
|institutions =
|education =
|spouse = Carolyn
|children = 3
}}
Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American
folklorist whose four-decade tenure at the
University of California, Berkeley helped define
folkloristics as an
academic discipline. Obituaries remembered him as the most renowned
folklorist of his time and noted his authorship of 12 books, two dozen edited volumes, and more than 250 articles interpreting
myth,
proverb, and
folk belief. Dundes advanced
psychoanalytic and
structural readings of folklore and urged colleagues to pair collection with theory in delineating the field. His willingness to probe
national character and
popular ritual, including a controversial 1980 address on
German culture and a psychoanalytic study of
American football, drew both acclaim and death threats.
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