Penn State University offers freshman seminar on "Songs of the Ukrainian, Celtic and English Folk" (09/11/05)

Penn State University offers freshman seminar on "Songs of the Ukrainian, Celtic and English Folk"

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The department of Germanic and Slavic languages has annouced a new course in Ukrainian studies at Penn State University that will be taught as a freshman seminar: "Songs of the Ukrainian, Celtic and English Folk."

The course will be a comparative analysis of the rich Ukrainian, Celtic and English folk song traditions and the way those traditions serve to help define a culture and a people. Translations of all Ukrainian and other non-English folk songs covered in the course will be provided, so no knowledge of Ukrainian or Gaelic will be necessary. Nor will a knowledge of music be required.

The course will examine the nature of the folk song and folk poetry as a means of conveying a wide range of human experiences over the centuries. Songs from the Ukrainian, Celtic and English traditions will be examined topically, including ritual songs, Christmas carols, New Year's songs, love songs, lyrical songs, songs of revenge, drinking songs, harvest and wedding songs, humorous songs, and historical and political songs.

The course will examine the differences and similarities between folk dance music like Celtic reels and jigs vs. Ukrainian kolomyika and hopak dance rhythms. It will also survey folk instruments like the Ukrainian kobza, lira and bandura and the Celtic bodhrán, bagpipes and harp, as well as instruments common to the cultures under scrutiny, including the fiddle, flute, tin whistle, and hammer dulcimer (tsymbaly in Ukrainian).

Various genres of folk music will be examined, with particular emphasis on the ballad. The course will additionally examine the nature of the transmission of folk songs as an oral tradition, the structure; imagery and conventions of the folk song; the collection of folk songs by ethnographers and musicologists; the psychological and sociological impact of folk songs on a people; different versions of songs in various historical contexts; and folk revivals in the various cultures studied. Songs and their relationship to folk art will also be examined.

There will also be special emphasis on comparing the unique phenomenon of the blind Celtic harpers with the blind Ukrainian minstrels (kobzars). Particular stress will be placed on the relationship between music of the folk and major national poets like the Ukrainian bard Taras Shevchenko, the Scottish Robert Burns and the Irish William Butler Yeats. Numerous cultural issues will be discussed in the course, including the folk beliefs and religious foundations of the Celts and the Ukrainians; the religious conversion to Christianity from paganism and its effect on the respective cultures; the agrarian basis of Celtic and Ukrainian culture and its implications for cultural growth; the role of colonialism and imperialism in language and political development; issues of dialect vs. language and endangered languages; and the clash of religions in the respective cultures - Catholic vs. Protestant in the Celtic lands, and Orthodox vs. Catholic in Ukraine.

Field trips to performances by Celtic and Ukrainian musicians as well as in-class demonstrations by visiting musicians and dancers are also planned. For more information on the course, contact Prof. Michael Naydan at (814) 865-1675 or by e-mail at [email protected].

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