Folk and Popular Culture

The breadth, concept and content of "folk" and "popular" assures both that there are a great number of websites dealing with limited and specialized interest of both kinds of "culture" and relatively few that address the broader interests of either. Ethnic and regional foods and recipes, sports of all varieties, visual and performing arts, and the like all have multiple specialized Internet representation. They are best found through usual Web search procedures. Following are a few more generalized sites of potential research interest themselves and with links to other home pages of broader folk and popular culture concerns.

The Library of Congress' The American Folklife Center, created in 1976 to "preserve and present American folklife," has a home page presenting its own activities primarily, but with links to other websites related to ethnographic studies: http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/.

The American Folklore Society's home page at http://afsnet.org provides links to a small set of "related sites" and to a folklore search engine providing connection to nearly 80 folklore societies and programs; a second search program for the society's own website is also included.

The Folk Music home page has both original material and, primarily, links and pointers to other websites under such categories as "Folk Music in General," "By Instrument," "By Location," "Internet," and others. Try it at www.jg.org/folk/. The folkmusic.org announces itself as "the comprehensive source for folk and acoustic music resources" on the Web. Its home page at www.folkmusic.org/ has category navigation bars to guide you to its content. Follow "organization" to "regional" for access to Australian, Canadian, and many state folk music organizations. A Canadian counterpart is Northern Journey; Canadian folk music site at www.NorthernJourney.com. A great number of more specialized sites also exist, such as the Old-Time Music Home Page at www.oldtimemusic.com.

Folk medicine also has a number of pages and sources. A good starting point is Folk Medicine: A UCLA Folklore Archive Resource at www2.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/folkmed/. The Native American Indian Resources site includes sections on Native American food and health, including traditional herbal treatments, and access to ethnobotany databases. View it at http://indy4.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/mainmenu.html.

Almost any aspect of modern life represents a facet of popular culture and is served by websites and discussion rooms of interest groups and organizations. "Popular culture" as a general topic has a more restricted Internet component. Useful sites include:

Bowling Green University's Department of Popular Culture website at www.bgsu.edu/departments/popc/index.html describes the department's programs and through its research resources option connects with a Yahoo search using the keywords "Popular" and "Culture."

Another extensive set of Internet links may be followed through the joint home page of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association at http://h-net2.msu.edu/~pcaaca/. The associations' page features their own activities and members' interests, but also connects with the Tables of Content of the Journal of Popular Culture and the Journal of American Culture. Internationally, the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture website at www.mmu.ac.uk/h-ss/mipc/ provides access to a wide variety of subject category sources through a "Hyperlinks" option. Sarah Zupko's Cultural Studies Center is a widely-cited and used collection of annotated links to popular culture and cultural studies, including journals, articles, academic programs, bibliographic references, film, television, etc. It is well worth a visit at www.popcultures.com/. Also of interest is "Popular/Mass Culture Studies" with many links to a mixed bag of related websites. Part of the Voice of the Shuttle humanities research pages, it is found at http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/cultural.html#mass-culture.

The broader field of "American studies," covering both folk and popular cultural concerns, may be approached usefully through the American Studies Web, a "guide to American studies resources in the internet" sponsored by the American Studies Association, the U.S. Department of Education, and Georgetown University. It contains an inclusive list of topical search options and extensive links to U.S. and foreign university American studies programs with their own websites: www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asw/.

The current widespread interest in historic preservation reflects popular concern with not losing the physical remnants of past folk and popular culture. Many websites with both local and wider national and international focus also feature links to other preservation groups and agencies. Good starting points include the Preservation Action Council of San Jose at www.preservation.org/links.html; the Interactive Oldhouse Network with "Preservation Links" worth exploring at www.oldhouse.com:80/preserve.html; and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science at www.nmmnh-abq.mus.nm.us/nmmnh/hpdlinks.html.

You can keep up with recent work of the Cultural Geography Specialty Group or the Association of American Geographers through its home page at www.geocities.com/Athens/5802/cgsg.html.