Campus Traditions: Folklore from the Old-Time College to the Modern Mega-University

by Simon J. Bronner

Overview

How American campus life shapes students, and how students shape campus lore

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617036163
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	09/20/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Simon J. Bronner is Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore and director of the American studies doctoral program at the Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture.

Table of Contents

List of Figures IX

Prologue: "Here's the Syllabus" XIII

1 Getting In: Orientation 3

2 The Stress of Grades: Tests and Papers 30

3 Professors, Coaches, Jocks, Geeks and Other Strange Characters 71

4 Rushes, Pranks, and Dinks: The Rough-and-Tumble Campus 114

5 College Spirit: Expressing Loyalty and Rivalry 163

6 Campus Events: Holidays, Games, and Sports 192

7 Greek Life 242

8 Legendary Locations, Laughs, and Horrors 277

9 Sex and the Single Student 343

10 Getting Out: Graduation 377

References 407

Index 455

Editorial Reviews

"Campus Traditions is well written, enlightening, and entertaining. It should appeal to the general reader and the general college student. It will have special relevance for the folklore student, the professional folklorist, and the American studies scholar. Teachers of folklore courses could profitably use it as a supplementary text in an introductory course. Also, teachers certainly could incorporate excerpted readings from key sections to illustrate many an important fine point about texts, contexts, meanings, and functions of folklore. What is exceptional about Campus Traditions is its richly documented and engagingly written presentation of both data and interpretation. Based on the author's collections; materials from all the major folklore archives of America; special surveys sent to students, professors, administrators, and college alumni; the personal experiences of the author himself; and a mastery of multi-disciplinary scholarship, Campus Traditions is an encyclopedic monument of folklore scholarship. It is also an important statement on the nature and value of tradition in American higher education."

—John A. Gutowski (Saint Xavier University), Journal of American Folklore

"College graduates and students will savor this book's delightful and timely content; scholars will appreciate its range from early to recent college lore. Arguing that the college campus serves as a transitional space in which students come of age, Bronner analyzes games, pranks, jokes, ghost stories, and other kinds of folklore with matchless wit and refreshing insight. A wonderful book that every college library should own!"

—Elizabeth Tucker, author of Campus Legends and Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses

"If one of the most important functions of folklore in the lives of people is to provide them with resources for coping with the psychological and social strains of everyday life, then Bronner's excellent book on the folklore of American college and university students provides for scholarly and general readers alike the rich detail and analytical commentary that makes clear how folklore helps students negotiate a stressful, transitional stage in the life cycle and at the same time negotiate living and working in a complex, modern, bureaucratic institution. He describes and analyzes a vast body of oral lore, material culture, and customary lore, everything from simple charms for good luck on exams to complex campus traditions of stylized battles, and he shows the essential meanings of these seemingly trivial customs."

—Jay Mechling, professor emeritus of American studies at University of California, Davis

From the Publisher