Anchor Studies

The ASME project is organized around six anchor studies that follow the arc of history, from premodern traditions through the present day:

• Anchor Study 1: Finno-Karelian Kalevalaic Poems as ‘Things’ in the World
• Anchor Study 2: Finno-Karelian Mythic Knowledge, Incantations, and Power in Material Objects
• Anchor Study 3: Medieval Icelandic Discourses and Social Realities
• Anchor Study 4: Scandinavian Mythic Knowledge, Incantations and Power in Material Objects
• Anchor Study 5: Capturing, Transforming and Commodifying Oral-Traditional Poetry through Writing
• Anchor Study 6: Materially Situating, Embodying, and Reinventing Knowledge and Traditions

The six anchor studies are organized complementarily, with two pairs of studies each focused on Finno-Karelian and Scandinavian traditions, respectively, as well as one study that focuses on the life of each originally oral tradition in writing and one study that focuses on heritagized performance and practices. The project is centered in folklore studies, but the seven researchers each bring different approaches and expertise that also connect with other fields, including linguistic anthropology, religious studies, musicology, philology, and cultural semiotics.