A Possible Path toward the Re-Politicalization of Folklore
Greg Evans
Contradictions: A Journal for Critical Thought V, no. 2 (2021): 123–136
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Keywords: Slovak authentic folklore movement, authenticity, radical monopoly, participatory art, anti-politics, praxis, counter-finality
This article discusses the issues raised by James M. Robertson in his review of Joseph Grim Feinberg’s The Paradox of Authenticity: Folklore Performance in Post-Communist Slovakia, which appeared in Contradictions (2019, no. 2). Focusing on the nature and form of a re-politicized folklore, the article argues that to make full sense of the question of authenticity in a modern folkloric movement, authenticity must be seen against the broader backdrop of the alienation inherent to consumer capitalist society. Folklore, it concludes, can become re-politicized by emphasizing people’s participation in art as part of a broader countercultural movement that challenges the consumerist paradigm.
doi: 10.46957/con.2021.2.7
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