IRFL40130

In this module students are introduced to and engage with theoretical frameworks and research methods as discussed in their various chosen module options and in research seminars and supervised research development. This collaborative learning approach underpins advanced study in folkloristics and ethnology. Through a sequence of group supervisory discussions and seminars, each organised around a specific topic, students will familiarise themselves with the scholarly approaches of the discipline through individual and shared research and apply these approaches in documentation and analysis in their own research development.

Seminars combine specialist input with participatory discussion. Each session addresses a defined topic, and discussion centres on what can be learned from close investigation of it, which methods apply and where their limits lie. In this way the methods of folkloristics are tested across a wide range of material, and students develop the habit of reading primary sources critically and in context toward the development of a research question of their own.

The module engages students in archival and fieldwork research practice. Students work with the National Folklore Collection and with digital resources including Dúchas.ie, identifying, locating, and evaluating primary sources. Throughout, students consider how archival materials came into being, including the fieldwork encounters and intersubjectivities between collector and informant and the institutional circumstances that shaped what was recorded.

The module is assessed in two stages. In Week 7, students submit a research abstract and annotated bibliography of a minimum of ten sources that identifies a research question and maps the primary and secondary sources through which it will be pursued. In Week 12, students present their proposed research in a twenty-minute seminar presentation, setting out the theoretical framework, methodology, and application of sources. Together, these assessments build toward the identification of archival and field-based research and the short dissertation of AR2 in the Spring trimester.