• DOI:10.5406/JAMERFOLK.129.512.0127
Corpus ID: 148523716

Folklore’s Cybernetic Imaginary, or, Unpacking the Obvious

@article{Dorst2016FolkloresCI,
  title={Folklore’s Cybernetic Imaginary, or, Unpacking the Obvious},
  author={John D. Dorst},
  journal={Journal of American Folklore},
  year={2016},
  volume={129},
  pages={127 - 145}
}

John D. Dorst

Published 2016

Sociology

Journal of American Folklore

This essay attempts to unpack a core principle of folklore’s “field-Imaginary.” Characterized here as a cybernetic Ideal, folklorists take for granted that the folklore process entails a tension between mechanisms of randomizing variation and counter forces of stabilizing constraint, leading to some form of dynamic equilibrium. The argument is not that this foundational idea is wrong, but that the simple form in which we receive it from the field-Imaginary limits what we recognize as relevant… CONTINUE READING

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