Abstract

This article deals with a kind of methodology related of Korean folklore studies commemorating the 10th anniversary of his death, the professor of folklore in our Academy of Korean Studies. He died pursuing the scientific independence of Korean folklore studies to the last through several academic articles and books. The year of 2010 is also about 30th anniversary of our folklore department beginning. A complicated debate surrounds the issue of whether to continue or abolish our folklore major this year. At this moment I effort to show many scientific features of folklore studies in this article, because I also pursue a scientific independence of the folklore. Last history of Korean folklore after liberation developed to many diverse societies or associations of folklore. The folklore studies is based on the history of folklore and the phenomenology of folklore. Furthermore, to interdisciplinary aspect, I argue the folklore relates with below five branch fields. The first is the oral literature of folklore field. This contains oral story, folk tale, literature tradition, etc. The second field is religious folklore studies containing folk beliefs, supernature phenomena, shamanistic tradi-tion, etc. The third is the historical folklore studies. This field lays stress on historical interpretation or investigation from about historic events to present transmission of traditional cultures. These three fields belong to the humanities concerning for people identity. Two following fields are under social sciences for social relationship. The fourth is the anthropological folklore studies. Anthropology also interests in people culture like folklore. In fact, anthropology concentrates with the other culture or people, while the folklore concentrates on our self culture or self country tradition. The interests vary, but they conflict with the same object of study in Korean culture and tradition. The last field is the sociological folklore, involving social relation, people’s appearance and organizational characteristics, etc. At the end, afterward I hope to study the so-called classical studies of folklore, this mostly interests with historical interpretation of folklore tradition under present cultural concerns.