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A visit with John Miles Foley, Professor, Departments of Classical Studies and English
Additional Interview Clips
Connecting Oral Traditions and Written Traditions
Topics:
literature
written_traditions
Since about 1975, field reports have revealed the tremendous size and diversity of oral tradition as a cultural phenomenon. In fact, Foley notes, “written literature is dwarfed by oral traditions.” Despite our “ideological fixation on texts and print, the communications technology we call oral tradition” has been with us for most of homo sapiens’ existence, whereas writing was introduced only relatively recently.