There are a large number of studies by folklorists of the religion to which the folklorist
adheres or once adhered. Examples would include studies of Mormons by William
Wilson or the husband-and-wife team of Austin E. and Alta S.Fife; the Amish by John
A.Hostetler; and Catholics by Primiano. This type of study is related to the tendency of
folklorists to study their own region (Vance Randolph in the Ozarks) or ethnic group
(Américo Paredes’ work with Texas Mexicans).
The term “folk religion” is increasingly controversial as well as generally imprecise.
Both the controversy and the lack of precision are exacerbated by the vagueness of the
constituent terms “folk” and “religion,” which are in their own right difficult to define.
Elaine Lawless, a prominent scholar of religious folklife, begins her 1988 book, God’s
Peculiar People, by discussing definitions of folk religion, but in her 1993 work, Holy
Women, Wholly Women, she does not use the term at all. Many scholars prefer to avoid
the term “folk religion,” substituting such terms as popular religion, unofficial religion,
vernacular religion, and religious folklore and folklife.
Jennifer E.Livesay
Kenneth D.Pimple
References
Clements, William M. 1978. The American Folk Church in Northeast Arkansas. Journal of the
Folklore Institute 15:161–180.
Danielson, Larry. 1986. Religious Folklore. In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction,
ed. Elliott Oring. Logan: Utah State University Press, pp. 45–69.
Lawless, Elaine J. 1988. Handmaidens of the Lord: Pentecostal Women Preachers and Traditional
Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lombardi-Satriani, Luigi. 1974. Folklore as Culture of Contestation. Journal of the Folklore
Institute 11:99–121.
Primiano, Leonard Norman. 1993. Intrimically Catholic: Vernacular Religion and Philadelphia’s
“Dignity.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania.
Redfield, Robert. 1947. The Folk Society. American Journal of Socwlogy 52:293–308.
Rosenberg, Bruce A. 1989. Can These Bones Live: Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Yoder, Don. 1974. Toward a Definition of Folk Religion. Western Folklore 33:2–15.