30 Facts About Alan Dundes

Alan Dundes spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles.

Alan Dundes has been hailed as "the most renowned Folklorist of his time".

Sure that he would be drafted upon completion of his studies, Dundes joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and trained to become a naval communications officer.

When it turned out that the ship he was to be posted to, stationed in the Bay of Naples, already had a communications officer, Alan Dundes asked what else that ship might need, not wanting to give up such a choice assignment.

Alan Dundes then spent two years maintaining artillery on a ship in the Mediterranean.

Alan Dundes completed his degree very quickly and went on to a teaching position at the University of Kansas where he stayed for only a year before being offered a position in the anthropology department of the University of California, Berkeley in 1963.

Alan Dundes quickly established himself as a prominent name within folkloristics.

Alan Dundes held this position for 42 years, until his death in 2005.

Alan Dundes's presidential speech at the American Folklore Society conference in 1980 argued that there was an anal-erotic fixation in the German national character; this generated significant controversy.

Alan Dundes has been described as "widely credited with helping to shape modern folklore scholarship", and as "one of the most admired and influential folklorists in the world" Alan Dundes wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more and is credited with authoring over 250 articles.

Alan Dundes taught undergraduate courses in American folklore, and psychoanalytic approaches to folklore in addition to graduate seminars on the history of folkloristics, from an international perspective, and the history and progression of folklore theory.

Alan Dundes frequently gave the opening address for the New Student Orientation Program at University of California, Berkeley during summer orientation programs, including jokes and stories.

Strongly opinionated, Alan Dundes was not at all averse to the controversy that his theories often generated.

Alan Dundes dealt frequently with folklore as an expression of unconscious desires and anxieties and was of the opinion that if people reacted strongly to what he had to say, he had probably hit a nerve and was probably on to something.

In 1980, Alan Dundes was invited to give the presidential address at the American Folklore Society annual meeting.

Alan Dundes did not participate in the American Folklore Society annual conference for many years.

Alan Dundes fiercely defended the importance of the discipline of folkloristics throughout his career.

The check was made out to the university, Alan Dundes said, but with instructions that he could use it in any manner he saw fit.

Shortly before his death, Alan Dundes was interviewed by filmmaker Brian Flemming for his documentary, The God Who Wasn't There.

Alan Dundes prominently recounted Lord Raglan's 22-point scale from his 1936 book The Hero, in which he ranks figures possessing similar divine attributions.

Alan Dundes is often credited with the promotion of folkloristics as a term denoting a specific field of academic study and applies instead what he calls a "modern" flexible social definition for folk: two or more persons who have any trait in common and express their shared identity through traditions.

Alan Dundes explains this point best in his essay, The Devolutionary Premise in Folklore Theory :.

In 1966 Alan Dundes was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1972 was named a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In 1980 Alan Dundes served as president of the American Folklore Society and in 1993 he was awarded the Pitre Prize, an international lifetime achievement award in folklore.

Alan Dundes was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 - the first Folklorist to be recognized in this way.

The range and influence of Alan Dundes's scholarship was recognised in the publication of three different festschrift collections - one by proverb scholars, one by psychoanalysts and one from his former students.

Alan Dundes was born in New York City, the son of a lawyer and a musician.

Alan Dundes's parents were not religious, and Dundes considered himself a secular Jew.

Alan Dundes met his wife Carolyn while attending Yale University.

On March 30,2005, Alan Dundes collapsed from an apparent heart attack while giving a graduate seminar at University of California, Berkeley, and died on the way to the hospital.