Publication

02 October 2002 |

Bloody Mary in the Mirror:
Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics
By Alan Dundes

Why do vampires need to suck relatives’ blood to revive themselves? Why was that “Little Mermaid” movie so wildly popular? Why, in some versions of college hazing, are male pledges forced to wear diapers or women’s underclothing?

Answers to these and other intriguing folklore-related questions can be found in this latest book by Professor Alan Dundes, the noted Berkeley anthropology and folklore expert.

His latest collection of essays explores Freudian concepts as they relate to folklore. One essay, an attempt to explain the gruesome details of college hazing, includes data from the Berkeley campus. Describing himself as a psychoanalytic folklorist trying to make sense of nonsense, he says he’s trying to find a rationale for the irrational and trying to make the unconscious conscious.

University Press of Mississippi, 2002
141 pages