ABSTRACT
Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962) is widely regarded as the founder of Japanese folklore studies or folkloristics.1 Not only are his writings numerous, there is also a voluminous secondary literature on his works and career. Unfortunately, most of them have not been translated into other languages, and Yanagita’s contributions are little known outside Japan.2 In this chapter, I will discuss an important aspect of his thought, which, for one reason or another, has been neglected by earlier scholars – the idea of “global folkloristics.” Presented in his 1934 book, Minkan Denshôron (The Science of Popular Tradition), this could have developed into a major international project, but has remained to date an unfinished task, the potential significance of which has yet to be explored.
