Organizers

The 18th ISFNR congress Encountering emotions in folk narrative and folklife is organized by scholars from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (link) and  the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb (link), Croatia.

The Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research was founded in 1948 in Zagreb. It is a renowned center for folkloristic, ethnological, ethnomusicological and related scientific research in the Republic of Croatia. The members of the Institute are experts in a variety of disciplines, such as: ethnology, cultural anthropology, folklore studies, literary theory, theatre studies, music studies, choreology, and art history. They are engaged in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research into historical and contemporary cultural phenomena and processes contributing to different academic and educational programs, workshops, summer schools, conferences and community programs with their specialization knowledge.

The Chair of Croatian Oral Literature (as a part of the Department of Croatian Language and Literature) is the oldest centre for researching oral tradition and verbal folklore in Croatia.
The members of the Chair of Croatian Oral Literature, besides their interdisciplinary research, have instructed students in folklore fieldwork research and these projects resulted in the Archive of Manuscript Collections containing contemporary records of Croatian folklore genres (songs, folktales, proverbs, child-lore and other genres), which makes the Archive the largest collection of contemporary Croatian oral folklore genres. Due to the fact that the students were doing their fieldwork research mostly in their local community, those records are the faithful witness of active and passive repertoire of different communities in Croatia (and many Croatian communities outside of Croatia).

The Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology has a rich archive, with material gathered during field research, in the frame of scientific projects, and as part of teaching activities since the establishment of the Department in the 1920s. It contains valuable materials from the Ethnological Atlas project, as well as diverse archive material on a variety of topics (research records, photographs and video material, students’ seminars and graduation thesis, etc.).

Both Departments are part of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb, the oldest university in Croatia and one of the oldest universities in Europe. FFZG is also a significant cultural institution with a great impact on Croatian culture and society.