About the Author

Alan Dundes was Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley. Dundes received a BA in English and Masters in Teaching from Yale and his doctorate in Folklore from Indiana University. Dundes was an intrepid analyst of popular culture. His teaching about Folkloristics at UC Berkeley for over 40 years inspired many to analyze the meaning of diverse cultural forms, and he was recognized by the campus award for excellence in teaching. He received numerous awards during his lifetime including the Pitre Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Folklore, a Guggenheim, and an NEH fellowship. A Freudian Folklorist, Dundes believed that the psychoanalytic approach to the analysis of jokes and other forms of folklore would enable society to address difficult problems by making the unconscious conscious.