Nationality United States Name William Bascom | Role Anthropologist | |
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Institutions Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley Alma mater Northwestern University Known for studies of Yoruba culture and religion; "four functions of folklore" Died September 11, 1981, San Francisco, California, United States Education Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin-Madison Fields Folklore, Cultural anthropology People also search for Melville J. Herskovits, Paul Gebauer, Robert Eugene Ritzenthaler Books Ifa divination, Sixteen cowries, Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria, African Art in Cultural Perspecti, African folktales in the New | ||
Doctoral advisor Melville J. Herskovits | ||
William R. Bascom (1912–1981) was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and museum director.
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Biography
Bascom completed his B.A. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and earned his Ph.D. in anthropology at Northwestern University under Melville J. Herskovits in 1939. He taught at Northwestern, Cambridge University, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he was also Director of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology. During World War II, he joined the O.S.S. and together with Ralph Bunche co-authored an unsigned volume, A Pocket Guide to West Africa in 1943.
Bascom was a specialist in the art and culture of West Africa and the African Diaspora, especially the Yoruba of Nigeria. Several of his articles on folkloristics serve as texts in graduate courses in folklore.
Four functions of folklore
In a major article published in 1954, Bascom argued that folklore can serve four primary functions in a culture: