Michael Dylan Foster

Michael Dylan Foster is professor of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Book of Yōkai and Pandemonium and Parade, which won the Chicago Folklore Prize in 2009, and coeditor of The Folkloresque. He has written numerous other works on Japanese folklore, cultural heritage, festival, and media.

Check out Michael Dylan Foster, coeditor of The Folkloresque, on the recent 99% Invisible episode: Return of the Yokai.

Popular Culture, Folklore, and the Folkloresque

One of my favorite teaching experiences involved loading a horror-themed video game on the classroom PC, turning out the lights, and inviting students to play on the big projector screen.

Reframing Folklore in a Popular Culture World

There is no denying that children’s folklore bears the stamp of commercial culture, but kids are always ready to adapt and satirize popular advertisements. A significant number of children’s parodies of commercials involve the ingestion of a well-branded product and address the implied dangers of voracious consumption.