Guests ranging from folk musicians and storytellers to artisans will frequent a spring “Introduction to Folklore” class at UTM.

The discussion-lecture course also features several field trips to folk sites within easy access of the campus.

Walter Haden, professor emeritus of English, has taught the course since the spring of 1969, when it was offered for the first time on the UTM campus. The chief thrusts are collecting, analyzing and cataloging oral folklore, customary folklore and the material folk traditions of northwest Tennessee and southwest Kentucky

“Since 2004 concludes my 50th year as a teacher, the spring semester will be the final time I will offer the course,” said Haden.

“My guests will include, among others, a Palmersville maker of cornshuck dolls, a Dyersburg caner of hickory bark chairs, a Martin specialist in string games and a teller of folktales from Cottage Grove.”

The course, English 355, will be offered at noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Andy Holt Humanities Building for three hours of undergraduate or graduate credit. Haden said noon was selected to accommodate schedules of those who work mornings and afternoons, but have expressed an interest in taking the course.

Haden is the author of several published essays on folklore and the book The Headless Cobbler of Smallet Cave.