Christopher Lubinski: Independent Reading 3

     While studying the aspect of folklore in relation to how cryptids and sacred space are affiliated, I was introduced to the culture of the loggers in Barre Toelkin's book, Dynamics of Folklore. It was really intriguing that there are entire cultures that surround people's professions. In the case of the loggers, they would have entire community events such as carnivals and parties. With these sorts of events, one would usually expect communities such as towns, neighborhoods, ethnic centers, and religious communities be some of the more common groups to participate. Instead, there are entire communities of people who share in similar professions and participate in community much like the episode from The Office where workers from every Dunder Mifflin office come together for large company get together.

    It is interesting that people can form community between each other through profession. The only unifying aspect of these workers is that they share a similar source of income and work for similar businesses. Yet the loggers have formed a community of their own and have even created their own folklore which is where Fearsome Critters gets many of its inspirations from.

    What separates this kind of community from others is probably by its less structured formation of community than a more culturally concrete community. This seems very similar to the formation of communitas among hikers on trails. Where people encounter one another and form informal brotherhood among one another. This same value can be applied to the workers since they share the same space and encounter very similar events to one another.