Wolfgang Mieder

Wolfgang Mieder
Born 1944
Nationality USA
Fields German and folklore
Institutions University of Vermont
Alma mater University of Michigan
Known for Expert on proverbs

Wolfgang Mieder (born 17 February 1944) is professor of German and folklore at the University of Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He is a graduate of Olivet College (BA), the University of Michigan (MA), and Michigan State University (PhD). He has been a guest speaker at the University of Freiburg in Germany,[1] the country where he was born.

Small sampling of books that Mieder has written or edited

He is most well known as a scholar of paremiology, the study of proverbs. In addition to being a prolific author and editor on proverbs, he has made a distinct contribution by producing bibliography articles and volumes on several topics within paremiology. His annual list of recent proverb scholarship is published in each volume of Proverbium. His most complete work in this area is his 2009 International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology, published in two volumes.

Since 1984 he has been the editor of Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, an annual journal published by the University of Vermont. He is editor of the Supplement Series to Proverbium, a series of book on various facets of proverb studies. Each volume of Proverbium contains his annual list of recent proverb scholarship.

He has published extensively in English and in German. He is the creator of the term anti-proverb, proverbs that are twisted from their original forms.[2] The term became more established with the publication of Twisted Wisdom: Modern Anti-Proverbs by Mieder and Anna T. Litovkina.[3]

His work also includes contributions to paremiography, the collecting and writing of proverbs. He has published a number of collections of proverbs, both topical[4] and international.[5] Also, in every year's volume of Proverbium, he publishes a list of proverb collections that have recently been published.

He was honored by three festschrift publications on his 60th birthday. He was later honored with a festschrift volume to honor his 65th birthday.[6][7] He has also been recognized by biographical publications that focused on his scholarship.[8][9] In 2014, he was honored with an honorary doctorate by the University of Athens.

Though Mieder is originally from Germany, he has lived in Vermont for over 40 years, teaching a the University of Vermont. This long time residence is reflected in his scholarship, as he has published four books on proverbs of New England and Vermont.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Janet Sobieski. "Wolfgang Mieder, Professor of German and Folklore". Retrieved 2009-02-17.
  2. ↑ p. xi, Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, & Fred Shapiro. The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  3. ↑ Supplement volume to Proverbium. University of Vermont.
  4. ↑ Yankee Wisdom: New England Proverbs, New England Press, 1989.
  5. ↑ The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs. MJF Books, 1986.
  6. ↑ http://www.uvm.edu/~cas/?Page=News&storyID=13676
  7. ↑ Kevin McKenna, ed. 2009. The Proverbial 'Pied Piper': A Festschrift Volume of Essays in Honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-0489-3
  8. ↑ Lauhakangas, Outi. 2012. In honorem Wolfgang Mieder. In Program of the Sixth Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs, 4th to 11th November 2012, at Tavira, Portugal, Rui B. Soares and Outi Lauhakangas, eds., pp. 81-84. Tavira: Tipograpfia Tavirense.
  9. ↑ Jones, Amy. 2012. Wolfgang Mieder: Ein Fuβ in beiden Ländern. In Sprache als Heimat, A. Jones, ed. Quasi. Middlebury [College] Zeitschrift 1:52-58.
  10. ↑ All published by Shelburne, Vermont: The New England Press. Talk Less and Say More: Vermont Proverbs, 1986. As Sweet as Apple Cider: Vermont Expressions, 1988. Yankee Wisdom: New England Proverbs, 1989. As Strong as a Moose: New England Expressions, 1997.

Selected books written or edited by Mieder

Books on paremiology

Proverb bibliographies:

Holocaust and Jewish studies:

Studies of European folktales

External links