But Folk and Myth does beef up its offeringswith visiting lecturers.

Last year visiting lecturer Maria Hererra-Sobektaught a course on the Mexican stories calledCorridos. Next year, Enrique Lamadrid will becoming to give a course on Hispanic Folklore.

Millman agrees that despite his happiness withthe concentration, more faculty members wouldstrengthen the committee.

"We don't have anyone there who does materialculture," he said. "We only have three permanentfaculty members...and I'd like to see it expand abit."

It's So Unusual

Concentrators and faculty members feel theirconcentration is nothing off the beaten path, butsome course topics, theses and concentrators seema bit unusual to say the least.

Classes, aside from the notorious ones onwitchcraft and ouija boards, focus on topics like"The Salem Witchcraze" and "Alchemy, Astrology andMagic: The Occult Sciences,"--a class whoseresources were diminished by the mysterious thefta few years ago from Widener Library of severalvaluable books on alchemy.

According to Associate Librarian LawrenceDowler, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ispresently searching for the lost books.

Coursework for Folk and Myth classes caninvolve studying anything from satanic cults totarot cards and UFO abductions.

O'Malley says that she spends "a lot of timeworking with role players who play a game called'Vampire: The Masquerade." She is analyzing thisgame for Mitchell's course on "preceptions of thesuper natural" because of its use of vampires.

Mitchell says that other students haveinterviewed escaped UFO abductees, or people whohave had near death experiences, in efforts tobetter understand the way people deal with imagesof the supernatural.

Folk and Myth thesis topics, like the coursework, sometimes seem a little bit strangesometimes to be uninitiated.

Millman's thesis was on the ethnic implicationsof Rhode Island snail salad, a dish which only hasthat name in Rhode Island and is consumed mostlyby the Italian-Americans, he says.

He considered studying steamed cheese burgersin Connecticut, but decided against it becauseRhode Island was geographically closer.

Sammell's thesis is on the societalimplications of consuming llama meat in La Paz,Bolivia. She is studying the class structure andurban mythology surrounding the dish, she says,which is only eaten by the lower classes.