Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1: The Instrumentalization of Authenticity -- 1. Poetry, History, and Democracy: Locating Authenticity -- 2. From Experience to Representation: The Onset of a Scientific Search for Authenticity -- 3. American Romanticism and the Emergence of Folklore Studies -- Part 2: The Role of Authenticity in Shaping Folkloristic Theory, Application, and Institutionalization -- 4. Latent Authenticity Quests in Folklore Definitions and Theories in Turn-of-the-Century Germany -- 5. Defining a Field, Defining America -- Part 3: Questioning the Canon -- 6. Departures and Revisions: Toward a Volkskunde Without Canon -- 7. From Fakelore to the Politics of Culture: The Changing Contours of American Folkloristics -- 8. Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.