What is Vernacular Culture?
At the end of the eighteenth century, with Europe poised on the brink of the industrial “revolution,” world cultural activities could be divided into two broad, interconnected categories. On the one hand there was classical music, oil painting, poetry and theatre: the rich heritage of powerful elites at the empire’s centre. On the other, a potpourri of dances, songs, stories, festivals and celebrations that made up what is now characterised as “folk” culture: the culture of the majority. Two hundred years later, profound social and economic changes have wrought a new category that has aggressively appropriated and overshadowed the other two: mass culture (often mislabeled “popular” culture – a decidedly misleading term). Mass culture is the systematic production of easily reproducible objects sold in large volumes for economic gain, usually called “entertainment.” The other categories have never disappeared. Elite culture has become commodified and thus marginalized. Folk culture, beca
