Wilhelm Fritz Hermann Nicolaisen (13 June 1927 – 15 February 2016) was a folklorist, linguist, medievalist, scholar of onomastics and literature, educator, and author with specialties in Scottish and American studies.
[2] He had research interests in language (particularly place names), in folklore (narrative and balladry), in literature (medieval classics and Scottish poets and novelists), and in cultural history (Scotland, the British Isles, and Scandinavia).
In this capacity, his colleague Elizabeth Tucker provided a modern-ancient twist to the mix; their complementaries created a wild range of Folklore courses.
Importantly, Binghamton Folklore led by Nicolaisen and Tucker was a joy and became messianic in its nature for other folklorists in New York State.
Before his arrival at Binghamton, Nicolaisen had already completed his twelve years as the head of The School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh (1957-1969).
Nicolaisen also brought with him extensive experience in Northern European Folklore, both places where universities' histories could be counted in centuries.
That richness was added to the fabulous SUNY scholars who were home-grown and gave depth to American, post-secondary public education at Harpur College, Binghamton University.
To show their relations in time and space and their cultural connections to the views of ethnic communities through history, he collected narratives attached to them.
"Names and Narratives", the title of his presidential address to the American Folklore Society in 1983, indicate major theoretical questions regarding the processes by which traditional expressions are created and spread.
Together with the linguistically derived idea that textual structures and variable situations guide the nature of expression, the act—or art—of storytelling largely informs Nicolaisen's viewpoint.
Nicolaisen was active in linking geography to the study of folklore and language, and was one of the founders of the Society for North American Cultural Survey to promote work in the field.
Nicolaisen was an advocate for mapping folk culture in America as an applied form of folklore study so as to visualize the ways that people "make regions."