Top of page

Archive: June 2021 (10 Posts)

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Langston Hughes on the Folklife Today Podcast

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Season 3, Episode 8 of the Folklife Today Podcast is ready for listening! Find it at the link from this post to the Library’s website, or on Stitcher, iTunes, or your usual podcatcher. In this episode  John Fenn and I, along with guests Langston Collin Wilkins and Sophie Abramowitz, look at Langston Hughes as a “Hidden Folklorist.” As usual, I'll present links to the relevant blog posts and audio selections in this post!

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Fieldwork During the Pandemic: Upcoming Online Lectures July 13 & 20

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center is happy to announce a two-part series of hour-long online Zoom presentations with live Q&A featuring recent and current Archie Green Fellows discussing the impact of the pandemic on their fieldwork experiences. We're calling the event Occupational Folklife and Fieldwork in the Post-Pandemic World: Adaptation, Innovation, and the Future, Parts 1 & 2.  Registration is required, but don't worry...you'll find the registration links down near the bottom of this post!

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Inside Out: Memories from Inside the Closet

Posted by: Kerry Ward

The following is a guest blog post by Dr. Circe Olson Woessner, Director of the Museum of American Military Family and Learning Center in Tijeras, New Mexico. June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month.  This month-long celebration demonstrates how LGBTQ+ Americans have strengthened our country by using their talent and creativity …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

VHP’s New Research Guide: Exploring the Collections

Posted by: Megan Harris

Calling all researchers! The Veterans History Project (VHP) is excited to announce a new resource that will help you find what you’re looking for within our archive—which currently includes over 111,000 individual veterans’ materials. That’s a LOT of oral histories, letters, photos, diaries, and other primary source material, so we created this new guide to …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

New Collection Online: World War II Rumor Project

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

The World War II Rumor Project collection contains manuscript materials compiled by the Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI was established by an Executive order on June 13, 1942, for the purpose of achieving a coordinated governmental war information program. The information program was designed to promote an informed and intelligent understanding of the …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Puertorriqueños de Estados Unidos: Identity, Arts, and Culture

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean. Puerto Rican migration to the mainland United States has largely been driven by economic necessity, whether of individuals’ needs to earn more to support themselves and their families, or large scale economic events such as the Great Depression and other …

Two head and shoulders portraits: a woman facing the camera and a man facing left.

Homegrown Plus: Emma Björling and Petrus Johansson

Posted by: Stephen Winick

By now, experienced readers know the deal with these Homegrown Plus posts: we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. We're continuing the series with the duo of Emma Björling and Petrus Johansson, who perform beautiful arrangements of Swedish and other Scandinavian folksongs. Emma Björling (vocals) is one of the foremost singers of Swedish folksongs performing today. She is a member of the bands Lyy and Skye Consort with Emma Björling, as well as vocal groups Kongero and Baravox. She has also toured extensively with the well-known Swedish folk band Ranarim. Petrus Johansson (guitar) started playing guitar and bass, mostly jazz and rock, when he was quite young. During his University studies he met Emma, and together they started playing Swedish traditional music. This led to a greater interest in the guitar as a folk music instrument, using it to provide bass lines. He is a trained guitar and bass teacher and has worked at Ingesund College of Music and several music schools. He also works as a freelance musician and has played with Mats Berglund, Svante Turesson and others.