In January 2024, John Fenn (Head of Research and Programs, American Folklife Center) participated in a panel discussion about video games, folklife, and culture at the Super MAGfest convention with colleagues from Folkwise, a multimedia outreach project focused on folklore and the celebration of everyday culture we experience online. This post describes the event, the context for the panel, and several LOC resources related to video games.
Hanukkah this year will be celebrated from December 18 to December 26. Jewish children all over the world will be playing a gambling game with a traditional spinning top known as a dreidel. Many of them will also be told stories about the origin and meaning of the dreidel, stories which claim that the dreidel once had a subversive purpose or that it was created to commemorate a great miracle. These stories are themselves interesting folklore. Since the dreidel is a traditional toy used to play a traditional game, such stories about the dreidel and game can be called metafolklore--that is, folklore about folklore. In this blog, we'll take a look at some of these stories about the origin of the dreidel and examine the toy's real history.
The ancient concept of the Olympics was to create competitions that brought people together once every four years in a ritual in honor of the god Zeus. Wars were banned while the games were put on allowing people of different states to participate and travel to and from the games safely. People came from all …
This post is part of a series of posts called Staff Finds During Difficult Times, in which staff members discuss collections and items that have been inspiring them while they are working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic or in other difficult circumstances. Find the whole series here! As I work from home and keep …
When I was a kid, March signaled kite-flying time. A girl between two boys, I did what my brothers did, and the three of us would go to a large field near our home where kites had less chance of winding up in a tree. We flew diamond shaped kites that my mother favored, or …
Note: The whole AFC staff was saddened by the death of Jean Ritchie earlier this month. We paid tribute to her immediately in a Facebook post, which you can see here, and the Chairman of our Board of Trustees, C. Kurt Dewhurst, made a moving statement about Jean at the Board’s June meeting. However, I …
Making things from snow and ice no doubt dates from very ancient times. But snow leaves no artifacts and so we can only imagine the surprise of the first human pelted by a snowball. In spite of its temporary nature, things made of snow are part of material culture: the traditions related to physical objects …
