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Posted by: Stephen Winick
The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the 2020 recipients of its three competitive annual fellowships and awards programs: the Archie Green Fellowships, the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award, and Henry Reed Fund Award. This year, these three awards went to twelve projects throughout the …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
Members of the Washington, D.C. Youth Slam Team of Split This Rock performed poems inspired by recordings, photographs and field notes from the American Folklife Center archives on June 08, 2019 in an event co-sponsord by the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center. The video of these remarkable young poets is now available. This …
Posted in: African Americans, Poetry
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is a guest post from one of the 2019 Folklife Interns at the American Folklife Center, Tali Gelenian. This internship program was launched in the summer of 2018 through a generous gift from the late Peter Bartis, a long-time staff member at the AFC and a tireless proponent of folklife–as well as a fieldworker …
Posted in: Internship program, Podcasts
Posted by: Stephen Winick
On behalf of the American Folklife Center, I am pleased to announce that our James Madison Carpenter collection is now online. The collection, which consists of manuscripts, audio, photographs, and drawings documenting British folk music, song, and drama in the first half of the 20th century, is available worldwide through the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s …
Posted in: James Madison Carpenter
Posted by: John Fenn
The following is a guest post from AFC Folklife Specialist Nancy Groce. A previous Folklife Today blog, “Botkin Lectures to Go!,” drew readers’ attention to an engaging and readily accessible AFC resource: the more than 100 AFC Botkin Lectures on a wide variety of folklore and folklife topics that are currently available free-of-charge through the …
Posted in: AFC Events
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
As some of our readers may remember, tomorrow is the second anniversary of Folklife Today, and our very first post was about Halloween. Last year, we did a series of posts about collecting Halloween and Day of the Dead photos through a special hashtag. You can see some of the results here and here and …
Posted in: Folksong, Halloween, Halloween Stories, Hispanic American History, Holidays, Narratives, Native American History, Storytelling
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
When ethnographers collect poetry in the course of a fieldwork project, they are often looking for something in addition to a recitation of an entertaining poem. Poetry, like songs or stories, can tell us something about the culture in which it is found, the local ideas about what makes a good poem, information about languages …
Posted in: African Americans, Charles Lafayette Todd, Cowboys, Mary Hufford, Medieval Folklore, Poetry, Robert Sonkin, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Stetson Kennedy
Posted by: Stephen Winick
On behalf of all my colleagues at the American Folklife Center, I’m very sad to say that Judith McCulloh, a pivotal figure in the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology, and a crucial friend of AFC and its staff, passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, July 13. Judy was a truly remarkable folklorist …
Posted in: AFC History, ethnomusicologists, Folk Music, Folklorists
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
For Valentine’s Day, let’s examine love songs in the light of historical changes of the early twentieth century, through the new presentation The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, love underwent many changes: young people wanted relationships without much involvement from parents and elders, …