Bowman and O’Connor Receive Primiano Retired Scholar Travel Award

Congratulations to Marion Bowman and Bonnie O’Connor, who are the first recipients of the Leonard Norman Primiano Retired Scholar Travel Award. The purpose of this prize is to enable retired scholars to travel to the AFS annual meeting and present their work in vernacular Catholicism and/or vernacular religion in person.

Bonnie Blair O’Connor graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Folklore and Folklife. Dr. O’Connor is retired from the Medical School of Brown University as Professor Emerita in the Department of Pediatrics.

Marion Bowman is a Scottish Folklore/ Religious Studies scholar whose research areas include Vernacular Religion, diverse forms of contemporary spirituality, the town of Glastonbury, and new non-traditional forms of pilgrimage in Scotland and northern Europe.

The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section of the American Folklore Society (AFS) awards travel stipends in honor of the late distinguished professor, folklorist, and religious studies scholar Leonard Norman Primiano (1957-2021). This award is supported by a generous bequest of Leonard Norman Primiano and is restricted to travel by a retired scholar to deliver an AFS annual meeting conference presentation on the topics of vernacular Catholicism or vernacular religion, with a preference for the former, as stipulated in his bequest. 

Learn more about the Leonard Norman Primiano Fund