AFS Past President Dorothy Noyes to Receive Distinguished Alumni Scholar Award and Deliver Lecture at IU

The Indiana University (IU) College of Arts and Sciences will present Dorothy Noyes, a world-renowned folklorist and director of The Ohio State University’s Mershon Center for International Security Studies, with its Distinguished Alumni Scholar Award, recognizing her extraordinary contributions to folklore and ethnographic research.

In addition to the award conferral, Dr. Noyes will be presenting a lecture entitled “The Human Scale: Admonitions From Opera and Folktale.” In this lecture, she will compare Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and the Kathlamet Sun’s Myth to show how performances across time and culture have been used to warn leaders about the dangers of distancing themselves from their societies.

The event will be held on Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 4:00pm in the Indiana Memorial Union’s Solarium.

Dorothy Noyes earned her Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania and currently serves as a university distinguished scholar and as a distinguished professor of English, professor of comparative studies, and director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University.

Dr. Noyes has lectured, taught, or consulted in over 30 countries and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Tartu in Estonia (2018). She is an American Folklore Society (AFS) Fellow, and formerly served as the AFS President from 2018–⁠19. In 2021, AFS presented Dr. Noyes with the Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership in recognition of her outstanding contributions in the many facets of academic leadership, from one-to-one teaching and mentorship, through institutional service, to making a lasting impact on folklore studies.