AFS Prize Winners Recognized at 2021 Annual Meeting
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 AFS prizes who were named at the Opening Ceremony of the 2021 AFS Annual Meeting:
Américo Paredes Prize: Diana N’Diaye (Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage)
Awarded by the AFS Committee on Cultural Diversity, the Chicana/Chicano Section, and the Folklore Latino, Latinoamericano, y Caribeño Section with the AFS Executive Board, this award recognizes excellence in integrating scholarship and engagement with the people and communities one studies, or in teaching and encouraging scholars and practitioners to work in their own cultures or communities.
Benjamin A. Botkin Prize: Varick A. Chittenden (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) and Teresa Hollingsworth (South Arts)
The AFS Public Programs Section joins with the AFS Executive Board to recognize significant lifetime achievement in public folklore.
Chicago Folklore Prize: Tom Mould, Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America (2020)
The oldest international award recognizing excellence in folklore scholarship, the Chicago Folklore Prize is awarded to the author of the best book-length work of folklore scholarship for the year.
Judith McCulloh Award for Lifetime Service to the Field: Marilyn White (Kean University, retired)
The AFS Executive Board recognizes extraordinary contributions in service that advance the visibility and success of the American Folklore Society or the field of folklore studies. The Board intends the award to foreground the critical importance to the health and sustenance of our field of those folklorists who, in addition to their personal accomplishments, make it possible for other folklorists to do their best work.
Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership: Dorothy Noyes (The Ohio State University)
This award recognizes outstanding achievement by a living scholar in academic leadership relating to folklore. “Leadership” includes folklore program development, organizational and center development, teaching, and advising.
Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and New York University, emerita)
This award is bestowed to a living senior scholar in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement over the course of a career.
We look forward to sharing more information about other recognitions and honors to be named at the close of the meeting.
Zora Neale Hurston Prize: Kyle Decoste (Columbia University)
The prize is given to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best work in any medium—including but not limited to papers, films, sound recordings, or exhibitions—on African American folklore.
We look forward to sharing more recognitions and honors after the close of the Annual Meeting!
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